Cheetah786
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DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Ive been coming here for nearly 40 years, when diving for pearls in the Persian Gulf and smuggling boatloads of gold and other banned goods into India and Pakistan constituted the chief economic activities.
In Doha, the capital of neighbouring Qatar, I was once driven 15 kilometres into the desert at dusk to sit on sand and watch a bad Indian movie the illicit activity necessitated by the local ban on theatres.
The region has had a miraculous transformation
since, especially since the transfer of nearly $2 trillion from the West in oil revenues to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. More than half that money has been invested in the region.
This is a by-product of the United States and Europe shunning Arabs post-9/11. If they were not welcome in the West, they were very much so in the East.
The Gulf Arabs no longer wallow in Arab nationalism. For them, commerce is king, their bazaars open to foreign investors and foreign tourists.
They spend lavishly on golf courses in the desert, gold-plated auto, horse and camel races, or soccer teams. But they also build universities and research labs and think-tanks, organize book fairs and cultural festivals, digitize rare books and documents, start media outlets and organize regional conferences that tackle taboo topics.
The centre of gravity of the Arab world has clearly shifted from Egypt, Syria and Jordan to the Gulf. UAE and Qatar, in particular, are wielding geopolitical soft power and have become key players, along with Turkey and Iran, in the emerging new Middle East, which itself is part of the new post-Western world order.
THERE HAS BEEN the Dubai miracle, the attempt at creating an Arab Singapore crossed with Las Vegas a tourist, trade and financial centre, free of federal subsidies from oil-rich Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE and also the banker to the other six emirates that constitute this loose federation.
There have been trophy projects galore the worlds tallest building, the most expensive hotel, the largest shopping mall, the farthest-leaning tower (at 18 degrees, four times the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa).
In recent years, I irritated friends and officials alike by asking as to when the bubble was going to burst. (It did during the worldwide economic meltdown.)
They were even less receptive to the suggestion that many new buildings were ugly and kitschy. It was as if foreign architects were concretizing parodies of Arab fantasies (plastic palm trees, fake gold trimmings in bathrooms, etc.) only to discover that the Arabs were, in fact, loving it.
Lately, however, I have had to revise my thinking. It turns out that there is life after debt.
Abu Dhabi, boasting the worlds largest sovereign fund, dropped $20 billion to let Dubai restructure its $100 billion debt.
The days of wild spending may be over but the new normal here is well above ours.
Saudi Arabia is spending $400 billion on infrastructure.
Abu Dhabi is building a cultural oasis on an island. It will have a Desert Louvre, the first international outpost of the famed French museum. It will also have a Guggenheim branch, designed by Frank Gehry and larger than his titanium-clad Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain.
Dubais Emirates Airline has become one of the most profitable carriers. It provides convenient connections all across the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Staff is multinational and multilingual. Flight attendants do not avoid eye contact with passengers.
Emirates flies to Toronto thrice a week, full. It wants a daily flight here and also service to Calgary and Vancouver. Rather than stalling, Ottawa should approve the request. It will be good for Canadian travellers and businesses.
QATAR PUT ITSELF on the map by hosting the Doha round of trade talks and starting Al Jazeera, the TV network that George W. Bush wished to bomb for reporting too much from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, regales friends with the story of how on a visit to Washington, he was greeted by Dick Cheney with complaints about Al Jazeera. The sheik handed the phone number of the networks general manager and suggested that the vice-president call him directly.
The network has cultivated audiences in more than 100 countries and won distribution rights to broadcast the World Cup of soccer across the soccer-mad Middle East. It is also helping Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup.
NOT EVERYTHING is rosy. Finances are opaque. Theres crony capitalism. Asian guest workers are exploited. The rule of law is elastic.
Yet the Gulf rulers have launched their nations into modernity, almost overnight.
They have also learnt to navigate between their security reliance on the U.S. and their anti-American populations. UAE provides Camp Mirage, used as a transit point by Canadian troops to Afghanistan. Qatar has the most important American military base in the region. Bahrain hosts one of the largest American naval bases.
One more thing:
Whereas the old Arab elite used to be so pro-Western that they were contemptuous of their own people, the Gulf Arab exhibits little of that inferiority complex. He is confident of his Islamic and Arab identity.
Middle class religiosity is no longer an impediment to modernity or womens rights.
Sheikha Mozah, wife of the ruler of Qatar, runs Qatar Foundation, which holds the Doha Debates, televised on the BBC, and helps the Qatar campuses of Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown and Northwestern universities.
She and Sheikha Lubna Al Qassimi, UAEs minister of the economy, are listed among Forbes magazines 100 most powerful women in the world.
hsiddiqui@thestar.ca
Siddiqui: Gulf states learn to wield soft power - thestar.com
Ive been coming here for nearly 40 years, when diving for pearls in the Persian Gulf and smuggling boatloads of gold and other banned goods into India and Pakistan constituted the chief economic activities.
In Doha, the capital of neighbouring Qatar, I was once driven 15 kilometres into the desert at dusk to sit on sand and watch a bad Indian movie the illicit activity necessitated by the local ban on theatres.
The region has had a miraculous transformation
since, especially since the transfer of nearly $2 trillion from the West in oil revenues to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. More than half that money has been invested in the region.
This is a by-product of the United States and Europe shunning Arabs post-9/11. If they were not welcome in the West, they were very much so in the East.
The Gulf Arabs no longer wallow in Arab nationalism. For them, commerce is king, their bazaars open to foreign investors and foreign tourists.
They spend lavishly on golf courses in the desert, gold-plated auto, horse and camel races, or soccer teams. But they also build universities and research labs and think-tanks, organize book fairs and cultural festivals, digitize rare books and documents, start media outlets and organize regional conferences that tackle taboo topics.
The centre of gravity of the Arab world has clearly shifted from Egypt, Syria and Jordan to the Gulf. UAE and Qatar, in particular, are wielding geopolitical soft power and have become key players, along with Turkey and Iran, in the emerging new Middle East, which itself is part of the new post-Western world order.
THERE HAS BEEN the Dubai miracle, the attempt at creating an Arab Singapore crossed with Las Vegas a tourist, trade and financial centre, free of federal subsidies from oil-rich Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAE and also the banker to the other six emirates that constitute this loose federation.
There have been trophy projects galore the worlds tallest building, the most expensive hotel, the largest shopping mall, the farthest-leaning tower (at 18 degrees, four times the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa).
In recent years, I irritated friends and officials alike by asking as to when the bubble was going to burst. (It did during the worldwide economic meltdown.)
They were even less receptive to the suggestion that many new buildings were ugly and kitschy. It was as if foreign architects were concretizing parodies of Arab fantasies (plastic palm trees, fake gold trimmings in bathrooms, etc.) only to discover that the Arabs were, in fact, loving it.
Lately, however, I have had to revise my thinking. It turns out that there is life after debt.
Abu Dhabi, boasting the worlds largest sovereign fund, dropped $20 billion to let Dubai restructure its $100 billion debt.
The days of wild spending may be over but the new normal here is well above ours.
Saudi Arabia is spending $400 billion on infrastructure.
Abu Dhabi is building a cultural oasis on an island. It will have a Desert Louvre, the first international outpost of the famed French museum. It will also have a Guggenheim branch, designed by Frank Gehry and larger than his titanium-clad Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain.
Dubais Emirates Airline has become one of the most profitable carriers. It provides convenient connections all across the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Staff is multinational and multilingual. Flight attendants do not avoid eye contact with passengers.
Emirates flies to Toronto thrice a week, full. It wants a daily flight here and also service to Calgary and Vancouver. Rather than stalling, Ottawa should approve the request. It will be good for Canadian travellers and businesses.
QATAR PUT ITSELF on the map by hosting the Doha round of trade talks and starting Al Jazeera, the TV network that George W. Bush wished to bomb for reporting too much from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, regales friends with the story of how on a visit to Washington, he was greeted by Dick Cheney with complaints about Al Jazeera. The sheik handed the phone number of the networks general manager and suggested that the vice-president call him directly.
The network has cultivated audiences in more than 100 countries and won distribution rights to broadcast the World Cup of soccer across the soccer-mad Middle East. It is also helping Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup.
NOT EVERYTHING is rosy. Finances are opaque. Theres crony capitalism. Asian guest workers are exploited. The rule of law is elastic.
Yet the Gulf rulers have launched their nations into modernity, almost overnight.
They have also learnt to navigate between their security reliance on the U.S. and their anti-American populations. UAE provides Camp Mirage, used as a transit point by Canadian troops to Afghanistan. Qatar has the most important American military base in the region. Bahrain hosts one of the largest American naval bases.
One more thing:
Whereas the old Arab elite used to be so pro-Western that they were contemptuous of their own people, the Gulf Arab exhibits little of that inferiority complex. He is confident of his Islamic and Arab identity.
Middle class religiosity is no longer an impediment to modernity or womens rights.
Sheikha Mozah, wife of the ruler of Qatar, runs Qatar Foundation, which holds the Doha Debates, televised on the BBC, and helps the Qatar campuses of Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown and Northwestern universities.
She and Sheikha Lubna Al Qassimi, UAEs minister of the economy, are listed among Forbes magazines 100 most powerful women in the world.
hsiddiqui@thestar.ca
Siddiqui: Gulf states learn to wield soft power - thestar.com
