As part of the campaign to strengthen the Qatari national identity launched by the Qatari Forum for Authors since last March, Dr. Buthaina Al Ansari, an expert in strategic development and human resources, gave a lecture on Thursday evening entitled “Strengthening national identity through strategic planning and building initiatives” on the forum’s YouTube channel.

At the beginning of her lecture, Dr. Al-Ansari presented the themes and elements of the national identity, the most important challenges facing the identity and the role of strategic planning in protecting and enhancing it.

She defined identity as a set of traits and features that a person or group possesses, that becomes his behavior, indicating that every nation has characteristics and features that distinguish it from others, and nations lose all meanings of their existence and continuity in the event that they lose their identity.

She mentioned that the most important elements of the national identity that help in strategic planning is the geographical location, where the nation shares one geographical boundary and one land, and a common history throughout the ages and days in addition to their participation in a single financial system, such as the currency used and the flag as the symbol that unites the people of one nation, one case, and common rights such as the right to be educated, the right to express opinion, the right to live with dignity and pride on their land, the right to property, the right to work, and other rights that embody the meanings of national identity.

And also the individual and collective duties, the individual duties that each individual performs in his field of work and specialization. The collective duties, are the ones that institutions must perform towards their citizens, such as education, health, environmental and governing institutions with all their legislative and executive institutions.

Dr. Al-Ansari spoke about the importance of strategic planning that ensures the continuation of the national identity for future generations through initiatives, and this process begins by evaluating the internal environment represented by the strengths and weaknesses of the external environment, which are opportunities and challenges.

And then the goals are set in a precise way, so the events must have a set of characteristics, which are to be measurable, be appropriate for the era, and also be implementable and defined by a specific period of time that must not be overridden to achieve the goal.

The strategic development expert also mentioned a number of indicators to measure performance, including quantitative indicators, which are various numerical statistics and data, and others that deal with the existing management processes and guiding indicators that illustrate whether the administration is improving and advancing or vice versa, and efficiency indicators in relation to financial and natural resources and human and temporal indicators, in addition to indicators of effectiveness in achieving requirements according to specifications, indicators of work completion and practical operational indicators.

Dr. Buthaina enumerated a set of challenges facing the Qatari national identity, including the frequent use of foreign languages instead of the Arabic language in daily life, especially in the youth group, and called for the launch of many initiatives to promote the Arabic language, which is an important and essential element of the Qatari identity, especially since Qatari society is characterized by the large number of resident nationalities and the diversity of customs and languages, both of which may affect the identity.

She considered that the main role to strengthen the national identity is related to the education sector in the country, which is concerned with the pillars of identity in cooperation with the family to protect the identity so that it is not affected by external factors such as social media and other sides.

She also called the Qatari family protect the original ethical principles and values of the Qatari people in the new generation, in order to preserve the moral identity that it inherited from previous generations.

She gave an example about the Palestinian experience in preserving the national identity and considered it a distinct model in the ability to preserve identity despite the occupation, as they derived their culture from literature and arts, especially poetry, so that they were able to introduce their identity to the world in a classy way that sticks in the minds and it is an experience that must be used,

noting that the exceptional circumstances contribute to strengthening the national identity, which is what happened with Qatar at the beginning of the blockade, where the patriotism, belonging and loyalty of the Qatari people to their country, government and union appeared to be a single voice and a unified position, which emphasized that their unity, love for their country and their pride in it are part of their identity.