The Qatari Student

Neha Vora’s book really resonated with me in several ways.  Her representation of the stereotypes against Qataris is often ignored and I really appreciated how she voiced and presented the reality of what it is like being a Qatari student in Education City. In this blog, I will mostly present my personal experiences over the past year and a half as a student in Education City.

The idea that Qataris are seen as dumb was one that I had personally experienced several times throughout my educational experience in both school and university. For 13 years, starting from pre-school to primary school and all the way until secondary school, I went to an international British school in Doha. The school followed a British curriculum, which a lot of the time was taught to us by British teachers who, besides being plain racist, also picked up on some of the stereotypes and the things said about Qataris. When it came to racism, almost all of us complained about it since most of the students were either Arab, Asian, or African, and so the teachers often said racist and orientalist things to us whether be it intentionally racist or unintentionally racist. Additionally, the Qataris, and some Arabs who were mistaken to be Qatari, also complained about teachers viewing them as lazy or stupid. Neha Vora points out how many professors express surprise when they see a Qatari doing good in class or at the top of the class, and this, to me and to many of my fellow Qatari students, can be not only frustrating but also demotivating.

Many international and resident students have expressed opinions about Qataris that reinforce these stereotypes, and this causes many students to feel as if they aren’t good enough or smart enough and makes them think as if they have to constantly prove themselves. In Education City, many international and resident students have said that they think Qataris were only admitted into these universities and were put on the Dean’s List only because they are Qatari, not because they are actually good enough. Some students have even said this right to our faces, and they didn’t even mean it in an insulting way, but nevertheless, it still felt insulting. This felt as if they were invalidating our hard work and effort. . Personally, when I was in school, I would always try to differentiate myself from other Qataris who weren’t my friends. I tried to be the opposite of what a typical Qatari was thought to be. This idea that I had in my head seems like a sort of inferiority complex that I, and many of my friends and other Qataris, may have developed due to the stereotypes that we heard about ourselves. It seemed like to be smart, you had to not be Qatari, and so they would disassociate themselves from their Qatari identity.

To prove you are ‘smart’ you had to speak perfect English, and it specifically had to be in a specific accent such as an American, British, or Australian accent. I even remember being in my 3rd-grade class with my Australian teacher who used to make fun of one of my classmates, when we were around 7 or 8 years old for pronouncing ‘Pepsi as ‘Bebsi’. He was a Libyan boy who had a thick accent when speaking, and he would feel extremely embarrassed whenever the teacher would make fun of the way he talks, and the rest of us who would talk the same way would laugh along awkwardly. I hated this teacher. I would always feel so uncomfortable in her class and this memory is one that always stuck with me because of how uncomfortable it made me feel since I would talk the same way, with a thick Arab accent. This was just one instance, but this has happened multiple times over the years, and it resulted in me trying to change the way I talk. When I started secondary school, so when I was around 12/13, I would try so hard to talk in an American accent because I believed that it made me seem smarter. I would try to mimic the characters I watched on TV, but I have to mention that I don’t know if I actually sounded the way I thought I did, I might not have sounded as ‘American’ as I thought I did but I definitely tried.

When I turned 16, I simply stopped caring. I have regained my Arab accent and I actually pronounce words the way I want to on purpose. I have stopped caring about what my professors think and I simply speak the way I find easier. Despite many Qataris, myself included, changing and starting to embrace our identity, Neha Vora’s book felt like someone summarized my school experience. Whenever we would bring up this issue, it would often be shot down by other students since Qataris are the privelleged group in the country. It was a reading which I actually related to as it voiced what we, as Qatari students, always tried to bring up.