#Headline Creation Challenge# #卡塔尔世界杯 #
With the advent of the World Cup cycle, all kinds of news about Qatar are dazzling, some of which have been out of the scope of discussion of the World Cup, which is not the focus of our attention, press the table, we just want to briefly analyze what is the underlying logic of Qatar hosting the World Cup "regardless of the cost"?
Qatar is a peninsular on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, bordered by Iran in the Persian Gulf to the north and Saudi Arabia in the south, and is one of the few countries in the Middle East that is politically and culturally acceptable to host the World Cup. Qatar has a population of more than 2.6 million, of which 85% are foreigners, and due to its abundant oil and gas resources, Qatar is extremely wealthy, with a per capita GDP of about 84,000 US dollars (the global average is 11,000 US dollars), ranking fourth in the world. Although the Middle East has historically formed a confrontation between Sunnis and Shiites due to religious issues, Qatar, as a Sunni, maintains relatively good relations with the Sunni boss Saudi Arabia and the Shiite boss Iran, and wants to find an independent line.
Qatar is also home to Al Jazeera, the most influential English-language media outlet in the Arab world, and the capital Doha can compete with Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. In short, Qatar has in recent years worked to improve its international soft power and leverage big diplomacy with small countries.
International competitions are an important stage to promote themselves to the international community and demonstrate their soft power, and there is an important link between long-term economic prosperity and the hosting of large-scale international events. In the 21st century, except for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the rest are held in emerging market countries, including the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which maintained a long period of economic growth before deciding to bid for the World Cup (8 years in advance) (see figure below). The low tides experienced in history and the long-term prosperity of the current economy together require a presentation to the world to introduce the economic and cultural revival of one's own country. Also from the perspective of the World Promotion Conference, the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics ignited national pride and made the world re-recognize China.
South Africa, Russia and Brazil all experienced long-term economic growth ahead of their World Cup bids, with countries booming
Historically, the Arab world had a glorious history and culture, which gradually declined in modern times, and then accumulated a lot of wealth again with the large-scale discovery and exploitation of oil and gas resources in the Middle East. At present, the Middle East region is an important energy supplier, and thanks to the large demand for energy in the wave of industrialization in the world, Middle Eastern countries including Qatar have maintained rapid economic growth and rapidly increased national strength. Despite maintaining rapid economic growth, the outside world, especially the Western world, often has a stereotype of Arab countries, and exports this view to the world by virtue of their dominant international discourse.
Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/currencies
Al Jazeera has a gold medal program "Film Chronicle" once did a program "Desert, Women and Blood - Arabia in Hollywood Movies", which brilliantly shows the stereotypical performance of the Arab world in the West, as if the Middle East is only sand, camels, full of barbarism and chaos, men are terrorists, women are oppressed by authoritarian society, and the Arab world, including Qatar, has a strong need to get rid of stereotypes about them. This gives Qatar the ability and the willingness to reacquaint the world with Qatar and the Arab world as a whole by hosting a world-renowned event.
The World Cup in Qatar is valued by the entire Middle Eastern world. Introducing Qatar and the Middle East to the world is exactly the common idea of Qatar and the public, because "this is the first time that the World Cup has been held in Islamic Arab soil" (Al Jazeera headline) allows the world to look to Qatar and see a modern, friendly and enterprising Middle East world.
A view of Doha, the capital of Qatar
(Text: Alalay)