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Sorcerers' Apprentices 191

1975 and 100 per cent by 1977. Operations, however, are still in the hands of
the companies, since the Qataris have neither the skill, the knowledge nor the
experience to take them over themselves. As a means of investing the surplus
oil revenues and diversifying the shaikhdom’s economy within the narrow

limits of practicability, the Qatari government has embarked upon several
ambitious industrial projects, most of them at the oil port ofUmm Said, twenty
miles or so to the south of Dauhah. Among them are a nitrogen fertilizer plant;
an iron and steel mill being built by the Japanese with a projected capacity
initially of 400,000 tonnes per annum; a large natural gas liquefaction plant
(the first stage of which blew up in April 1977); and a huge petro-chemical

complex for the production of ethylene and its derivatives. This last enterprise,
embarked upon in company with a couple of French companies, is associated
with the construction of another large ethylene plant at Dunkerque. There is
about these vast undertakings, as with their like elsewhere along the Arabian
coast of the Gulf, more than a touch of absurdity; yet they appear almost sober
(as we shall see shortly) by comparison with what is in the making or in

contemplation lower down the Gulf.
Having acquired for themselves over the past two decades a goodly share of
the luxuries and necessities the world has to offer, including the obligatory
quota of technological marvels just mentioned, the Qataris have of late been
equipping themselves with a history and an indigenous culture, both of noble
proportions. The showpiece of this particular enterprise is a ‘national

museum’, housed in the former (c. 1920) palace of the ruler in Dauhah. Largely
the inspiration of a public relations firm in London, the museum has been
equipped and adorned ata cost of several millions, despite - or perhaps because
of - the fundamental limitation of having very little to put into it. For this
reason the museum accords great prominence in its exhibits to the neolithic
artefacts unearthed in Qatar by European archaeologists. Since nothing of any

note has occurred in Qatar in the intervening millennia, the museum has had to
attach profound significance to fishing nets, Bedouin tents, camel halters and
saddles in its re-creation of the Qatari past. It is not the fault of the Qataris that
they have no history, nor can it be held against them that they would like to
invent one - though it is doubtful whether most of them care one way or
another about the past. What is objectionable about these public-relations

exercises on behalf of the Qatari regime is that they involve the falsification of
the historical record over the past two centuries, notably concerning the nature
and length of Bahrain’s connexion with Qatar, the relationship between the Al
Thani and the Ottoman Turks, and the character and exploits of the best-
known member of the line, Jasim ibn Muhammad Al Thani, who was far from
being the heroic paragon that modern hagiography has made him out to be.
The anxiety of the Al Thani to exalt themselves is understandable, since they

are undoubtedly the least distinguished - except in their progenitive capacities
- of the petty dynasties of the Gulf, and are looked upon with disdain by the