Baladna, which translates to “our country,” is perhaps a fitting name for a company that symbolizes Qatari self-sufficiency in the wake of the 2017 diplomatic crisis. Baladna has filled much of Qatar’s demand for dairy products after the interruption of the country’s former supply chains, which forced the state to either find alternative suppliers and trade partners or to self-produce. According to its website, Baladna supports “health food security … [and] implements a long term strategy, in collaboration with the Local Authorities, to provide the local market with healthy dairy product [sic]” (“Home,” Baladna). However, a complete understanding of national security and food security must take into account the threats of climate change and the costs, both immediate and long-term, of not moving away from a fossil fuel-based economy. The company’s statements are symptomatic of a discourse that privileges national security over environmental security. My aim in these posts is thus to draw out the paradox that exists between short-term national security and environmental security (often mistakenly conceived of as merely a long-term issue), the former of which is self-defeating if it ignores issues of water scarcity and rising atmospheric and oceanic temperatures.
For Qatar in particular, climate change poses important threats. The country is already hotter than the IPCC would like to keep the rest of the planet, facing 5-year mean temperatures that are 2 degrees celsius higher than the country was in the 1800s, prior to industrialization (Mufson). Qatar is thus one of the places most implicated in the temperature changes wrought by climate change, and will continue to be so as it is “one of the fastest warming areas of the world, at least outside the arctic” (Mufson, quoting Zeke Hausfather). In this way, it is clear that environmental security is an issue of national security, to a greater degree for Qatar than for other countries. The question for us is then how a company and symbol of national self-reliance like Baladna can be understood in this context.
In addition, to connect this to the environmental humanities, WwWhat discourses can be seen to lend credence to this hierarchy of “securities”? Ideas, often contradictory ones, are at work in the reproduction of a society so dependent on substances that put it at grave risk. Of interest to our considerations will be government statements, company materials provided to investors, and other materials adjacent to the company and the 2017 blockade. Hopefully, this will give us a better understanding of how a state so dependent on natural gas production conceives of itself and its relation to human security in the context of climate change, as well as which discourses are called into question to the greatest extent by this crisis. What historical and intellectual circumstances lead a country to raise cows in the desert, and what can this tell us about that country’s relationship to its own security, futurity, and environmental sustainability?
Works Cited
Mufson, Steven. “2°C Beyond the Limit: Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors.” The Washington Post Online, October 16, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/world/climate-environment/climate-change-qatar-air-conditioning-outdoors/. Accessed September 23, 2020.
“Home.” Baladna/بلدنا . www.baladna.com. Accessed September 23, 2020.
