Dubious Dubai, where everything is the biggest, best, hottest, and most air-conditioned

Billy Says:

I think going to Dubai might have changed my life forever, in ways that I will only understand years down the line. More than anywhere else we went, I spent major portions of my time in Dubai simply saying, "Wow!" A bit of excitement, a bit of horror, a bit of hilarity, a bit of rage and a whole lot of fascination.

We ended up in Dubai because Emirates Airline is the cheapest way to get between Europe and South Africa and they route all flights through their hub in Dubai. After my six hour layover in the airport on the way to Johannesburg, I was convinced that I need to change my tickets to stay for longer on the way back. The airline played a promotional video as we were about to land, calling Dubai, "21st Century Arabia," and when I got off the plane I thought to myself, "this may be the *only* 21st Century place I've ever been. At 3am, the airport was bustling, everything was open, and flights were departing to destinations throughout the world every 10 minutes. A young Arab kid raised in Canada (who returned to Dubai, to work 12hrs. per day, seven days a week, as a form of re-hab after getting thrown in Canadian jail at 18 on drug charges) increased my sense of wonder about Dubai by telling me many things like that Dubai has elevators that go up from one sidewalk, across the street, then back down, and that there are computer terminals on the street with no keyboard, because you simply talk into them.

Those things are both totally false. But here's some gems of truth that I did stumble upon in my few days in Dubai:

* There are 3 men to every woman in Dubai.
* All migrant workers (more than 80% of the population) are required to be tested regularly for HIV, and deported if they have it. The government is considering screening tourists as well, but Emiratis are still exempt.
* Migrant laborers are forbidden to unionize (and may well be deported for protesting at work, and/or have their passport seized by the boss upon employment), rent a house or apartment (they must stay in company housing, as they must not marry the local population and cannot bring wives or partners) and cannot become citizens.
* The UAE (United Arab Emirates - Dubai is one of seven emirates) is trying to "protect the minority" economically, by enforcing quotas for "emiratisation" of the workforce, and (except for within "free trade zones") requiring that at least 51% of every company operating in the UAE is owned by Emiratis. (For more on the economic aspects see the informative article on Dubai in the New Left Review).
* Dubai has a number of "Mega Projects" (this is a great link; tons of photos) under construction, including building the world's tallest Skyscraper, (which is competing against the second place building, also under construction, also in Dubai) three "palms" and one replica globe made out of islands "reclaimed" by "rainbowing" sand in the middle of the gulf.
* Dubai has already built the world's first 7-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab, with afternoon tea for 50 EURO or a suite for 1000 EURO, a fleet of rolls royces, a helicopter and landing pad, an "underwater themed" restuarant (one of six, offering food 24hrs. a day) and built on a tiny island 280 meters off the coast (which was "reclaimed" from the gulf over two years).
* Other trivial, bizzare futurist constructions include the world's largest mall, an indoor ski and snowboarding center, the world's largest zoo and world's largest aquarium. Somewhat more substantially, "Dubai also hosts or is planning to build a Humanitarian Aid City, as a base for disaster relief; a free-trade zone dedicated to the sale of used cars; a Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre; a ‘Chess City’ headquartering the International Chess Association and designed as a vast chess board with two ‘King’ towers, each 64 storeys high; and a $6 billion Healthcare Village, in collaboration with the Harvard Medical School, that will offer the wealthy classes of the Gulf region state-of-the-art American medical technology." [Mike Davis, New Left Review]

(a construction project being planned, on display inside a mall. construction happens 24 hours daily, with less than 13cm of rain falling annually).

Some quotes on dubai that are absolute gems:

* "Despite its blast-furnace climate (on typical 120° summer days, the swankier hotels refrigerate their swimming pools) and edge-of-the-war-zone location, Dubai confidently predicts that its enchanted forest of 600 skyscrapers and malls will attract 15 million overseas visitors a year by 2010, three times as many as New York City. Emirates Airlines has placed a staggering $37-billion order for new Boeings and Airbuses to fly these tourists in and out of Dubai’s new global air hub, the vast Jebel Ali airport." [Mike Davis again]
* As one developer told the Financial Times, ‘If there was no Burj Dubai, no Palm, no World, would anyone be speaking of Dubai today? You shouldn’t look at projects as crazy stand-alones. It’s part of building the brand’.
* ‘People refer to our crown prince as the chief executive officer of Dubai. It’s because, genuinely, he runs government as a private business for the sake of the private sector, not for the sake of the state’, says Saeed al-Muntafiq, head of the Dubai Development and Investment Authority.
* “We want to protect the minority, which is us,” Mr. Kaabi said.
* [Referring to a protest of 8,000 workers for a wage increase - after 18 years without a pay raise - resulting in 185 deportations, an employer stated] "It was organised violence ... those involved in the violence were educated workers. We have also received letters of apology from remaining workers in which they admitted that they were fooled into staging protests."

***

As for our time in Dubai, we spent the first day jet-lagged, navigating the bus system out to Luke's (our couchsurfing friend) house. We had a meal in an indian restaurant for workers where the food was $1 for both of us to eat as much as we liked and we were vastly outnumbered by people eating with their hands. Libby and I learned that the section "reserved for ladies" can be sat in by men, but not if there are enough "ladies" to fill the available seats:


Luke slept out in the living room on an air mattress (along with two other couchsurfers, sleeping on their own air mattresses):


and let libby and i sleep in his large, comfy bed:

Luke was an extremely gracious host, doing everything to assist us and help us enjoy our time in Dubai. His apartment was amazing and comfortable (in a skyscraper, surrounded by 20+ skyscraper apartment buildings under construction and bordering "the greens," a section of city where grass is being grown -- at great expense), he took us out for a great meal, and told us all about Dubai. As an "expat" from Scotland, visiting couchsurfers help to ease some of the isolation that comes with living in an essentially apartheid kingdom.

We enjoyed our time also with Cyril, another couchsurfer, on his way to Beijing on Emirates airlines:

We went down to the creek with Cyril...

and he helped us fend off the boatmen trying to get 20 Dirhams (about $5) to take us across the creek and instead we took a water-taxi with workers for 1 Dirham (25 cents).


We wandered around the market areas, and Cyril helped break up the monotonous theatre of non-westerners pushing their wares on westerners by requesting leopard-skin fur coats, sun glasses that covered his whole cheeks, and tight pink t-shirts. He also successfully convinced a vendor, in response to the standard, "where are you from?" that he is from "Pimpistan." The man was sure, though, that Libby was "too white to be from Pimpistan." She didn't try and tell him otherwise.


We also did some gawdier shit, like swimming in the 90degree gulf (in the shadow of Burj Al Arab, springing 170 Dirham on "Wild Wadi" water park, and strolling around a mall which has a different section for each region of the world (each decked out in the motif of that place and sometimes even with a painted sky) and so on.

Dubai is a shamelessly unjust society, with all the foulness of a south africa or usa or israel, but a different spin on how to bring it about. With busload after busload of Indian laborers peeking out through the bars on company owned bus windows, deportation of dissidents and people with AIDS, and the king owning absolutely every inch of land, there's a bluntness to the injustice. But then again, the king would rather set up cameras on the motorway to patrol speeding than fleets of cops, and all of the wealth of Dubai is dependant on an image, so the bluntness has to constantly be toned down.

The image of Dubai is being constructed 24hrs. a day, by the 80% of the population that are "visiting to work," for the benefit of the remaining handful.

The image of Dubai is, for bad now or later, working.

nuf said.
but more to say...