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