I’ve visited Dubai four times. One was on my first visit to SE Asia; then as day visits during the cruise element of my third visit; a third very brief visit to break up the long flight home from Singapore in 2019; and now this one, the longest visit yet, and the first with Val. So I feel that I’m now able to make some comment on Dubai.
It is a very strange place. The first thing to recognise is that more than 80% of the population are expatriates, mainly from the Indian sub-continent. The only actual Emiratis you can be sure of meeting are the staff on the immigration desks at Dubai International airport. The next thing, which is actually pretty obvious when you walk around, is that it is an entirely artificial place – I have photos showing Dubai in the 1950s and it’s a very traditional, low-rise town sandwiched between the Arabian Gulf and the desert; it owed its existence to the creek which functioned as a simple regional port.
Everything changed In the late 50s and 60s. Oil was discovered, first in Abu Dhabi and subsequently (in smaller quantities) in Dubai. The UK announced that it would no longer be able to provide external security and to continuing managing the various emirates’ foreign affairs (which it had been doing since the late 19th century). The UK’s withdrawal from the region ultimately lead to the creation of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) nation in 1971, of which Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the dominant Emirates (out of seven in total). Sheikh Rashid, the ruler of Dubai from the late 1950s to 1990, decided that Dubai should build on its history as a regional trading location and develop business services, and that the oil revenues would be directed towards providing the necessary infrastructure to support that. The key moment came in 1979 when the Dubai World Trade Centre was inaugurated, by Sheikh Rashid and HM The Queen(!). It was located out in the desert some miles from the creek, the traditional centre of Dubai, and many people wondered how successful it would be; today it’s on the edge of the modern Downtown Dubai area, which has been developed further out still. It sent the message “Dubai is open for business” to the world, and the world duly came to Dubai to do business; and all the subsequent development flowed from that.
Media coverage of Dubai always talks about the glitz, the ostentatious wealth and the conspicuous consumption, and that certainly exists. But what I’ve seen from my visits is that the great majority of people there are not wealthy and not conspicuously consuming. They’re actually working very hard – they’re employed as hotel staff, shop assistants, taxi drivers, and so on. Many of them have been in Dubai for some years – we spoke to people in the hotel who had been living in Dubai for two, three and even seven years. What I’ve read suggests that Dubai attracts several different types of people. First, and most numerous, would be people from low-income countries who can earn more in Dubai than they possibly could in their country of birth, and who are probably sending money home. The second group consists of those who are enterprising in a business sense and who see Dubai as a place where they could fulfil those ambitions; Dubai is still very much “open for business”, and the barriers to doing business there are very low. (There may be some cross-over between these two groups: on my third visit I found that the hotel kitchen and waiting staff from the breakfast service were working on their own account to provide a buffet evening meal – the hotel didn’t provide one itself, but had done a deal with the kitchen and restaurant staff from the breakfast service.) And finally there are professional people working at senior levels in various enterprises, e.g. finance managers or pilots, just to mention two possibilities.
I’m not closing my eyes to the issues that can occur in Dubai. It is a Muslim society and that has consequences: the letter of the law regarding same-sex relationships is harsh, for example. I also recognise that there’s not a lot of protection for employees and their conditions of employment. I believe that labour or trade unions are not lawful, and there have been continual stories over the years about dreadful working conditions for construction workers and domestic staff (who are all expatriates, of course). But the Dubai government is making progress in improving the regulation of these industries (and enforcing the regulations!) and I believe that things are improving. And there are further considerations that I think are worth bearing in mind. If we only visited places that had governments and policies that we approved of, we might not do much travelling. I feel it’s better to engage with societies with different policies than boycott them. It’s also worth saying that in some areas, e.g. education and women’s rights, Dubai’s (indeed, the UAE’s) policies are progressive, much more so than in some other Muslim and Arab countries.
It’s a strange, fascinating place. I’ve enjoyed my visits, although I recognise that I am a rich westerner only seeing the place for short periods during the times of year when the climate is bearable (in fact, very pleasant…). I can see myself returning.
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