The subject matter of the museums reflects the activities of the original owners of the buildings. Bin Jelmood House, originally the base of a notorious slave and goods trader, contains a museum of regional and international slavery. Company House charts the early chapters of Qatar’s petroleum industry. Mohammed Bin Jassim House, once the home of an Al-Thani prince, portrays the history and future of the Msheireb area. Radwani House is a charming vestige of the courtyard homes that once covered most of Doha, but began to vanish after the city gained electricity and piped water in the 1950s and 60s.
Bin Jelmood House is the first slavery museum in the Gulf region, and it is by far the most engrossing and informative of the four Msheireb offerings. It acts as a form of historical shock therapy in a country which only abolished slavery in 1952. The subject of the Indian Ocean slave trade is handled deftly and innovatively, combining video and text, detailed historical imagery, maps of slave routes, personal testimony and interactive montages.
But it is in tackling the issue of modern slavery that the museum proves most effective. The faces of indentured workers—who make up nearly 90% of Qatar’s population—recur throughout and serve as a reminder of how Doha’s cosmopolitan prestige is built on the back of nefarious systems such as the kafala (sponsorship) scheme. The text in one illustrated display states that “throughout the Gulf States, the abuse of the kafala system directly affects large numbers of foreign migrant workers” for it places workers at the mercy of their employers. The text accompanying a picture of Nepalese construction workers uses stronger language: labourers “in the Gulf region are considered to be contractually enslaved”. The government has taken modest steps to reform labour laws (thanks to pressure from international human rights groups), but there has not yet been a decisive crackdown on this form of exploitation. This museum, endorsed by Sheikah Moza, a wife of the Father Emir, may add another level of pressure: a voice of discontent from within as well as without.
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