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Op/Ed: In Dubai, the Party's Far From Over
In the middle of the media frenzy over Dubai’s current economic implosion, it’s easy to forget what it was in the first place that made Dubai the media darling of the west, and a tourist and working destination for much of the world. It is the same reason why Dubai will likely bounce back, though perhaps not to the dizzying heights of the Burj Dubai (sorry, Burj Khalifa) in spite of the glee with which some British journalists attribute to it the fate of Ozymandias.
The reason is Dubai’s unbridled consumer culture and social openness, unparalleled in the Arabian Gulf – though Abu Dhabi and Qatar are making a hard push to be more refined versions of Dubai. In the recent past Dubai has made international headlines for jailing people for having trace amounts of marijuana on their shoes, for having sex on the beach, flashing the middle finger to road-raged Emiratis, and, most recently, for kissing in a restaurant and even more disturbingly for reporting being raped. But even so, no other place in the region is as tolerant of the seemingly poorly behaved Britons as Dubai is.
So long as expatriates are employed (and in spite of the dire media reporting, most people who were employed before the bust are still employed) they will stay, and the dream is still there for expatriate wannabes looking to relocate.
What Dubai crafted for itself over the past two decades was a sort of utopian vision of economic and social freedoms, where foreign workers gladly trade away political rights in search of the good life. Over 90% of Dubai’s population is composed of expatriates, who are by definition short-term, even if they end up being long-term residents. Dubai caters to them and placates them through a kind of “immediate gratification culture” – the clubs, spas, hotels, liquor, prostitutes, malls, and so on.
This is a path the rulers purposefully took two decades ago to create wealth, as, unlike their immediate neighbours, they knew they could not rely on oil to make them wealthy. This consumer culture, which has been for the most part fawningly written about by western journalists over the past few years, fuelled Dubai’s fame, which in turn helped to create its fortune.
What Dubai has come to be is the result of an influx of an army of temporary workers, whose lives are regulated by the system of short-term visas that are sponsored by their employers, essentially bonding these workers to their employers. This worked well enough while the economy boomed – people came in droves from all walks of life to perform all manner of work to live their personal version of the Dubai dream.
While the dream soured for many, especially for construction workers and housemaids, for others Dubai was as promised. Since the bulk of immigrants came as self-conscious economic mercenaries, the limitations of the short-term visa regime were an acceptable trade-off.
In the current recession, the shortcomings of this system were duly exposed. Because an expatriate’s visa is tied to being employed, workers who were laid off had to leave. As a result of the falling job market, analysts predicted Dubai’s population would decrease by as much as 17%.
While things are economically bleak now, and look to continue to be for some time, eventually the economy will recover, and more and more expatriates will come. For western expatriates, Dubai is a place for short-term financial and professional gain, tax-free at that, and a place to try out a different lifestyle. It is an extended holiday in a foreign but not-so-different locale, where they can also draw an income well in excess of what they received back home. And they can, drink and cavort to their heart’s desire. (It is not by accident that the young, single western professionals are in Dubai and not in puritanical Saudi Arabia.)
For Asian and Arab expatriate middle-class workers and their families, being in Dubai is also generally a step up from where they came from, in the sense of economic opportunities and lifestyle. Their incomes are far greater and their standard of living easier and better in Dubai than at home.
Even for the working class, Dubai broadly represents a promise of upward mobility – not in Dubai itself necessarily, but at home. While their existence in Dubai may have the look of bondage, and may legally amount to bondage, the riches they accrue will be more valuable back in their third world homes.
So even with the curtailing of civil rights, western expatriates will still be clamouring to go to Dubai. And given that Emiratis are either not willing or able to do the jobs that expatriates at all levels do, the demand for expatriates looks likely to be there for many years to come.
Syed Ali
guardian.co.uk