Postcards from Qatar (Last Tango… Opinion)

It hardly appears on the map because of how small it is Qatar. You have to look for the magnifying glass to discover that little dot on the Persian Gulf. SIf you take a long run to kick a corner, you fall into the water. However, inside everything is gigantic, spacious: airport, highways, sidewalks, shopping malls, stadiums, buildings…

The press center has 40,000 square meters. Everything has unusual dimensions for us. A symptom that goes beyond size: everything is designed with greatness. And it’s the closest thing to the future. “Here you can see that there is a lot of money,” said the many Argentines, Mexicans, and Ecuadorians who got off the plane with us.

(On video: The goals of Messi and Fernández in Argentina vs. Mexico)
(Argentina vs. Mexico: brutal fight in the stands between fans, video)

Yes, God admonished them by giving them heat and desert. But under the rug he left them a treasure. Indeed, Qatar is the world’s third largest natural gas reserve, right now there are three hundred ships in the bay carrying gas for half the world.

And there is oil too. There is money, yes, but you can see that money, in the streets, in the subway, in the buildings, in modernism, everything is brand new and is new, clean, spectacular. That economic well-being is also seen in the peace of the people.

Everyone is absolutely relaxed, almost silent. There is no social tension, nobody is tense. And we cannot bring them news from the West, much less technological, they have it before us.

Everything works. We ordered an Uber from the airport and the app informed us: the car arrives in a minute. the minute was. And a flawless car. The taxi driver, in a white tunic, waited for ten of us, but he did not lose patience or charge a surcharge.

Among the ton of criticism with which the United States and Europe have bombarded Qatar was that of the tremendous requirements to be able to enter the Arab country. Never, in so many years of travel, have we entered a country so easily.

Not even a migration official attended to us, we went through one of the automatic booths, the ones where you support your passport on an electronic reader and two glass doors open. And nothing else, from there, to the street. nor when arriving at Buenos Aires It’s so simple and brief. The journalists, who arrived so many apprehensive, are surprised.

Another of the exaggerations coming from the western press refers to the climate. The German magazine Der Spiegel (we keep the prestigious thing to ourselves) described Qatar as an “oven country”. It is possible that in June-July the heat is very harsh, as they tell us, however, at this time it is a tolerable warmth, sometimes tasty.

And at night a cool breeze comes from the gulf. Just in case, the stadiums are refrigerated, which ensures an ideal temperature for playing football. In that sense, it’s perfect. And it is possible that this system of conditioning the climate will be imposed in the future. Why risk unbearable cold or heat?

When Joseph Blatter pulled out a white card from an envelope on December 2, 2010, he looked at it and said “the chosen one is… Qatar”, lusail it did not exist, it was sand. When the headquarters were confirmed, its creation began. Today it is a super exclusive area, with marinas, residential complexes, shopping centers, luxury shops and entertainment venues, as well as beaches and golf courses. It is the headquarters of Qatar Petroleum and Energy City, City of Energy. There is the colossal stadium where yesterday they played Mexico and Argentina.

In that December of 2010, the subway did not exist, nor did the bay have the silhouette of skyscrapers. In these almost thirteen years many things have changed here for the better. The project of creating a powerful nation was taking shape.

The spectacular subway Doha It reaches the eight World Cup stadiums. Its level of comfort, convenience and modernism amazes. It was built for the great soccer tournament, but 600,000 people already use it daily, especially to go to work. It is part of the vast national development plan of this minimal territory that seeks to become a business and financial center.

Everything is calculated. Until the local population increases. Of the current 2,650,000 inhabitants, around 15 percent are nationals. In twenty years the human map will change radically, the children of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants will be native Qataris and the percentages will be reversed. How hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested from that sea of ​​oil and gas that lies beneath the desert sand.

What until thirty years ago was a dune wasteland with tents and camels is now a phenomenal center of business opportunities and prosperity. Silver sprouts from the ground and is seen on highways, in hospitals, in schools, in the automobile fleet, in consumption, in the general standard of living.

And in forty years, when hydrocarbons run out, it will be a very advanced country that will live off its investments. Everything responds to a master plan to give visibility to the small emirate and install it as a business center, among other things. And in that master plan, the World Cup is the crown of diamonds.

“We come here because there is a lot of money and jobs,” Anuar, a Pakistani Uber driver, tells us. There are more than two million foreigners from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Kenya, Sudan, the Philippines, Tunisia, Algeria and, in general, Africa and Asia. There was a high shortage of professionals, but they have brought in architects, engineers, doctors, and created a number of universities.

In a generation, there will be thousands of professionals. And they will be pure Qataris. Bolivia has a new jewel that the world needs: lithium. Hopefully its extraction and production will focus on improving the quality of life of its people. They will do it?

Indeed, there is a little less public than in other World Cups. It is completely understandable, Qatar has only 2,641,000 inhabitants, a Lilliputian compared to the last organizers: Russia, 146 million; Brazil, 218; South Africa, 62; Germany, 85. And the United States, next, has 340 million citizens.

In addition, it must be considered that it is not in the center of the world, but rather far from it. already passed in Korea and Japan 2002, There were not as many foreigners as there were in the Italian, French or German cups. There is also the boycott from the West, with a cascade of bad news from a month before the start (by the way, they seemed coordinated): that it is very expensive, that it is an “oven country”, that human rights are being violated… The propaganda does its job.

There are fewer foreign fans than in Russia, where, to cite just one example, 40,000 Peruvians went. And there is no meeting point like the Red Square in Moscow, where all the shirts and nationalities converged.

The same, it is not that the stadiums are empty. In a capacity of 40,000 suddenly there are 35,000.
The only ones full, for the moment, were three. One, Qatar-Ecuadorfor being the inaugural match, which was attended by 5,800 Ecuadorians, some 40,000 locals and many neutrals, another, Argentina-Saudi Arabia.

In this case, because Argentina has always been the country with the most followers in the World Cups and Saudi Arabia because it is the only neighbor with which it has a land border. They raised the barrier and tens of thousands passed through. And the third, Brazil-Serbia.

The phrase “an Asian luxury” seems to have come from here. The only ugly thing about Qatar is its soccer team. It’s already out. But the emir did not ask for the World Cup to win it, it is just a platform.

(Kylian Mbappé, the power of France’s goal against Denmark in Qatar)
(Argentina: scandal in Qatar, they ask to deport a player accused of sexual abuse)

Jorge Barraza
For the time
@JorgeBarrazaOK
last tango