Host of the 2022 next football World Cup, Qatar is as tiny as it is immensely rich. Torn between Western modernism and Bedouin conservatism, ruled by the iron fist of a royal family, it sits on the planet gas field and is a major geopolitical Middle East player. This World Cup will be a symbol of the success of the 'Qatar start-up' created by the House of Thani, a family saga with an almost romantic dimension. With its billions spent on everything, its princes and princesses with glamorous photos worthy of Vanity Fair covers and its palace revolutions, the Al Thani dynasty - which could be described as the 'Kennedys of the Middle East' - will have succeeded in three generations in transforming a corner of inhospitable desert into a global capital. This unauthorised portrait of the rulers at the head of the richest country per capita on the planet will contrast the nation's extremely rapid success story with its darker side: a diplomacy of corruption, worrying investments across the planet, the exploitation of quasi-slaves from Asia; but above all, the financing of the Muslim Brotherhood and multiple armed Islamist groups, some of which are terrorist, throughout the Arab Spring.
Qatar: A Dynasty With Global Ambitions was broadcast on SBS ONE at Monday 21 November 2022, 10:30.
