ABSTRACT
I finish with a final case study of the National Museum of Qatar, opened in 2019, and which I visited in 2020. It illustrates many of the key themes developed in this book and demonstrates how enduring these are in national discourse. These include ethnic origins, the importance of war against the ‘other’ who threatens the state, the unification and endurance of the nation as a consequence of external threats, narratives of a kind of golden age when things were simple and honest and the nation was truly itself, and the relationship between people and land. However, here there is something interesting happening that may well point the way towards the future of national museums in post-colonial settings.
