Smaran Dayal<p>Sure, there’s an orientalist discourse about Qatar (just as there is about all of West and South Asia). But there’s also a postcolonial, left, and queerfeminist lens at work in the critiques of ultra-capitalism, migrant labor exploitation and deaths, petro-states, and the absence/limited nature of queer, trans, and women’s freedoms. Western orientalism and uncritical “Global South” solidarity (which scarcely even applies here: this is a Global North state in economic terms) are emphatically *not* the only possible political positions. <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/poco" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>poco</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/petrostates" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>petrostates</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/migrantrights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>migrantrights</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/lgbtqrights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>lgbtqrights</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/postcolonialism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>postcolonialism</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/critiquebeforesolidarity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>critiquebeforesolidarity</span></a> <a href="https://hcommons.social/tags/orientalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>orientalism</span></a></p>