Does Qatar have Napoleon complex*? Qatar a country which received independence in 1971 from the British, has been ruled by the Al Thani family since the 1800’s. A place which is in size something of a minnow rating 166th biggest** in size world wide and a population of approximately 300,000 Qatari nationals and 1 million imports mostly from the sub continent. It does however, hold one hell of a clout when it comes to wealth, being the richest nation by GDP. It would be fair to say that up until a few years ago, most people myself included, if asked, where is Qatar, we would have found it hard to point to on a map. Pre 2000 Qatar GDP was around 20,000 USD today it is well over 100,000 USD** and climbing. So the question that sits in my mind is, why did we not know of Qatar in the past and now that the country has the physical means..... money, could we compare Qatar’s behavior in a way to the Napoleon Complex or as its affectionately known as short man syndrome^^^. A term which describes the state of inferiority complex. I have used the year 2000 as a line in the sand to help demonstrate the different behaviours exhibited by Qatar! What was Qatar known for pre this point and what would we say today. Is the current behaviour really driven by that constant thirst for generational improvement or is it just short man syndrome facilitated by a bit of cash. A quick Internet search becomes quiet revealing or blindingly obvious ..... Does Qatar have the Tallest Building…. No, First to give women the vote.... No, First to find oil.... No (got a lot though), Noble Prize winners.... No, Famous States Persons.... No, World famous painters..... No, Musician.... No, Athletes.... No, IT genius.....no again. In fact Qatar stood out in two areas, it is genuinely known for its Pearl Diving and the Prince Charles and Diana’s visit in 1986. Both of which are now just history. If we do a post 2000 view in a little over 10 years Qatar has purchased an incredible array of things and openly flaunted it to the world, starting with the 2022 world cup football. If we stay with football you can add a massive 130 million Euro Barcelona FC sponsorship, purchases of the French club Paris St Germain, Spanish club Malaga, and if ever the Glazers put ManU on the market Qatar would snap it up in a minute. All this with the long held history of incredible football players, amazing matches, historic clubs and more importantly the fanatical crowds that support football in Qatar. Lets turn to a few other purchases in the past 10 years. In an effort to keep up with the Jones’s read Maktoums next door, Dubai has the “World Cup” one of the richest horse racing events in the world, Qatar now sponsors horse racing events across the world, starting with the French “ Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe”, Dubai has the Buji Khalifa, Qatar decided it wanted to build the tallest building the 1,001m-high, $30 billion Kingdom Tower. The worlds fastest cars Ferrari and their F1 team are heavily invested through Mubadala a tie up out of Abu Dhabi, Qatar has recently joined forces with the Williams team. Now lets talk Super Yachts, the worlds 2nd biggest is owned by the Maktoums, the 9th biggest you guessed it Qatar. I could continue this list of purchases for a long while adding things like Harrods, Porche, Sansbury's, Miramax, Walt Disney, Credit Susie and we haven't even started on property investments. So I will stop there and look to notable achievement in the diplomatic fields. We can see a heavy Qatari involvement in Lybia, Egypt and Yemen amongst other North African environments through military deployments , diplomacy and Al Jazeera during the past few years. The question is why these countries and Not Bahrain, Syria or Palestine..... the first to get into Lybia and start reselling oil was Qatar***. An interesting side note to the Arab spring, all Qatari public servants received a circa 100% pay increases shortly after this began. In the field of health Qatar is the fattest country in the world^^ with an alarming rate of diabetes, whilst it is number 16th in the world for birth defects due to inter-marrying. With the focus on speed and Formula 1 it is interesting to note the statistics on road fatalities, 18.5 % of total deaths in the country, 1 in 5 are due to road accidents, a comparison to the USA shows 1.3%.^ I will finish on a sobering note which is the recent and avoidable deaths of 19 people, 13 of which were children. The Qatari Ministry of Interior proudly proclaimed none of whom were Qatari. In a country with incredible wealth and a shopping centre selling incredibly expensive luxury items, the centers safety systems were not adequate. This overwhelming Qatari narcissism without responsibility and flippant regard for the future should seem senseless now shouldn't it? Napoleon or Shortman Syndrome technically is a form of inferiority complex in which the person attempts to overcompensate for their perceived shortcoming. What do you think? *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex **https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html?countryName=Qatar&countryCode=qa&regionCode=mde&rank=2#qa *** http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-28/markets/30050309_1_rebels-oil-output-qaddafi-regime ^http://qataraccidents.org/2011/02/09/deaths-and-violations-by-the-number/ ^^http://www.tribeune.com/features/2012/04/24/qatar-claims-fattest-country-title/ ^^^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex

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