DUBAI, 20 November 2004 — Located on a finger of sand poking out from the shore, the Bourg Al Arab hotel is probably the most recognizable building in the Arab world and appears as the logo of Dubai on the license plates of its burgeoning vehicle population.
Designed to reflect the shape of the sails of the dhows that have plied the Gulf for centuries, it is an impressive monument to the power of money over taste, of conspicuous spending and show over the realities of life for the vast majority of Dubai’s huge expatriate working population.
The emirate has done a wonderful job of selling itself as the business hub of the Arab world. Rising out of the sand in just a couple of decades and still giving the impression more of a building site than city, the frantic charge toward the accumulation of wealth has brought to the city a feel that must have been familiar to gold diggers in the Klondike. It has also brought some of the same problems, discontent and abjuration of morality and simplicity of life necessary with adoption of a glitzy lifestyle.
The city’s current anodyne motto, “The city that cares,” jars with the voices of the critics raised in Ramadan lamenting the decline in traditional values. During Ramadan, the obvious commercialization and move away from the central elements of the holy month — contemplation, fasting and visiting neighbors and relatives — has given rise to contemplation of a different subject among older people brought up in less affluent times. They reflect on the preference of many of young people to watch television, smoke shisha and gourmandize in the exotic and well stocked iftar tents set up by expensive hotels and generally roam whatever nightspots that are open for business.
And of course, the shopping.
“The car, the furniture, the wife, the children — everything has to be disposable. Because you see the main thing today — is shopping,” mourns Arthur Miller in his 1968 play, “The Price.” The marketing mantras of the Western world promote the new and the fashionable and have woven themselves into the social fabric of Dubai and its developing class — “the Bourgeoisie Al Arab.”
To say that Ramadan has become commercialized is to politely but grossly understate the case. Obvious subterfuges, dreamed up by advertisers and marketing strategists who breed in glassy towers and are generally called “Rick” or “Brett,” attempt to justify the shopping frenzy. One of the more obvious is a lottery that anyone who spends more than a hundred or so dihrams is entered in for free — and where half the prizes go to charity. That neatly assuages any lingering vestiges of guilt that a shopper might have about conspicuous consumption and “the problem of the poor.”
Moving about the city, the visitor gets the impression that Emiratis are an endangered species. They are rarely seen on the street and occasionally tracked down to the restaurants in expensive hotels. There must be some; traveling by taxi or on foot around the city, they are rarely, if ever, seen. The service and building industries which hold sway there seem almost exclusively peopled by Asian expatriates.
Why do they come? The simple answer is money. The attraction of money brings tens of thousands from the Far East and a good few from the Wild West. Why do they stay? The obvious answer is the same. Dig a little deeper and two different yet connected answers emerge: lifestyle and entrapment.
Life in the city is both superficially attractive and seductive. The daring architecture suggests vibrancy and growth and that in itself is seductive. There is the promise of money to be made, fortunes won; it does happen for a few. The obscene scramble to secure a place on the palm development has spawned a whole industry of speculators buying building lots for ten percent deposit and selling on at a quick profit to outsiders equally desperate to be seen in the “right place.” Style, visibility and conspicuous consumption are everything for the bourgeois glitterati.
As with any attractive exterior, the internal structure that supports it is hidden from view. From humble taxi driver to Western surgeon, income is not enough to support the Dubai lifestyle and save. It was the prospect of earning and saving that attracted most people to Dubai in the first place. With the rapid development and escalating prices, with most people saving is near impossible.
Zahir Khan, a taxi driver, has worked in Dubai for 29 years, watching its development from the foundations up. He reflects on the early years and concludes that although he earned less, he had enough spare to save as well as support his family in Pakistan. Over the last three years, his rent for a single room in a residential block has quadrupled and accounts for 40 percent of his income.
A European heart specialist at a major hospital has a similar problem on a different scale; the inability to have surplus income to save. Dubai has facilities to offer something of a lifestyle if you want one; but it costs.
“If I restricted my life to work and sleep, then I could save here,” said Mary. “Move outside that minimum and any sort of lifestyle destroys disposable income. Earning money is only part of life; another part is living one and that pretty well disposes of saving.”
The lifestyle is attractive to many and it can and does trap expatriates. Marianne, a 31-year-old British key account manager for a public relations firm, has lived in the emirate for eight years. “I might as well be here as anywhere else,” she said. “I like the social life — clubs, restaurants and parties. Mind you, I have saved almost nothing. It’s the place to be for me.”
There is a wistfulness abroad in Dubai, a sense that the rapid physical and financial expansion of the city has generated a cultural vacuum within. Something has been lost in this, and all that is left for the city’s expatriate population to believe in is its own advertising. There is almost a compulsion to be seen enjoying yourself and driving the right car and lifestyle. Dubai has become its own foundation and its own justification. Those living the lifestyle seem to do so with an intensity born of the knowledge that the lifestyle although synthetic, is all there is.
Deep down, they are not fooled; the city doesn’t really care.
