AMBASSADOR'S LETTER: THE AMERICAN MAJLIS DURING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DOHA 000683 E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/23/2028 TAGS: PGOV SOCI SCUL QA SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S LETTER: THE AMERICAN MAJLIS DURING RAMADAN Classified By: Classified by: Amb. Joseph LeBaron, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) The small and attractive building with the inviting glass doors adjacent to the new Chief of Mission Residence here was identified on State Department blueprints as a drivers' room. Upon closer inspection, however, the Embassy determined that the Qatari landlord who had leased the family compound to us had built the structure to serve as a majlis. ¶2. (C) In Qatar, as well as elsewhere in the Arab world, the majlis is a traditional gathering site for the men of the household to meet with adult male visitors, well away from the quarters that the household's females inhabit. The majlis often is an integral part of a residential compound. ¶3. (C) I took the presence of the small building as an invitation to establish a kind of majlis of my own, and so I have done, just in time for Ramadan. OBO and the Embassy have done a wonderful job fitting the room out in modern Qatari majlis style, which is to say, with comfortable seating and soft cushions rimming most of the room, plus a large-screen television that receives all the major regional television stations. ¶4. (C) My Qatari friends tell me this American Ambassador's majlis will not be complete until I install an Internet capability that is integrated with the television, so any issue that comes up in conversation can be instantly researched on the web and the results displayed for all to see on the big screen. In reply, I use an Arab saying, "Ask thy purse what thou should'st buy." Too costly. ¶5. (C) A typical majlis is an open event, often every night, but always during evening hours, the only condition set for the informal gathering. Mine is different. For reasons of security, and to reach out to the small, insular Qatari population, I invite only Qataris, and just a few at a time. Usually three or four, no more. I am reliably told that Qataris will not be at ease unless they know exactly who else will be there, especially other Qataris. It all has to be carefully choreographed. ¶6. (C) I usually ask one or two others from the Embassy to attend, but I intend eventually to host some of the majlis gatherings alone, as I come to know the Qataris better. ¶7. (C) I also ask that my guests come prepared to converse only in Arabic, given my interest in hosting a traditional Qatari majlis as much as possible, right down to the language. This rather strange request has been taken in good humor, and at my expense, since my guests almost always have spoken a blend of classical and Qatari dialectical Arabic, leaving me struggling to keep up with them. ¶8. (C) During Ramadan, I have held a series of "Umsiyyeh Ramadaniyyeh" sittings, small events in the majlis designed to be light, informal, and entertaining. But events that are also entirely consistent with the reflective intent of the Muslim holy month, with its heightened appreciation, through fasting, of life's wants and needs and with its focus on the poor and deprived among us. ¶9. (C) The events have been themed around Qatar's culture, with one umsiyyeh assembling writers and poets, a second assembling a small group of artists, a third painters and photographers. Musicians are next. I have learned a lot about Qatari society, and how Qataris think about their country, its history and culture. ¶10. (C) I also continue to work on getting Qatar's majlis traditions right. Last week, I learned from one of the guests, a painter, that I have gotten the incense ceremony wrong. Incense is brought in, only once, and if the majlis is small enough, like mine, the incense is taken to each guest three times. The incense signals the end of the evening. There's even a Qatari saying about that: ma ba'd al-'aud qu'uud. No sitting after the incense (literally, the wood). ¶11. (C) "You're using the wrong type of wood!" the artist said with a smile. "You're using bukhur, not 'aud. Bukhur is for women, or for cleansing the body with you're sick -- or getting rid of jinns," he said, chuckling. "He would know about that," he continued, nodding toward my Sudanese colleague from the Embassy, who was sitting nearby. "The Sudanese know all about majlis." Rising from he seat, he laughed again, and I saw him and the others to the compound gate to say good-bye. ¶12. (C) Not long after he left, there was a knock on the door. It was a delivery man with a small bundle of 'aud, sent by my guest so that I would have the right type of incense for the next majlis "jelse," or sitting. I have learned since from other Qataris that 'aud typically is not scented; bukhur is. "The use of bukhur with different scents is for women, because they like different scented smells and like making the different mixtures of bukhur", a Qatari friend told me. The more expensive 'aud once came from India, but with the decrease in supply, most of it now comes from Cambodia. Bukhur is a scented product made of wood products and grasses, and it is widely available here. ¶13. (C) Some Qataris apparently believe that pleasant aromas, such as those provided by bukhur, drive jinns from the house because jinns don't like them. But my Qatari friends tell me this is a superstition that is rapidly dying out, and most Qataris laugh at this folklore. ¶14. (C) One subject invariably arises in the majlis gatherings, especially when my guests learn that my first Foreign Service assignment was in Doha over 25 years ago. After we talk about the tremendous physical change in the city, I am always, always asked how I think the Qatari people themselves have changed. ¶15. (C) I am, of course, too new here to have an informed opinion about that. But this I do know to be true: A quite discernible angst exists among the small Qatari population, certainly among the keepers of Qatari culture -- the artists and poets -- whom I have met this Ramadan. ¶16. (C) It does not take the heightened sensitivity of the artist to know that Qatar is changing quickly and even radically, both physically and culturally. Surprisingly, the anxiety about that rapid pace of structural change extends, I believe, even to many of Qatar's teenagers and young adults, the generation in any society usually most embracing of social and cultural change. ¶17. (C) There is a well-known Arab saying that captures precisely this ambivalence about deep change underway in Qatar: al silahu dhu haddayn. Loose translation: the sword has two edges. For many Qataris, and perhaps especially those beyond the ruling family, change is a two-edged sword. So it is they reluctantly relinquish the old as they prepare with great uncertainty for the new. Especially the artists, poets, and writers of Qatar in Ramadan. LeBaron