Prof Muhammed
This year, the Doha Forum held its fifteenth session in the Arab and Gulf region under the worst conditions, when America is racing against time to sign an agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme, Gulf Arabs are afraid of the results of that agreement, which may be reflected on the entire region, Iran is boasting about controlling the fourth Arab capital, and on its way to the fifth.
Iran implements its threats against any party that objects to its ships going to Yemen, acting as if it were a superpower. This is in addition to a war that is taking place in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Israel, on the other hand, expands in every direction in occupied Palestine with no Arab, Islamic, or international deterrent.
The items on the forum’s agenda were overlapping to the extent of being similar, the situation in Yemen and surely Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon was discussed. There was also a discussion about the different circumstances in these countries, including the Islamic State (IS), Al Qaeda and the Houthis. In another session, the same topics from a different perspectives were discussed in parallel. Over the past years, the participants of this forum from America and the Arab World have been key contributors in my view, in comparison to those who attended this year.
I am looking for an answer to the following question: After 15 years, are we, I mean here in Qatar, able to create a “lobby” in the United States, in particular, and in Europe in general, to defend us and adopt our positions as other nations did?
After 15 years, are we able to convince the more than 200 American professionals who are invited each year to support us in the face of negative media campaigns from abroad from time to time, particularly with regard to human rights, namely foreign labour rights?
I would have wished that the organising committee of the Doha Forum took the guests to the Industrial Area, where workers live in modern housing facilities, to let them know that we are facing an unfair campaign.
I read in the local press that Qatar University, the only State University, decided to raise tuition fees by 100pc from the next academic year. The university is a non-profit organisation, so why raise tuition fee by such a high percentage? One may say that this increase will not affect Qatari students, but this is half the truth, because many Qatari students cancel registered subjects that they have to pay for anyway.
The other thing is that an Arab student studying alongside a Qatari student will feel unequal; and my question to all the elites who graduated from Arab or foreign universities is: Don’t they feel sympathy for that country’s plight and crises, and don’t they feel nostalgic? Do we give the same feeling to non-Qatari students?
Everything in our university is priced higher compared to other universities in the world. For example, a cup of coffee in the university canteen is priced not less than QR10, which is the cost of a cup of coffee in a five-star hotel in Doha, which is too expensive for students.
One might also say that the goal of raising the fees is to limit the enrolment of non-Qatari students to the university because the number of such students has increased in recent years due to the admission policy currently in place.
This centrifugal policy is going to deprive the country of recycling the per capita income because an employee in Qatar will be spending on his son(s) inside the country; however, when he has to send his son(s) abroad, he will spend a big share of his income abroad.
Finally, if the university complains about a budget deficit, we call upon charity organisations in the country to provide support to the university instead of spending in non-Arab countries, which do not even stand by our side to solve the Arab issues, on projects that we do not benefit from to
begin with.
