I am an airport person — not because I travel often, but because I love their peculiar atmosphere: the sense of transition, the emotion of crossing borders. Yet I have come to recognise another dimension: airports often capture the essence of the society that built them.

Earlier in October, I booked my flight from Berlin to Karachi after completing my postgraduation in Germany. This was not my first time travelling the Berlin-Doha-Karachi route and, like every time, I looked forward to my three-hour layover at the Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar.

DOHA’S DOUBLE-EDGED LUXURY

A brief stay at this airport feels like a delight for the senses; an artificial tropical garden, endless dining options and other curated attractions look like something from a fairytale.

I realise that my liking sits at odds with my sociological leanings. The Doha airport represents all that I dislike about the region’s neoliberal culture: hyper-consumerism, late-stage capitalism and an undue fixation on aesthetics.

Yet the airport’s commercial excess coexists with a highly efficient service apparatus. The wait times at immigration and baggage claim in Doha are virtually nonexistent. It is difficult not to appreciate the passenger experience, but anyone critical of the neoliberal paradigm is forced to confront certain questions: who built these terminals, who cleans the facilities, and who helps achieve such a high level of service?

What do airports reveal about the societies that build them? Comparing Doha’s opulent excess, Berlin’s democratic modesty and Karachi’s perpetual stagnation offers unexpected insights

The answer is clear: migrant workers from South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa form the backbone of Gulf infrastructure. They work long hours constructing these expansive environments, while living under conditions marked by vulnerability, if not outright abuse.

In 2022, the kafala [sponsorship] system, which tied workers’ legal status to their employers, was officially abolished in Qatar. Nevertheless, the overall labour rights conditions are still far from adequate. The large migration of workers from other countries........

© Dawn (Magazines)