They vowed to continue the blockade until Qatar complied with a list of 13 demands, which included shutting down the Doha-based Al Jazeera network, scaling back ties with Iran and closing a Turkish military base. Qatar rejected the demands as an affront to its sovereignty.
News of the blockade sent an immediate ripple of panic through Doha, with grocery shelves stripped bare and long queues forming at bank machines. Although stocks were replenished quickly and cash remained available, shortages of certain products and price fluctuations persisted.
But as the year went on, it became clear that “there was not the level of impact that was expected”, said Mahjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University.
“People saw more goods and items and diversification, more than even pre-blockade,” Zweiri told MEE.
“It seems that Qatar was able to respond quickly to these small matters of basic needs … so that was a success in their efforts to minimise the impacts of the crisis on the people.”
Ultimately, the blockading countries failed in their quest to isolate Qatar, Zweiri noted, as Doha quickly shored up alliances with other countries in Europe and Asia.
The blockade also fostered greater camaraderie between Qatari citizens and expats, as both rallied around a strengthened sense of national identity.
Human rights abuses
For some, however, the siege has had deep and continuing effects. Human Rights Watch detailed “serious human rights violations” as a consequence of the blockade, including the separation of families, interruption of medical care and stranding of migrant workers.
“The blockade really affected me and my family on a personal level,” Abdulla, a Qatari entrepreneur who declined to provide his last name, told MEE.
“Being half Bahraini and half Qatari, like many others here, the blockade tore [my family] apart. My father, who still holds a Bahraini passport, was in Bahrain at the time and we weren’t sure when it would all calm down and we could have him visit us regularly like he used to.”
Last December, six months into the blockade, Amnesty International found that the blockading countries had made “little genuine effort to alleviate the suffering of those affected, including many mixed families facing traumatic separations … [and] there is no sign of a solution in sight.”
One year on, “it has become clear that the Qatar blockade is only a part of a much larger puzzle, which is essentially a Saudi and UAE-led redesigning of the geopolitical landscape in the region”, said Noha Aboueldahab, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre.
“It has been interesting to see the narrative change; initially, the quartet was hell-bent on pushing the accusation that Qatar is a sponsor of terrorism. Now … it has become increasingly clear that the quartet is actually pursuing a region-wide, counter-revolutionary assault, particularly following the Arab Spring,” Aboueldahab told Middle East Eye, citing Qatar’s support for the wave of anti-government uprisings that swept the region seven years ago, viewed as a threat by Riyadh and its allies.
Will the GCC reconcile?
In the meantime, with the end game still unclear, many in Doha have simply resigned themselves to the “new reality” of life under blockade, Arian said.
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