The Doha Debates have been an important forum for a wide variety of important debates on Gulf and Arab issues. Broadcast on the BBC, over the years the programme has tackled some sensitive issues in debates that mix expert opinion and popular involvement.
But this week the organisers betrayed their own high standards by holding their debate on the motion "This House believes Dubai is a bad idea". They chose not to debate Dubai's record, or its achievements, or even its aspirations. They decided to debate Dubai as an entity: should the emirate of Dubai as a whole be considered good or bad. All its people, its leadership, its achievements and its failings, were wrapped up into one simplistic debate asking whether the whole entity was good or bad.
The bias of the organisers was betrayed in their post-debate report, which bizarrely claimed that the debate "was the first time the city-state's financial misfortunes had been publicly discussed in the region". This extravagant claim sought to give their debate more authority than it deserved, and also clearly showed they have not been reading the regular coverage in the UAE media and the rest of the GCC, never mind international media coming into the region with unfettered comment.
