Dubai: Globalization on Steroids Essay

Promotions for Dubai on CNN, BBC World, and early(a) satellite channels show a shimmering view of glass and steel office towers with their graceful curves and hooked shapes, suggesting a distant galaxy where all the unpleasantness of urban life has been airbrushed away. But advertising around always offers more promise than reality, whether the product is potato chips or a city or a country. Seen through with(p ceriseicate) the lens of the alwaysyday, nonhing in this city is so light(a). Its elusive to come to terms with Dubai, because in that respect is confusion blush in the way it is described by the media. It is oft referred to as a Persian disjunction country (which it emphatically isnt), or a city-state (wrong again), or a Gulf emirate ( overly not accurate, because Dubai, the city, is only theatrical role of Dubai, the emirate, which is an integral part of the United Arab Emirates). But cardinal thing is clear during the three years Ive lived here, it has under gone the kind of duty period that a city might experience in one case in a lifetime.Each time I leave my apart workforcet block, I drive one-time(prenominal) shells of unfinished buildings with piles of sand and rubble spilling onto the sidewalks, and Im struck by another ridicule of Dubai that the more the city aspires to be the premier megalopolis of the twenty-first century, the more it resembles 1945 Dresden. The pace of harvesting has left umpteen residents wondering what the hurry is. Yet everyone seems to be in a rush. On Sheikh Zayed Road, the 12 lanes linking Dubai with Abu Dhabi, the UAE chapiter blow miles to the south, drivers barrel down the fast lanes at 90 miles an hour. Late on a Friday night, drivers vacillate in and out of the speeding traffic, which results in an terrific accident rate that leaves crushed fenders and tangles of gnarled coat piled along the roadsides.Has any place on domain grown as quickly or been alter so completely? Aerial photos fro m the early sixties show a dusty, ramshackle trading stakes tucked be-tween the Persian Gulf and the Creek, Dubais midland waterway and outlet to the sea. Ten years later(prenominal) it was beginning to take on the look of a prosperous city a decade after that it had metamorphosed so much as to be roughly unrecognizable. The one-runway airstrip had been replaced by an international airport, a set of office towers had grown up along the Creek, and residential tracts had spread crossways barren expanses of desert that stretched to the horizon.Dubai forthwith is often described as a violent West town, and the general economic opportunism lends both(prenominal) truth to the description. Driving the expansion is neither intrinsic resources nor old- globe industrialization but rather the gears of a 21st-century economybanking, technology, switch over and tourism, real distantming, and media outlets. The tycoons cutting art deals in hotel restaurants and on beach-club pati os ar representatives of this new military personnel(prenominal) economyTaiwanese bankers and Lebanese import/exporters, Russian oligarchs and Iranian property investors. But regular(a) Dubai is not immune from the vicissitudes of worldwide economicsthe September widely distributed financial crisis drained al virtually $6 gazillion from its financial markets. In spite of its rapid growth and the influence of globularization on Dubai, a modus operandi of the old city bear pipe down be found. Walk through the covered market on the Deira side of the Creek, past spice vendors exposeing their w atomic number 18s in 100-pound sacks and then go up winding, narrow lanes past the gold, silver, and fabric dealers from Pakistan and Iran and the Indian merchants who speak fluent Arabic, their roots in Dubai reaching back generations.From there it is only a short walk up to the Al-Hamadiya School, like a shot a museum, the first place to offer formal raising in Dubai. Exhaust-sp ewing water taxis however shuttle commuters across the Creek between the twisting streets of Deira and the traditional Bastakia quarter, planetary house to the pre-oil rulers palace, a covered market, and the site of a former fort. On the Deira side, ships unload pallets of cargo, near as they call for ever since Dubai served as a convenient pass over point for much of the trade that passed between India and Africa and the rest of the Arabian peninsula. In the neighbourhoods of Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim, quietly side streets lined with white houses topped with red tile roofs glisten in the afternoon sun, suggesting the smooth tranquillity of southern atomic number 20 when southern California was tranquil and placid. Early in the morning, Indonesian housemaids area driveways with dried palm branches, and South Asian labourers still use these primitive implements to clear the paths in the topical anesthetic anaesthetic parks. It is with child(p) to reconcile such moving p ictures with those more everydayly associated with Dubai.There is the Royal Mirage Hotel, whose silent, soaring hallways and courtyards permit been intentional in palatial Arabian splendour. Not off the beaten track(predicate) away is the Madinat Jumeirah, another hotel complex and an adjoining s jump arcade, where the tinkling union of the oud is pumped into the elevators and down the narrow, snaky corridors in an effort to re-create the sensual mysticism of the Arabian covered market. But here, too, like al just about everywhere in Dubai, the traditional clashes with the modern, and the uneasy shading is meant to serve consumerism at the Madinat Jumeirah, res-taurants and cafs surround counterfeit lakes, gift boutiques cater to upscale travellers, and live music echoes from the JamBase, one of Dubais hot spots. All of the volume has made Dubai trendy among the globetrotting business set and holidaymakers provoke in a taste of the Middle einsteiniumas long as it is temp ered with a hefty dose of Club Med but the ever-changing character of the city is not endorsed by everyone.Among so-called locals, or Emirati nationals, there is increasing fear that their assimilation will eventually succumb to Westernization and foreign influence. such(prenominal) apprehension is justified, for the demographics are not on their side. Emiratis now grudge for only 20 percent of the tribe (an official estimate, probably inflated) within 20 years, as more foreigners pour in from South Asia, the farther East, Russia, and Africa, the percentage is likely to fall to the sin-gle digits.But it is hard for locals to grumble too loudly when they have as well been seduced by the global consumer ethos. After midday pray-ers on a blazing Friday afternoon, they head for the blissfully simmer down shopping malls, as do Indian and Philippine families and British expatriates, to scoop up the latest in mobile phones and other electronic gadgets. Women display origin handbag s over their flowing black abayas but go blue jeans under them, and many young men complement their crinkly clean kandouras with a baseball game cap instead of the traditional white he shroud. go forth in the parking lot, families cram the backs of their Range Rovers and traverse Explorers with plastic shopping bags and a months groceries. The good life has created a sedentary life, and with it a sharp rise in obesity and diabetes.As though suddenly seeing the need to change direction, Dubai has begun making desperate attempts to preserve its past. In April 2007 the Dubai Municipality issued a ruling ordering the preservation of more than 2,000 buildings it considered having diachronic signifi netce in the United Arab Emirates. But the unsafe emergence all over the city makes this a fools errand. Glossy advertisements for unbuilt real estate tracts cover the arrivals hall at the airport, fill billboards beside the track entrance ramps, and push the news off the motion pages of the local news-papers. The inside pages promise more one full-page ad shows a Venetian gondolier, against a backdrop of faux Mediterranean chic, paddling along an imitation lavatoryal, past caf tables with Western and Asian patrons relaxing below palm trees. The most widely advertised development is now the L pastons, a name that, like the Greens, Springs, Lakes, and Meadows, belies the dried land it occupies.Indeed, image more than oil (little of which ever existed in Dubai anyway) is now the citys most valuable export. But what reality might that image exploit? The city was neer one of the big centres of Islamic learning or Arab culture, like capital of Egypt or Damascus. It has always been a centre for trade, a way station for commerce. Even today it boasts no impressive mosques shopping malls are the grandest edifices, and the best- subsistn universities are imported satellite campuses from the United States, England, and Australia. So with no great cultural bequest to celebrate, Dubai has embraced the culture of celebrity. pass away February, Tiger Woods was erst again taking in the Dubai Desert Classic, and Roger Federer tried (unsuccessfully) to defend his gentle in the Dubai Tennis Championships. A year ago George Clooney promoted his movie Michael Clayton at the Dubai International Film Festival, and brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been spotted frolicking with their children on the beach of the Burj Al Arab, the sail-shaped hotel that is the citys current signature landmark.Dubai is often described as an Arabian Disneyland, and the characterization is not wide of the mark. Tourists, residents, and celebrities (including Michael Jackson and Rafael Nadal) have slid down the foam cascades at the Wild Wadi water park. crossways Sheikh Zayed Road, the enclosure for the indoor ski lurch at the Mall of the Emirates angles into the sky like a giant airplane hangar tipped on end, glowing with a streak of lurid saturation at nightfall. To ac commodate the 15 million tourists a year that the city is planning to host by 2010, another resort complex of 30 hotels and 100 cinemas was sketched out on the city planners boards, but as a sign that even Dubais aspirations have been tempered, the project has been put on hold. Not, however, the Mall of Arabia, which promises to surpass the West Edmonton Mall as the worlds largest shopping and entertainment complex.The most impressive feature of Dubai isnt the George Jetson architecture, or even the Burj Dubai, destined to be the tallest building in the world when completed, but the fact that people who would normally be at each others throats in their home countriesIndians and Pakistanis, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Serbs and Bosnians, Ethiopians and Eritreansmanage to live and work together in remarkable harmony. This is also part of the legacy of Dubai, that for generations it has served as a crossroads of cultures and a transit point for people as well as goods, and so it evolved into a tolerant neutral lieu where the petty feuds of other parts of the world have no place. The downside of this polyglot society is a d reason of the shared concerns that can form a companionable consciousness and hold a society together.I dont want Hezbollah outpouring my country, the Lebanese receptionist at a medical clinic says when I look her thoughts on the fallout of the Israel-Lebanon war. That issue is a nonstarter for the Asian staff who share her office. She was a beautiful, beautiful woman the Pakistani security take outside my apartment building croons, two geezerhood after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who spent part of her governmental exile in Dubai. Being so far from the caf tables of Lahore or Karachi, it is probably the first chance hes had to pour out praise for the democrat leader. Dubai is just a short airplane hop from the crises in Sudan, Iraq, and Palestine, but in an odd irony, this global city remains blissfully alienated from the press ure level global issues that surround it. Car bombings in capital of Iraq and street battles in Gaza seem to exist in some parallel universe far from Dubais beach clubs and poolside barbecues.If talk radio is a barometer of popular sentiment, Dubai lacks social angst, or even concern about the worlds troubles. On Property Week, callers craft tips on the latest real estate investments. On another show, listeners offer advice on ways to slaughter time in traffic and compare the brunch buffets and weekend getaway packages offered by five-star hotel chains. One plan is devoted to nuanced analysis of rugby, soccer, and cricket matches for United farming and subcontinent expatriates. When the local English daily celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary, readers praised the paper for its coverage of business, sports, and entertainment, but there was no han-k-ering for more articles on inter-national current events, some fright-ening-ly attached to home. Life in Dubai is not all eccent ric indulgence, however, for vice has arrived as an inseparable part of the global village. Dubais crime rate, still menial by Western standards, has risen to a level that would have been unknown a generation ago.Street crimes are still rare but drug seizures are not, and black markets in consumer goods have sprung up. (In a illusion that Butch Cassidy would have envied, a gang of thieves set two stolen cars through an entrance of the upscale Wafi metropolis Mall, smashed a jewellery store display window, and made off with the goods.) Where economic adventurism thrives, so does the worlds oldest profession. Prostitutes from China, the Philippines, Russia, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet republics lollygag near hotel entrances, hoping to snag returning guests. To its credit, Dubai can be called a true microcosm, but its hard to believe that a coherent society can be composed of guest workers who have migrated solo for lucrative jobs and have no longterm stake in the citys future.Beneath the veneer of harmony is the disturbing sense that everyone knows his or her place. Class asserts itself in an unsavoury caste system where national and ethnic identity determines whether one is offered employment or a lease for an apartment. The citys reputation as a haven of safety and security in a troublesome part of the world is upheld by affirming an old world order left by the colonial power Dubai would like to believe it has go beyond. Social equality is a noble apotheosis promoted by the government but flouted in practice, proving once again that the democratic society is still a modern notion, at war with the more widespread tendency of human beings to create a hierarchy. A landlord whitethorn refuse to rent apartments to bachelors, the code discussion for men from the Asian subcontinent working in Dubai who may be supporting wives and children back home.The term would never apply to an unmarried German electrical devise or a Canadian English teacher. 8 years, a taxi driver replies when I ask how long he has been plying the roads of Dubai, and I know this means 12 hours a day, six geezerhood a week. On Friday afternoons he probably goes to the nestled Western Union office, like hundreds of others, to wire bullion back to his family in Mumbai or Peshawar. Class asserts itself also in the division between servers and the served. I still feel a little awkward when supermarket clerks address me formally and the deliveryman from Pizza Hut (Ahmad, jibe to his name tag) is overly grateful for a modest tip.But I remind myself that since Dubai is not a democracy and few of its residents come from democratic countries, there is no way its society could resemble one. If person had to pinpoint one spot on earth that epitomizes the most unsavoury aspects of globalization, Dubai could be Exhibit A. It is a place where the whims of a consumerist society overwhelm a simple native Bedouin culture, the predilections of the affluent obliterate local climate and ecology, and the divide between rich and execrable is unapologetically laid bare.Discussion pointsRead the above account of Dubai and discuss the following questions in groups 1. To what extent can the Dubai story be regarded as the epitome of globalisation? Explain your answer. 2. In what ways can Dubai be regarded as vulnerable? 3. What negative aspects of the Dubai story can you identify? 4. How might these negative aspects be apologise?