Even by oil-cartel standards, Qatar's wealth is extraordinary.
Qatar sits on 14 percent of the world's proven reserves of natural gas, ranking it third behind Russia and Iran. Its $30bn gross domestic product has grown an average of 19 percent in the last five years, according to the US State Department, and its per-capita GDP will soon be the highest in the world.
Because less than a quarter of the country's 900,000 residents are native Qataris, profits from the national oil company and its subsidies have allowed the government to provide subsidised housing, medical care, foreign education and other social amenities.
Yet these benefits are precisely why Qatar faces major obstacles in its quest to become a technology leader. Throughout the Arab world, many acknowledge that decades of luxury welfare have sapped the will to work in large segments of the population.
Almost no local residents work in the private sector. Indian and Pakistani emigrants drive cabs, run hotels and perform most of the working-class jobs in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. One man, who trains technicians how to fix mechanical problems on oil rigs, said local trainees invariably ask the same question on the first day.
"'Where's my secretary?' they all ask. I have to tell them that they are working in a machine shop," he said.
Read the first part of this two-part special, Looking after oil.
Professional white-collar jobs, meanwhile, are held mostly by English or American expatriates. Locals who do get corporate jobs are often hired for political reasons, some sources say.
"A tribe of foreigners is educating the kids, building the buildings, running the businesses," said Ben Reilly, who teaches history courses at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, including a US-Arab relations course with students on both campuses attending lectures simultaneously over a video link. "There is a very real fear that modernisation might be ephemeral if the expertise leaves."
Even local politicians acknowledge tokenism has been a problem in the region.
"Many years ago we told them they were an employee, and they did nothing," said Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, who holds the dual titles of second deputy prime minister and minister of energy and industry for Qatar. "They just sat there and got a salary."
Most locals find their jobs with the government, leading to inflated bureaucracies. Office hours for many positions run from 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Beyond the productivity issues, government officials fear that an idle and unemployed middle class across the region can become breeding grounds for discontent and even terrorism. Although Qatar has suffered only a few attacks and the nation has not produced any known terrorist leaders, the threat hangs over the country. Most five-star hotels require passage through metal detectors before entering.
Political and economic reform is a relatively recent phenomenon in Qatar that began in 1995 when the current Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani overthrew his father and vowed to put the country on course toward democracy. The two reconciled a year later but continued its reforms, such as giving women the right to vote in local elections.
Another visible accomplishment has been al-Jazeera, the Arab-language news network. With the...
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