qat chews

In the context of banning qat in the UK, Klein argues that khat is not a Somali tradition, and that it only became popular in recent decades. Wedeen examines the role of qat chews in Yemen in facilitating public sphere activity, discussion, and deliberation that he argues is crucial for democracy. Both articles are concerned with social interactions, cultural norms/practices, and the shaping of communities that is facilitated through qat chewing. The object and the practice around it are central, as are the multiple meanings around the situation. In both articles Klein and Wedeen aren’t interested in advocating for or against qat use, or about the legality of qat, its status as a drug, instead the articles are interested in the interactions and situations that are possible because of qat chews/chewing. Ethnic, national, and diasporic identity is depicted as arising through the role qat plays. However I found that the articles didn’t adequately explore the relationships between qat and gender identity.

Klein argues that because khat became a common social practice in Somalia during the civil war and in refugee camps there aren’t normative traditions about use as in Yemeni and Ethiopian contexts. The problems with qat use in the UK and its association with unemployment, family breakdown and poor health are ascribed to the role it has taken on in the particular Somali social and geographical context. Qat is cheaper and more readily available in the UK, and its use amongst men is tied to their loss of authority because Somali women headed the group’s migration and settlement in the UK. Using the term the sociology of drug use, Klein represents qat as a proxy for the issues that arise around and because of its use. This method of inquiry is more concerned with qat as an object and the relations that arise around it, than with a cultural ‘tradition,’ where qat would be understood as ‘normal’ and necessary for group identity. The view Klein offers challenges popular discussions and depictions of qat, showing how the same object takes on multiple meanings in different contexts and systems of representation.

I found Wedeen’s lack of exploration of the gendered dynamics of qat chews problematic. While the article was about Yemen, I think these dynamics are also playing a part in Klein’s discussions of the anti-qat movement in the UK. Wedeen argues that debate, deliberation and critical reflection facilitated by chewing qat creates a democratic public sphere or space. I found Wedeen’s argument that democracy isn’t just about an electoral process compelling, and agree that there are many different sites and activities associated with democracy. Wedeen depicts qat chews as creating an Habermasian imagined community or minipublic where co-membership is fostered. However the gendered use of qat is a serious consideration that Wedeen fails to sufficiently address. His acknowledgement that female politicians are excluded, and that qat chews are segregated, as well as address different topics seems to indicate that the minipublics formed by qat chews are closed communities predicated upon women’s exclusion. I’m not disagreeing with the work Wedeen argues qat does in facilitating democratic debate, but he fails to engage with the effect of qat chewing as a gendered practice. What does it mean to call qat chews a democratic practice or process when women are generally excluded from the frank political discussions that occur? An electoral system that excludes women, or any other distinct social group wouldn’t be described as democratic. Yet the informality of qat chews, and their status which Wedeen depicts as being analogous to salons and coffeehouses of 16^th century Europe is the basis of Wedeen’s celebration. His interest in qat and the processes and performance it facilitates is that it isn’t institutional, that critical rational political debate can exist in fluid, informal situations like qat chews and isn’t solely possible through a free press for example. Yet qat chews are also highly regulated environments where status, class, hierarchy, and certainly gender matter, as Wedeen grants “Many scholars have also argued that Habermas exaggerates the possibilities for equal treatment in public and neglects to theorize the ways in which each participant is enmeshed in particular power relationships affecting his or her ability to speak and to be heard” (117). Wedeen aruges that even though there is a hierarchy within qat chews, it is still a democratic process, just one that isn’t tied to liberal notions of equality. But by not seriously addressing concerns around women’s exclusion, the weight of Wedeen’s argument is challenged.

Qat chews certainly facilitate certain performances of democracy, but wouldn’t it be possible to argue that the types of discussions that occur within qat chews allow power to continue to reside within powerful elite men in the face of nominal gender equality at the ballot box?

Can qat chews be considered a democratic political forum if one social group is systematically denied access?