Weekend in Dubai--General thoughts

Everybody's heard of Dubai. Well, perhaps not everyone, but many people have. I think most people know it as a city with lots of wealth, heavy investment in tourism, man-made islands and the tallest building in the world.


My dear friend Bridget studied Arabic there at the American School as a Fulbright Scholar several years ago and I remember all the glowing things she had to say about it at the time. She would almost  wax poetic about how beautiful and how safe it was there, how everything was posh and how much she truly loved it. "Really?" I thought. This is still the same part of the world where women aren't supposed to leave home without a male relative to escort them, and the sexes are still segregated,  right? I'll admit I didn't know much about Dubai then, and I only know a little more today, but I admit I didn't believe her. I thought perhaps she was only seeing the best of Dubai. I never had the slightest inkling at the time that I would ever visit there myself one day.


After having lived in Kuwait for several months, the difference between the two places was indeed striking. Construction in both places is rampant, and they are both wealthy, they are both Islamic, they are both constitutional monarchies, lead by powerful ruling families who retain strong clan ties to other powerful families, as is common in Arab culture. Indeed, the culture is something that the citizens of both places are obviously proud of, as is evidenced by the adherence to traditional dress and social customs, even as the populations and, to a lesser extent, lifestyles are blended with everything modern, convenient and technological.

But where Kuwait is dusty, dry-looking and has the wary, somewhat hostile feeling of the frontier (except inside the malls, which are huge, shiny and status-baiting enough to do Dallas or Houston proud),  Dubai is clean, sparkling, colorful and welcoming. Everything I saw in Dubai showed some measured of care had been taken with it. Even the underpasses along the main motorways had tile mosaics lining them, depicting the culture and heritage of Dubai in big, simple, easy-to-make-out-as-you-are-speeding-by-in-a-cab layouts. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it, but one would have to have a camera constantly at the ready in order to capture every bit of excellent planning in that very well appointed city.

I don't at all mean to imply that the city is perfectly planned or that it is without flaw. In fact, there are some serious issues in Dubai regarding fair treatment for laborers and other, less visible, flaws that desperately need to be addressed before I could give an unreserved endorsement. It's the stark contrast  between Kuwait and Dubai that I so curious about. The difference is probably largely related to the fact that for Dubai, the oil has run out, forcing the leadership to find other means of support going forward. Kuwait, still veritably drowning in oil has all the money it needs, and will need for the foreseeable future, so what do they care how clean their streets are, or how efficient and/or beautiful their city is? Or what they will do to sustain themselves when the oil runs out?

Is this the resource curse? Maybe. Maybe not. The oil might never "run out" for them, but that doesn't mean that they still don't need good leadership to drag their country kicking and screaming into the 20th century. Yes, I said 20th century, not 21st. Cell phones, automobiles and air-conditioning do not a millennium make. Even the granting of women's suffrage in 2005 hasn't seemed to have much impact on the visual appeal of the city. Google street view images for Kuwait, and the first thing you will probably notice about them is that it is difficult to tell which part of the city you are looking at, because they all look dusty, beige, and have piles of rubble, sand, and refuse in them.

Kuwaitis are very proud of Kuwait, though. "The Emir, may Allah grant him long life..." is a fond public figure, and Kuwaitis insist that "this is the first country, the best country..." and feel universally that the problems of Kuwait are the fault of all of the foreign laborers who come to their country to work. That doesn't seem to be a point easy to hold onto when one visits Dubai, which also has a huge ratio of foreign workers to citizens. Kuwaitis are wealthy, and by all accounts travel frequently to Dubai. Having the national pride that they do, I can't imaging that they wouldn't go to Dubai and think "I want this for MY country." Where is the pressure that should being exerted on the administrative powers that be to impose cleanliness, efficiency and beautiful order on this wealthy and potentially beautiful nation?  Just to prove my point about Kuwait's possibilities, I plan to offer a series of future posts about our experiences and discoveries here that will lend examples and contrasts.

Our visit to Dubai was during the first weekend in March 2012. I have broken the visit up into  several posts rather than making it one long post that would eat up too much time to read in one sitting. My next post will cover Day 1--the desert safari! I am going to try to share as much of the experience as possible, so check back soon!