Why are so many people out to slander Dubai? If you believe half of what you read in the international press, the tiny emirate is way past its sell-by date with buildings poised to crumble into the sand, bankrupt expatriates kipping in car parks or among the dunes and chain gangs laboring at roadsides. It’s all nonsense of course. And I can say that with complete confidence because I am here staying at one of Dubai’s oldest and best hotels The Metropolitan on Sheikh Zayed Road, where the T-bone steaks are as sumptuous as ever and the smiles just as warm as I remember.
From the hotel’s inner courtyard, I can glimpse the amazing recently inaugurated $1.5 billion Burj Khalifa, which at 828 meters is the highest structure ever built. It stands as a monument to man’s ingenuity and represents another first for Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, who believes striving for excellence has no limit. But that isn’t how Geraldine Bedell sees it.
Writing in The Observer, she says the tower is “an ideal monument for an era of credit-fueled over-consumption — irresponsible and unsustainable.” She then rather predictably goes on about construction workers living on “starvation wages” and the emirate’s per capita carbon footprint, said to be the highest in the world. In reality, the laborers and semi-skilled workers who have toiled to build Dubai’s architectural marvels aren’t the best paid and their living conditions are hardly enviable, but, in truth, they’re better off than they would be in their home countries.
If that were not the case, they simply wouldn’t be here. An elderly Pakistani laborer was quoted by Ahmed Kanna in the Middle East Report as saying, “Work in Pakistan was too little ... I used to make $2 a month. How can you live on that? How can you support a family?” Moreover, in the face of criticism, Dubai’s government has taken concrete measures to improve their lot. The odd thing is journalists like Bedell rarely — if ever — focus on ridiculously low salaries laborers receive in other countries, where they don’t receive even basic company accommodation or nations that turn a blind eye to child labor. It’s a shame, too, that instead of celebrating Dubai’s achievement, Bedell prefers to label the planet’s tallest building as a monument to credit-fueled consumption. Would she have penned those scathing words had an equivalent to the Burj Khalifa penetrated the clouds over London, which is still in recession and is far more debt-laden than Dubai? I sincerely doubt it! For some reason, the media is relentlessly using Dubai as a punching bag. It’s sickening just how mean-spirited some writers can be!
Also visible from my hotel room is Dubai’s new fully automated and driverless $4.2 billion metro, opened on Sept. 9, 2009. It is the first of its kind in the Gulf and, when all phases have been completed, it will supplant the Vancouver Skytrain as the longest automated metro network in the world. It’s sleekly designed and, most importantly, so quiet that the passing of trains every seven minutes or so goes unnoticed.
One of my favorite television programs The Doha Debates that is aired on BBC World and hosted by veteran journalist Tim Sebastian, recently flirted with Dubai-bashing with a motion titled “This house believes Dubai is a bad idea.” For a start, the motion itself is weird. Swap “Dubai” with, say, “Singapore” or “Monaco” and the weirdness will become glaringly apparent. It’s little wonder that five journalists representing Dubai newspapers and magazines withdrew their accreditation and failed to show up.
In the event, despite the best efforts of American-born Sharla Musabih, an Emirati by marriage, and former editor of the London Times Simon Jenkins to discredit Dubai for “an anything goes culture of capitalism” based on “greed and the pursuit of wealth,” the motion was defeated by 62 percent of the voting audience. Musabih has abandoned her “greedy” home presumably for the simple, non-materialistic, non gas-guzzling, environment-conscience US where citizens — never mind construction workers — queue up for food stamps and live in tent cities.
Chairman of the Kanoo Group Mishal Kanoo, who spoke animatedly against the motion, said every Arab wants to be in a city that is a beacon of prosperity and “a viable alternative to nationalism and extremism.” Well... maybe not every Arab but he’s not far wrong. Dubai is peaceful, relatively safe, super clean, modern, friendly, luxurious, and, it must be said, expensive. I don’t know many people, Arab or otherwise, who would be averse to living here, provided they could afford it. Love it or hate it, Dubai is here to stay.
