While Aman praised Education City for challenging students’ preconceived notions of other nationalities, he was aware that jobs and sponsorships were preferentially given to Qataris and that expatriates like himself would have a harder time procuring employment and would never be able to officially belong. (p.124)
(Vora, N. (2019). Teach for Arabia : American universities, liberalism, and transnational Qatar . Stanford University Press.)
Last week I got to talk to Professor Neha Vora about her book Teach for Arabia. In the backdrop of our entire conversation the quote I placed at the top of this article played at the back of my head. Even removed from Qatar, we observe quite a similar pattern emerging. We observe that in each society, there is a group of individuals that are often thought of as deserving of their success/richess/access to opportunity. Often different names are ascribed to this phenomenon but for the sake of simplicity I will focus on one alone: Meritocracy.
A meritocracy is basically a political system where we believe that people who have the most talent or work the hardest are the ones who control the power. In layman’s terms you could say that it is a system that rewards people off of the merit and effort that they put into their work. However, as great as an aspiration this is, humanity has fallen quite short of the standard. Many people would like to live in a meritocracy. This is probably because we feel that it is the fairest way of determining our social positions in life. Often I find myself having similar thoughts like Aman who was quoted above. In obvious frustration at inequality and injustice, we often feel like our efforts are overlooked; especially those of us from the Global South who have been classified as sub par to our Global North counterparts.
However, by jumping onto the meritocracy bandwagon we implicitly make the argument that those who fail are deserving of their position at the bottom. Such a realisation is sure enough to shake one in their bones. Especially after they accused those at the top for thinking the exact same thing. Can the solution to the gross inequality created by capitalism be even more capitalism. This isn’t to say that life is not fair. There are those who will struggle more than others in life. After all, Marx did say that capitalism relies on workers performing more labour than necessary to generate surplus value for the bourgeoisie. In a meritocracy, we are taught to believe that those that fail to gain upward mobility deserve to toil to let those at the top succeed. To believe in meritocracy in short is to disregard the systems that intentionally keep people within their respective class bubbles.
So I often have to catch myself from fuming whenever I find that there’s an opportunity unavailable to me because of my nationality. Often I recognise that my position here(in Qatar) is the result of the interaction of multiple societal forces (in addition to my merits of course). It is easy to feel angered when we feel excluded from opportunities in a place that we call our home. However, it’s all too easy to forget the privilege that one has to be able to even attend university here.
I for sure don’t have a solution to the massive inequalities present within Qatar. However, I firmly believe that using the belief in meritocracies as an argument will not present us with tangible and sustainable solutions. Because otherwise, the vicious cycle will only repeat itself.