Denial in Dubai
The financial turmoil in Dubai this week provides yet more motivation for Globophobe to post. We first went to the emirate exactly eight years ago to work on a conference organized by the office of the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The Dubai Strategy Forum was meant to be an opportunity for the local business community to listen to and learn from top global strategists and thinkers such as John Naisbitt, John Gage, Paul Kennnedy, John Kao, and Dani Rodrik. The event went well and the participants seemed energized by the sessions which covered topics including high-tech innovation, entrepreneurship, culture and values in a globalized world, and the global economy.
In 2001, Dubai was not yet the vast construction site that it is today. Globophobe was in Dubai last week just as the current turmoil was brewing. Looking out the window of a high-rise apartment, a friend remarked that it is impossible to view the city skyline and not see a cluster of buildings under construction. Another friend who lives in Dubai noted that not all the construction sites were active, as a number of projects have been halted due to the economic crisis. Indeed, Dubai today is like a movie set - a lot of lights and fancy scenery for the eye to take in, but behind the facade, the reality is somewhat different. The revelations about the debts of Dubai World belie the image of Dubai as this dynamic can-do city that is building its way to global greatness.
Globophobe is no Gulf region expert - and neither are we intimate with all the details about Dubai's history and development. But as the news broke about Dubai's debt woes, we recalled our thoughts eight years ago on first becoming acquainted with the emirate:
First, it struck us then that the business community seemed enthralled by Sheikh Mohammed, the ruling family and his courtiers. Because sessions at the conference in which the Sheikh would be present could not start until he arrived, panel discussions ran late. To a man, everybody dutifully stood up as soon as the Sheikh entered the room and did not sit down until he had sat down. Practically every speaker from Dubai made reference to the munificence of the Sheikh, thanking him for giving the business community the opportunity to learn from the great global thinkers.
Second, the centrality of Sheikh Mohammed in the consciousness of the Dubai business community, it seemed to us, was accompanied by an overwhelming focus on state leadership. Many of those who posed questions to the speakers would ask what the government could or should do - how can the government promote entrepreneurship? how can the government stimulate creativity and innovation? how can the government turn Dubai into a global city? The idea that government was the source of all the solutions was so often repeated that Globophobe, when asked by a local resident what we thought about the conference, this was the first comment we made: that it seemed to us that the Dubai business sector relied too much on guidance from the state.
Third, several times during the conference discussions, Singapore was mentioned as a model for Dubai to follow. Few if any talked of Hong Kong as an economy to emulate. This only underscored for us how the government was the dominant player in Dubai and how the business community took all its cues from the state and looked to the state to lead it to the promised land of global city status. The businesspeople seemed to think that it was up to the government to lead the way even when it came to promoting entrepreneurship.
Finally, Dubai was already looking somewhat unreal to us. We stayed briefly at the Emirates Towers hotel, part of a twin-tower development that was home to the Sheikh's office. It seemed odd to have such a glass-encased skyscraper - kept ultra cool by airconditioning - in such a hot, sunny place, a desert. Many of the hotel staff were not in fact from Dubai but were Filipinos or South Asian. To us, it all seemed illogical: a city of immense wealth where the ruling family is at the core of everything, the locals are far too rich to be willing to do even middle-level service jobs, and even the highly educated business class looked to the government for instruction. On top of all this, a glass-and-steel fantasy film set was under construction.
Globophobe recalls telling a local Dubai associate that this all seemed unsustainable. Dubai should be emulating Hong Kong, not Singapore. In the globalization age, Singapore's state-centric model is untenable. Singapore's leaders know that and have been trying to lessen government intervention. Old habits die hard and the Singaporean government remains at the core of the city's commerce and the consciousness of its business community and the population in general. It will take a generation to change the mindsets of its people and policymakers.
The statist gene is similarly in Dubai's DNA and it will take a long time to switch it off. Meanwhile, the denial continues. Now, Globophobe is all for benevolent authoritarianism so long as it produces results for the people and gradually introduces democratic reforms. But from what we hear, Dubai makes Singapore look like Hong Kong when it comes to the dominance of the state and the state's domineering attitude towards its people. And there remains this troubling sense among the local population that they possess a status in everyday life above that of visitors and foreign residents. Globophobe has seen local people in Dubai and elsewhere in the Gulf cut queues without so much as a nod to the simple folk they have left in their wake. Any traveller arriving at an Gulf airport on an airline from the region has seen the luggage (often rather considerable in bulk and number) of some "privileged" passenger roll on to the carousel ahead of everybody else's. Globophobe is all for VIP treatment, but it is disconcerting to see primus-inter-pares treatment for regular people solely because of their ethnicity.
In Dubai, the public reverence for the rulers continues. At the conference that we were attending last week, when Sheikh Mohammed appeared, all were upstanding. The Sheikh and his retinue, of course, sat on special armchairs in the front row. Dubai's ruler was accompanied by his son, Sheikh Hamdan, the 27-year-old crown prince, who was introduced as an accomplished equestrian and poet. He apparently has a passion for fast - and expensive - cars including Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. As we watched the young prince speak while the grandees of the Dubai business community hung on his every word, we wondered whether Dubai - or any such fiefdom - can make it in the age of globalization, the age of the Internet, if it remains so much in the thrall of one family and a ruling elite - emperors who turned out to have no clothes.
In 2001, Dubai was not yet the vast construction site that it is today. Globophobe was in Dubai last week just as the current turmoil was brewing. Looking out the window of a high-rise apartment, a friend remarked that it is impossible to view the city skyline and not see a cluster of buildings under construction. Another friend who lives in Dubai noted that not all the construction sites were active, as a number of projects have been halted due to the economic crisis. Indeed, Dubai today is like a movie set - a lot of lights and fancy scenery for the eye to take in, but behind the facade, the reality is somewhat different. The revelations about the debts of Dubai World belie the image of Dubai as this dynamic can-do city that is building its way to global greatness.
Globophobe is no Gulf region expert - and neither are we intimate with all the details about Dubai's history and development. But as the news broke about Dubai's debt woes, we recalled our thoughts eight years ago on first becoming acquainted with the emirate:
First, it struck us then that the business community seemed enthralled by Sheikh Mohammed, the ruling family and his courtiers. Because sessions at the conference in which the Sheikh would be present could not start until he arrived, panel discussions ran late. To a man, everybody dutifully stood up as soon as the Sheikh entered the room and did not sit down until he had sat down. Practically every speaker from Dubai made reference to the munificence of the Sheikh, thanking him for giving the business community the opportunity to learn from the great global thinkers.
Second, the centrality of Sheikh Mohammed in the consciousness of the Dubai business community, it seemed to us, was accompanied by an overwhelming focus on state leadership. Many of those who posed questions to the speakers would ask what the government could or should do - how can the government promote entrepreneurship? how can the government stimulate creativity and innovation? how can the government turn Dubai into a global city? The idea that government was the source of all the solutions was so often repeated that Globophobe, when asked by a local resident what we thought about the conference, this was the first comment we made: that it seemed to us that the Dubai business sector relied too much on guidance from the state.
Third, several times during the conference discussions, Singapore was mentioned as a model for Dubai to follow. Few if any talked of Hong Kong as an economy to emulate. This only underscored for us how the government was the dominant player in Dubai and how the business community took all its cues from the state and looked to the state to lead it to the promised land of global city status. The businesspeople seemed to think that it was up to the government to lead the way even when it came to promoting entrepreneurship.
Finally, Dubai was already looking somewhat unreal to us. We stayed briefly at the Emirates Towers hotel, part of a twin-tower development that was home to the Sheikh's office. It seemed odd to have such a glass-encased skyscraper - kept ultra cool by airconditioning - in such a hot, sunny place, a desert. Many of the hotel staff were not in fact from Dubai but were Filipinos or South Asian. To us, it all seemed illogical: a city of immense wealth where the ruling family is at the core of everything, the locals are far too rich to be willing to do even middle-level service jobs, and even the highly educated business class looked to the government for instruction. On top of all this, a glass-and-steel fantasy film set was under construction.
Globophobe recalls telling a local Dubai associate that this all seemed unsustainable. Dubai should be emulating Hong Kong, not Singapore. In the globalization age, Singapore's state-centric model is untenable. Singapore's leaders know that and have been trying to lessen government intervention. Old habits die hard and the Singaporean government remains at the core of the city's commerce and the consciousness of its business community and the population in general. It will take a generation to change the mindsets of its people and policymakers.
The statist gene is similarly in Dubai's DNA and it will take a long time to switch it off. Meanwhile, the denial continues. Now, Globophobe is all for benevolent authoritarianism so long as it produces results for the people and gradually introduces democratic reforms. But from what we hear, Dubai makes Singapore look like Hong Kong when it comes to the dominance of the state and the state's domineering attitude towards its people. And there remains this troubling sense among the local population that they possess a status in everyday life above that of visitors and foreign residents. Globophobe has seen local people in Dubai and elsewhere in the Gulf cut queues without so much as a nod to the simple folk they have left in their wake. Any traveller arriving at an Gulf airport on an airline from the region has seen the luggage (often rather considerable in bulk and number) of some "privileged" passenger roll on to the carousel ahead of everybody else's. Globophobe is all for VIP treatment, but it is disconcerting to see primus-inter-pares treatment for regular people solely because of their ethnicity.
In Dubai, the public reverence for the rulers continues. At the conference that we were attending last week, when Sheikh Mohammed appeared, all were upstanding. The Sheikh and his retinue, of course, sat on special armchairs in the front row. Dubai's ruler was accompanied by his son, Sheikh Hamdan, the 27-year-old crown prince, who was introduced as an accomplished equestrian and poet. He apparently has a passion for fast - and expensive - cars including Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. As we watched the young prince speak while the grandees of the Dubai business community hung on his every word, we wondered whether Dubai - or any such fiefdom - can make it in the age of globalization, the age of the Internet, if it remains so much in the thrall of one family and a ruling elite - emperors who turned out to have no clothes.
Labels: debt, Dubai, Dubai World, elite, government
posted by globophobe at 28.11.09
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