Fake Identity Versus Real Society

According to sociology, societies are shaped depending on people beliefs and values within a society. In Qatar and the gulf (GCC) in general, sociological beliefs and acts are hidden within the society itself, or people interacting with Qatari society/ Gulf society, as in order to know about a certain culture or society, people need to interact with it. In the Gulf, culture and believes are not widely interacted with the whole world, except through media. There comes the fake identity.

Mass media are creating a new picture for the Gulf daily life and general attitudes and issues. Some of the issues pictured in the T.V shows can be based on true story such as problems within families; however, T.V shows picturing younger generations behaviors in the gulf are getting out of hand. For instance, high school people, especially females, within the gulf society wouldn't for example jump off the walls of a school and run away in the breaks than come back through the same process. Such an act was pictured in a T.V show "Banat El-Thanwya", literally translated as "High school girls". In the Gulf in general, females and males have different expectations from a society. Females are expected to pay more attention to rules, can break some, but not to the extent of breaking through the walls of a school and running away. In fact, they aren't expected to leave a place without permission or accompanied with an elder unless they got the permission from an elder person, their parents. As for the males, it's expected through the society that males creates more of a wild attitudes than females, but that doesn't reach to the extent of destroying something or harming another. In the mass media, males' roles in a gulf society are pictured in the right way more than the females' roles. The interacting of both females and males in a Gulf society through the picturing of T.V shows can also be debated. As some of the interacting can actually happen in the gulf society, but some wouldn't, such a female from the gulf having a boyfriend that picks her up from her parents house, also pictured in the T.V show "BanatEl-Thanwya". In the gulf, a boyfriend wouldn't dare to come to his girlfriend's parent's house, as having a boyfriend is actually not allowed, which than creates a social issue within the family. Other facts in the Gulf T.V shows, is that they picture females with nearly full make-up, fully dressed in the house as soon as they wake up out of bed, which is a wrong picture to the Gulf society daily life as well as an issue in T.V programs production for not picturing reality, but creating a new fake world that shouldn't be believed.

Progress In Souq Waqif

Two types of progress are seen in souq waqif and sociology allows us to track these diverging behaviors in cultural behavior. One is cultural progress. Specifically, I am talking about the art exhibitions that are held in the galleries and some of the restaurants found there. The second kind of progress is that of westernization and globalization.

I have been to souq waqif many times and each time I go there, I am amazed at both of these types of progresses.

I remember the first time I ever went to souq waqif was with my school, and I remember telling one of my friends “Why is there a Baskin Robbins in the middle of souq waqif? Isn’t this supposed to be a cultural place?” What I had failed to realize then was that even though Baskin Robbins was not part of my culture, it is still part of culture- just not mine. Baskin Robbins’ motto is “Your Neighborhood Ice Cream Store” which shows how dominant it is in American society, or how dominant it wants to be. I can’t be the judge of that because I’ve never actually been to California- which is where Baskin Robbins first started out. The same goes to the restaurants in souq waqif, for example the Iranian, the Indian and the Italian restaurants.

Also, another form of cultural progress is the art exhibitions that can be seen in the galleries of souq waqif. One of the exhibitions that I went to focused on Qatari artists and I could actually see the artist painting his work onto the canvas. Not only was it interesting to see an artist at work, creating a cultural object, but it was interesting to see a Qatari one because it was the first time that I’ve seen this type of thing. I’ve also seen an exhibition where more than one person has worked on a piece of art, so it was a collective activity and there was a division of labor amongst the people. I also heard many people talking about their thoughts of the many artworks and each person had a different opinion, which proves that cultural objects are multivocal.

The other kind of progress is the westernization and globalization. The Baskin Robbins example could be put in this category as well. As I previously mentioned, Baskin Robbins started out in the United States of America, specifically the state of California. So the fact that it is located in Qatar means that Qatar is becoming westernized, even if it is through a simple thing like ice cream. Another example of westernization in souq waqif is the fact that many of the cafés have multiple television screens in them that usually play some sort of western sport, usually football. Once when I was walking around the souq, I heard a loud cheering noise coming from the cafés, I assumed a team had won and the people were cheering because of that and that they were experiencing collective effervescence. Another example is the parking lot surrounding the souq. This is part of westernization because the need for parking lots came from the west, which is where cars were invented. Traditionally parking lots were not needed because all people needed were posts to tie their camels to.