The National Museum of Qatar has an entire exhibit of artefacts dedicated towards the history and significance of pearl fishing in the nation’s past. It depicts the intimate relationship that the people had with the sea and their appreciation for it. However, the most significant aspect of pearl fishing and its impact upon Qatari society is depicted through videos and short films projected onto the walls of the museum that provide a clear narrative of the life of pearl divers and their interaction with the sea. On the walls of the exhibit titled “Life on the Coast,” the museum has a projection of a short film directed by Mira Nair created for the museum in 2014 titled Nafas (Breathe), which focuses on the lives of pearl divers and the dangers associated with having to dive into open waters in order to look for mollusks containing pearls. The short films shows the audience the turbulent yet dependent relation that the pearl divers had with the sea where they would suffer through the dangers of the sea such as predators and nearly drowning yet still venture out into the hostile seas to find mollusks with pearls in order to provide for their families back on land.
The short film is reflective of the relationship that the Qatari pearl divers had with the sea which was one of dependency and that of awe as they would spend months in the open and hostile seas in order to make a living. However, the sea wasn’t feared by the divers and the local people. Rather it was valued for its contribution to the culture and economy of the local population and was celebrated for providing the locals with beautiful pearls which were used to make ornaments. William Cronon, in the essay “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” theorizes the concept of integrating the wild into human culture in order to build respect and appreciation to it. He is critical of the American and mainstream conceptualization of wilderness which is to draw a line between nature and civilization for its preservation and to only see value in the so-called untouched lands as natural (Cronon, 1). Cronon argues that in order to appreciate wilderness we have to look at it from the perspective of it being a part of us rather than some mystical otherworld that we can escape to (Cronon, 21).
We see the concept of the integration of the nonhuman nature into the Qatari culture through their interaction and dependency on the sea. The pearl diving culture provides a different form of cultural integration of nature than the one that Cronon envisions in his essay which were the forests and mountains. The Qatari pearl divers showed their appreciation of the sea by allowing it to become a part of their lives and making use of the sea’s natural resources such as fish and mollusks rather than treating it as something separate to themselves. Much like how Cronon proposes humans to interact with nature in a way that acknowledges its presence in our lives, the Qatari coastal communities had created a culture around the sea and how the sea benefits them. An example of this in the short film is when it shows children training to hold their breaths for long periods of time in order to adapt themselves to diving underwater and this training is crucial for the protagonist and other pearl divers for their survival (Nair, 04:22). This scene showed how working with the sea had become such an integral part of the lives of Qatari locals that they started to prepare since their youth and understand the challenges they would face in the wild and untamable sea. Celebrating the sea in the Qatari community involved integrating it into their own lives and creating cultural practices which would allow the people to interact with the sea in a beneficial manner to society while caring for it as well.
Works Cited
William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90
Nafas, directed by Mira Nair, Doha Film Institute, 2014.
