Doha before and after

You've seen some pretty incredible pictures in the previous posts. Well, you have to see some comparison pictures to understand what's really happened. The phenomenon of Doha is less that 30 years old. I don't know the exact date of the picture below but it shows Doha probably in the 1970s when the first of the great hotels that are now here was built. You can see in the picture the construction of the Sheraton. A road leads from nowhere to what was the beginning of the Renaissance of Qatar.

The next picture is looking from the Al Sharq hotel across the water to West Bay which is where you can see the Sheraton which is now dwarfed by the emerging skyline (It's the short white building a little right of the center of the picture).

The comparison of these two pictures only begins to demonstrate what a dramatically different place Doha has become in approximately 30 short years. There are lots of issues to work on and lots of challenges ahead but this is one of the most vibrant places in the world and it's important for citizens around the world to know about it. We're talking about what you see above being but a few miles south of Kuwait and Iraq and west across the Arabian Gulf from Iran. The Gulf region is typically portrayed as a dangerous and untrustworthy place. My emerging and deep concern is that western journalists and citizens must begin to understand that they simply don't know what's happening in this area of the world. I'll try to do my part so stay tuned!