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Qatar’s 2022 World Cup commitment will not only benefit itself, but will also provide unexpected economic, political and religious soft power to its biggest rival in the region, the United Arab Emirates.
The United Arab Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia, lead a group of Gulf nations eager to capitalize on expectations that Qatar will not be able to host the hotel capacity expected to reach 1 million tourists during the November and December matches.
However, the UAE will benefit the most not only economically, but also politically and in terms of religious soft power, even as Saudi Arabia is doing its best to catch up.
Multiple Gulf countries have eased visa rules and immigration procedures in the hope that they will become fans who will travel to Qatar to watch games on about 90 extra matchday flights.
Almost half of these flights will be from the UAE. Fans are likely to gravitate towards the UAE, the most liberal of the Gulf states, over Saudi Arabia, where not only are alcohol, extramarital affairs and homosexuality still banned, but the laws are thought to be strictly enforced.
In anticipation, Dubai, which already has a slew of hotels, announced the launch of its first football-themed hotel, a 533-room hotel built on a man-made palm-shaped island. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it is offering fans multiple entry visas and planning a festival to boost competitiveness. The Saudi Tourism Authority said it expects to welcome 30,000 World Cup visitors.
Dubai, known as the party city, is likely to benefit most from Qatar’s shortage of hotel beds and uncertainty less than three months before the World Cup, whether fans will be able to drink lightly and what the Gulf of Qatar will do with unmarried or gay couples.
With Qatar outlawing premarital and gay sex, Qatari officials insist LGBT fans will be welcome during the World Cup, but they should respect norms that openly express love regardless of sexual orientation.
The unspoken implication is that if couples keep their feelings private, regardless of marital status or sexual orientation, Qatar will take a different approach.
It’s a meaning that’s never been fully articulated in a definitive way, in part to avoid a backlash from conservatives. Thus, Qatar’s “unending” approach raises as many questions as it provides answers.
For the most part, these problems are not present in the UAE, compared with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, which have drastically reduced alcohol consumption in recent years and lifted a ban on cohabitation for unmarried heterosexual couples.
Social reforms in the UAE may give tourists more confidence that the UAE may not enforce its ban on homosexuality.
However, the UAE, like Saudi Arabia, recently banned Disney and Pixar’s animation production Lightyears over a same-sex kissing scene, as well as Doctor Strange in Disney’s Madness universe, where a character made reference to her “mom of two.” “
The ban appears to contradict the government’s announcement in late 2021 that it will end censorship of films. The country’s media regulation office said it would instead introduce an audience rating policy for those over 21. However, it wasn’t obvious when the office tweeted a photo of the light-year, crossed out with a red line.
For his part, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has introduced considerable social change in the country by lifting the ban on women driving, enhancing women’s rights and opportunities, and creating a Western-style entertainment industry. Still, the changes are a far cry from reforms in the UAE.
As part of the development of the entertainment industry, Mr bin Salman has also sought to capitalise on the country’s financial muscle to allow Saudi Arabia to replace Qatar and the UAE as the sports hub of the Gulf.
However, in a bid to balance the push to encourage tourism, the kingdom’s authorities launched “rainbow raids” in June on stores selling children’s toys and accessories.
They target clothing and toys, including hairpins, pop-it, T-shirts, bows, skirts, hats and coloring pencils, “that are inconsistent with Islamic beliefs and public morals, and promote gay colors aimed at the younger generation,” Business Ministry officials.
As part of the development of the entertainment industry, Mr bin Salman has also sought to use the kingdom’s financial muscle to displace Saudi Arabia to replace Qatar and, to a lesser extent, the UAE as the sports hub of the Gulf.
The UAE’s liberalisation aims to strengthen the country’s quest to attract foreign talent and position itself as a beacon of religious moderation, even if the changes involve social rather than religious change.
This distinction is not academic, the UAE competes with other Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Indonesia for recognition as a benchmark for moderate forms of Islam that will allow it to shape the faith and 21st century Political order in the Middle East.
In contrast to Indonesia, where the Reformation was driven by Nahadlatul Ulama, the world’s largest independent Muslim grassroots group, the world’s largest Muslim-majority state and democracy, change in the Middle East is being driven by ruling elites eager for permanent control of power.
“The reality is… that dictators across the Middle East, including UAE (President) Mohammed bin Zayed and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, use Islam and state-sponsored Islamic scholars to maintain their control over politics control of power,” said Islamic scholar Usama Al-Azmi.
Even so, Qatar’s shortcomings have created an opportunity for the UAE and, to a lesser extent, for other Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia that did not co-host the World Cup, to share in the game’s limelight and hide their own. Downsides and showing their best while making sure it’s Qatar that’s mostly under attack.
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