Doha Brouhaha

With 2023 approaching, I recently Googled the Geneva International Motor Show, now thrice cancelled as a result of the COVID pandemic, wondering if the 2023 show would go on this coming March.  I learned that the Geneva International Motor Show would in fact be held this coming year, but in the fall, not in March as it had been before.  Sensible enough, I thought to myself; by October or November the pandemic should definitely be over, if not sooner.

Then I noticed it was going to be held in Doha, Qatar.

WHAT????????????????????????????

In fact, the plan was for the show's organizers to have the show in Geneva itself and then sponsor an event in Doha in the fall, but reality bit and it bit hard.  Maurice Turrettini, present of the permanent committee of the Geneva auto show, cited not just the risks of the ongoing pandemic as a reason for cancelling the Geneva event and focusing exclusively on Doha but also "the uncertainties in the global economy and geopolitics" (read Putin and Ukraine) as well.

There's just one thing wrong . . .

Who the f**k wants to go to  f**kin' Qatar?

I always wanted to go to the Geneva show, like the one pictured above, from 2019.  Late winter in Geneva always sounded pretty cool to me, actually, drinking hot chocolate in a nice, charming hotel in Switzerland's most cosmopolitan city and seeing the town after checking out Europe's finest automobiles, many of which will never see an American showroom.  But Doha?  A city in the desert?  I wouldn't be caught dead in a place like Phoenix, so why would I want to go to Doha?

And, as we learned from the recently concluded World Cup, Qatar is known for its hostile human rights record and its mistreatment of migrant workers, so the Swiss have a lot of damn gall to hold their prestigious auto salon in a place like that, especially when you remember that Switzerland is a multi-ethnic democratic federation with four official languages - French, German, ,Italian and the local Romansch dialect.  By contrast, Qatar is ruled directly by an emir, and Sharia law and corporal punishment are practiced.  Trade unions are not allowed.  Why hold an auto show in such a godawful place as this?  As unlikely as it is to happen, I would love to see as many automakers boycott Doha in protest as possible in protest of Qatar's atrocious human-rights record.      

I'd sooner see the 2023 Geneva show in Doha called off completely and the permanent committee focus more on 2024 instead.  (The Doha event is planned to be biennial, hence it will be held again in 2025.)   But maybe auto shows are becoming obsolete, anyway.  In the U.S. and Canada, several auto shows planned for the 2023 model year have been called off not directly for COVID but because supply chains have been so bad that no one show organization can get enough cars to display for one lousy week.  Those shows that do carry on, be it in North America, Europe, or China, will likely do so with several manufacturers bowing out because they don't see auto shows as being worth their while - as several had been doing before the pandemic even started.

Let, then, the automobile show pass.

But I'd still like to go to Geneva one day.