Talk:Qumar

POV
What is POV about this removed paragraph:

''Qumar is an amalgam of the worst elements of Saudi Arabia the Taliban, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Iran. No country in real life has laws as harsh as those the show gives Qumar. No American ally also has terrorist training camps.''

This is true, the characters on the show list off laws of Qumar and there is no country with laws as harsh as them in real life. It is also cleary an amalgam of the listed countries mixing in the worst of all of them. - SimonP 23:45, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

No country allied with America is known by the public to harbor terrorist training camps.

It depends on your definition of "harbor," given that there are terrorist training camps in northern Pakistan, a US ally, even though those areas are lawless and not controlled by the government, which works in collaboration with the US and other developed countries to seek out and capture/destroy terrorists there. LeoDV 15:20, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

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No country allied with America is known by the public to harbor terrorist training camps.

School of the Americas Watch - 2 December 2005

Location
In many aspects it bears resemblance to the emirate of Qatar Well, it doesn't, really; Qatar is relatively liberal. I thought Qumar represented Saudi Arabia; the incident mentioned in the episode happened there, after all (though not quite as the programme depicts).I'm inclined to change this if no-one objects. Swanny18 11:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was one page away from myself; the episode I'm referring to is in "The Women Of Qumar". Swanny18 15:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that it doesn't resemble Qatar very much, with the possible exception of the name. As the post higher up says, Qumar mostly serves as a stand-in for Saudi Arabia (a oil-rich Gulf monarchy known for extreme repression of women, arming terrorists and promoting extremism, while simultaneously being a US ally and hosting bases) and Taliban-era Afghanistan (a regime known for extreme repression of women and hosting terrorist training camps.)

I think the main reason for the creation of a fictional country is the lack of consistency that would arise from actually using a real gulf state. The Saudis and some of the other gulf states do support terrorism, but that's mostly anti-Israeli groups like Hamas. The US's mid east allies still oppose Al Qaeda, as Al Qaeda attacks the US and Western countries and is also opposed to those regimes. The Bahji is portrayed as an Al Qaeda-esque organisation that opposes Israel, America, the West and the Qumari government as well, which makes the Qumari support for the group a bit odd. EJB341 11:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I've deleted the reference and re-worded it a bit. It felt potentially libellous, anyway.


 * On that last point, I understand the Saudi government has an ambivalent relationship with al-Quaeda; doesn't it (or some members of it) give tacit support to al-Q even though they campaign for it's overthrow? (Or is that even more potentially libellous than what I've just deleted?) Swanny18 15:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)