Qatar: Critiques bristle; calls to shut down popular online forum

Fed up with criticism of their culture and people, Qataris have begun organizing a campaign to shut down Qatar Living, the country's most popular online forum. A recent series of Qatar-bashing posts on QL have fueled the outcry and prompted college student Amal to start a Facebook group called anti-qatarliving.com on Sunday. The description reads: This group is to protest against a website called qatarliving.com where many expatriates who live in Qatar post long threads where they criticize the Qatari citizens and culture using very rude and vulgar vocabulary. Many of the expatriates on this website (not all of them but most of them) use bad language when talking about Qatari people. They have called us names such as pigs, uncivilized, racist barbarians, and many other hideous names. They say that we cannot survive without them and that we cannot handle or manage our country. They also say that they are the ones who built our country fo us and the ones who are teaching us how to behave like humans. Our aim is to have this website closed for good and teach whoever is attacking our Qatari identity that Qataris should not be underestimated and underrated and we want all of them to see how vicious we are whenever anyone goes beyond their limits while talking about Qatar. These people have no appreciation of what this country has given them and we will not let them get away with all of this. Over the past week, various threads on Qatar Living contained scathing critiques of the country's people and culture. One such thread, which has been removed by QL moderators, included a rant by commenter PM, who was upset by the rowdy behavior of some local teens on Qatar National Day (Friday). PM's post angered many locals, who called on advertisers to pull their support of QL. According to local newspaper The Peninsula: Some remarks against the festivities and the people of Qatar as well as Asian expatriates were in bad taste and smack of racism, said Mohamed Al Jufairi, a civil engineer. Al Jufairi said he has received American education right from school to university levels and know what constructive criticism is. “But the comments about Qatari nationals and National Day are really humiliating.” “We are all for freedom of expression but that does not mean you cross boundaries and heap insults on us,” he said. Remarks that all Qataris are arrogant and egoists are not correct since a large number of them are simple-minded and good people. “Some of us may be bad but to say that all of us are arrogant cannot be true.” In another QL thread, posted two Decembers ago but resurrected by commenters on Sunday, a disgruntled Canadian woman lists all the reasons “Qatar sucks,” including the weather and “lack of culture.” gabaee writes: And finally my biggest problam about Qatar is how they allow all these labours to come and work here like dogs. They should at least be allowed to bring their wives here with them, so that they dont’