Not Edited for Length. Recently I wrote some pretty harsh anti-islamic commentary in various places over the burning of the Orthodox Churches in Kosovo and the inability of KFOR to pull the trigger with actual rounds chambered...though I suppose the debate ended on the idea on the limits of force when facing a mob. Still, I do get myself in an anti-islamic fury from time to time. A Spook friend has suggested that I visit the UAE and other countries for a different perspective. I ain’t gonna visit the UAE...but I was sent the following to remind me that there are places in this world that are islamic yet throughly modern and apparently tolerant also. It is worthwhile from time to time to take a look at a success also.
This is the Mideast you haven’t seen on the evening news lately. There are no suicide bombers. No anti-U.S. protests. No grinding poverty. No mass arrests. Instead there are Silicon Valley-style office campuses, home to the likes of Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco. And white-sand beaches packed with bikini-wearing European tourists. There are also plans for the future - well-financed plans. A world-class medical complex with a Harvard-run teaching hospital. A $7 billion theme park twice the size of Walt Disney World. An underwater luxury resort. If Iraq and the West Bank represent the Middle East’s darkest troubles at the moment, then Dubai, a city-state of a million people in the United Arab Emirates, may be its brightest light. It is what much of the Arab world is not: bureaucracy-free, tech-savvy, tolerant of outsiders, happy to embrace change. But at a time when the United States plans a new effort to promote democracy in the Arab world, the United Arab Emirates has no formal democratic institutions at all.
| It's got the conditions for them to take root, though. I've made the point before that we use "democracy" as shorthand for "liberty." Attempts at the former without the latter result in something like Pakland or Nigeria. |
The federation, which became independent from Britain in 1971, is governed by the ruler of its capital, Abu Dhabi. Each of the six other emirates also has its own leader. Unlike gulf neighbors Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain - and other Arab nations including Jordan, Yemen and Morocco - the federation has never held an election. There are no political parties, and the local press is self-censoring. By all accounts, Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum - technically the crown prince - is revered as the architect of the emirate’s success. Indeed, many argue that democracy would have only impeded the blistering pace of Dubai’s modernization. Supporters also point out that the sheikh’s government doesn’t operate like a dictatorship. It is seen as extraordinarily responsive to outside input.
| They didn't piss away all their money exporting mosques and holy men all over the world like the Soddies, or exporting world revolution like Muammar tried to do. |
Still, Dubai’s model raises hard questions about whether economic liberalization is more important than political reform as Arab nations seek to lift themselves from poverty and overcome the forces of Islamic extremism. "If we had an election, nothing would change," said Suhail al Ansari, marketing manager for Healthcare City, a proposed government-sponsored medical campus to serve those who now go abroad - at government expense, if they are citizens - for care. "The crown prince... motivates his people and ensures that they share his vision."
| Which is an example of Theory Y management done right. Somebody's got to drive the boat. The trick is getting everybody on board... |
One hears a lot of talk like that from people in Dubai’s government. They sound like loyal lieutenants of a corporate mogul - which is really what they are, since Sheikh Mohammed runs the place like a privately held conglomerate. And, although the Maktoum family is said to be worth $10 billion, there are no whispered accusations of corrupt enrichment, as there are in Saudi Arabia.
| Y'think the problem might be that the money all goes to the princes, who bestow it on the common folk as largesse, if they feel like it and if there's any left after they spend their money on attempts at world domination? |
Residing in a port city at a crossroads between Europe and Asia, Dubai’s people have a long history as traders, subdued in their Islamic faith and comfortable with foreigners. The city’s modern prosperity is built in part on the re-export business - buying goods from one country and selling them somewhere else. Oil is part of Dubai’s wealth, but the emirate does not have nearly as much as Abu Dhabi. In the early ’90s, Dubai realized that its white-sand beaches and turquoise waters could be a major tourist draw. Resort hotels sprang up along the shore, including the 60-story, spinnaker-shaped Burj al Arab, where each floor comes with its own butler. Ever more elaborate shopping malls - there are 30 and counting - are popular after-sun tourist destinations. Nearly five million people visited last year. But this might be just the beginning. At least 100 more hotels are planned. Two proposed malls will compete to be the world’s biggest. Emirates Air is launching nonstop service from New York. And yet, even as the tourist push was bearing fruit, Dubai’s leaders decided in the mid-1990s that what they really needed were information industries. So, on an empty desert near the beach, the government built Dubai Internet City, a palm-fringed, $500 million office park that now rents space to about 600 technology companies. Launched in 2000 after the tech bubble had burst, Internet City became the forerunner of a concept now central to Dubai’s development - the free zone, where foreign companies can have 100 percent ownership, zero taxes, and easy interfacing with the government.
| They're not camels to be milked. Interesting concept. In return, they provide salaries to people who can be taxed. The idea of taxing corporations, then taxing their dividends never did make sense to me. |
A plush red carpet leads into the entrance of the building that houses Internet City’s central office. Stenciled on the carpet are two lines in English, Dubai’s language of business: "Everyone’s a VIP at DIC" and "Red Carpet, Not Red Tape." In the lobby, Arab women in head coverings sip cappuccino and talk business with Indian men in suits. People from 182 countries work here, a multicultural scene that, duplicated all over town, reinforces the perception that Dubai is a cutting-edge city of the future. "If you shoot us an e-mail and let us know you are coming, we can do your visa for you, pick you up from the airport, book the hotels, give you an office, give you telecom service, incorporate you, and register you as a company, arrange your driver’s license - all in one place," said Omar bin Sulaiman, Internet City’s U.S.-educated chief executive officer.
| Very efficient. I understand it doesn't work that way in Soddy Arabia. |
A year ago, Carrier Devices - which makes a Web-enabled smart phone called the i-mate - moved its 27-person headquarters to Internet City from Glasgow, Scotland. "It was cheaper to move everyone here, give them a raise, provide them housing and health care, and pay for two flights home a year than to be in the U.K.," said Jim Morrison, Carrier’s Scottish CEO, who said he and most of his employees immediately saved 49 percent in income taxes.
| It's called competition... |
In January 2001, just across from Internet City, Dubai opened Media City, a similar setup for news organizations, publishers, and production companies. It now is host to 780 firms, including CNN, Reuters, and the Associated Press. The Internet and media free zones are home to 19,000 "knowledge workers," bin Sulaiman said. In April, Dubai opened Knowledge Village, which offers universities ready-made space in which to open accredited programs or branches. Healthcare City, in partnership with Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities and the Mayo Clinic, hopes by 2010 to be the world’s largest cluster of hospital, research and wellness facilities. A free zone for financial-services companies is expected to open any day. To house its exploding population of skilled foreign workers, Dubai is building thousands of high-end condos and villas, many of them on three man-made offshore islands. New rules allow foreigners to buy property for the first time, and they are snatching up lots. Overall, an estimated $30 billion in real estate and infrastructure projects is under way. "You look at the latest project and shake your head, and say, ’This will never fly,’ " said Yousef Khalili, Microsoft’s Lebanon-born Middle East regional spokesman. "But it does."
| Places like this will be the drivers of the real Arab rennaissance... |
Like any boomtown, Dubai has its unsavory side. Terrorists have been able to launder money through underground financial networks, including some of the funds that financed the 9/11 attacks. Prostitution is quietly rampant. The country’s dirty work is done by Asian laborers who do not share in the city’s shimmering lifestyle.
| The question I have is whether Dubai natives actually work for a living or perform "supervisory" work, ala Soddy Arabia. I suspect the traditional Arab aversion to manual labor holds true but that there are also demands for productivity. In the 70s, I don't think the productivity demands were there. In 2020 the idea of getting the job done might include actual exercise. I don't think Dubai has the same problem with a princely class as Soddy Arabia. Those who've lived in the area can affirm or deny... |
Some observers do not believe Dubai can be a model for the rest of the Middle East.
| Because it's working? There's always a reason why it won't work somewhere else, isn't there? |
They doubt the extent to which United Arab Emirates nationals and other Arabs are participating in the high-tech economy. They wonder whether any other Arab country would allow in the number of foreigners tolerant Dubai has welcomed: Expatriates now outnumber nationals by 10-1.
| I have the same question about local participation. If they're just bystanders, they're screwed and in 50 years the place will be a backwater again. If they're picking up the skills they'll be okay... |
Both concerns are reasonable. As in the rest of the gulf, most United Arab Emirates nationals, financially secure in a generous welfare state, work for the government. The authorities want to change that and are offering private firms incentives to hire them, but foreigners grumble about their work habits, leading locals to complain of being stereotyped.
| Guess that answers my question: they're screwing themselves. |
There is little doubt, though, that nationals and Arab immigrants here are benefiting from the emirate’s focus on education and technology. Only 1 percent of the Arab world’s 280 million people use the Internet, compared with 60 percent of North Americans. In the United Arab Emirates, however, the figure is 31 percent, 20 percent of whom are broadband users, according to Madar Research Co. of Dubai.
| Depends on what they're actually doing on the internet. If they're hanging around jihadi chat rooms they're in trouble. If they're doing more productive things — including surfing porn — things'll turn out better. Habits of insularity and ignorance die hard, though... |
Opinions differ as to whether the economic success of Dubai can be replicated elsewhere in the Middle East. Delegations regularly troop through Internet City, and Egypt recently rolled out its own technology park, Smart Village, near Cairo. But no other Arab society seems to possess quite the same readiness to throw its doors open to outside influences, coupled with the flexibility to capitalize on them. "Dubai’s a complete anomaly, like Singapore or Hong Kong," said Peter J. Cooper, editor of AME Business Info, a journal of gulf commerce. "Port cities have always been more liberal." Others see signs that the Dubai mind-set is spreading. Several gulf states, including conservative Kuwait, have announced plans to build major beach resorts. All are discussing ways to diversify their oil-dependent economies. Bahrain, long a center for banking, is building a billion-dollar office complex to be a free zone for financial-services companies. "Dubai has a spillover effect," bin Sulaiman said. "If Dubai is doing something, all the neighboring countries want to do something."
| Kuwait picked up on the idea that oil is a finite resource a long time ago, and has been investing in other areas using their oil dollars. Dubai doesn't have the ocean of oil Soddy Arabia's sitting on, or even that Kuwait's sitting on. Both had incentives to make provisions for the future. The Soddies, with much greater resources, have no future. |
|