| October 29, 2008 | Wednesday | Shawwal 29, 1429 |
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The high cost of monuments to excess
LAST week an unusual item of news grabbed my attention. “Rare shark makes waves in Dubai,” said the headline in The Washington Post. I was sufficiently intrigued to read on.
Having spent nearly a decade in the Gulf city-state, I was well aware that sharks are hardly a rarity there. However, it turned out that the report concerned an animal of the marine variety: a polka-dotted whale shark, which happens to be an internationally protected species, that had been confined in an aquarium linked to the $1.5bn Atlantis Hotel.
The report said that anyone willing to pay $7,500 a night for the glass-walled Poseidon or Neptune suite could keep an eye on the female shark and her smaller companions. It took note of a campaign among residents, spearheaded by the Gulf News, to liberate Sammy the Shark, but reminded readers that the hotel’s main owner, South African entrepreneur Sol Kerzner, had “withstood tougher protests”: he was the man behind the apartheid-era Sun City entertainment resort in his native country that inspired an international boycott campaign.
The Post’s Ellen Knickmeyer also pointed out in passing that concern about Sammy’s fate was something of an anomaly: “Developers are generally the unchallenged heroes of Dubai’s $1tr-plus building boom. There was no outcry last year, for example, when authorities deported hundreds of predominantly South Asian construction workers — legally entitled to neither a minimum wage nor the right to strike — for staging a protest for better pay. But the fate of the freckled grey shark has caught public attention, suggesting that even Dubai’s culture of developer-driven excess has its limits.”
There is inevitably a degree of irony in the fact that, for some, a shark has offered a pointer to the limits of excess. However, animal passions of a rather different variety have also played a significant role lately in highlighting Dubai’s contradictions and anomalies. The city attracted media attention on the other side of the Atlantic when a couple of thirty-something Britons were charged with having sex in a public place — Jumeirah Beach — and sentenced some weeks ago to three months in jail, to be followed by deportation.
It isn’t necessary to delve into the details of their amorous encounter to conclude that this was a somewhat extreme instance of cultural insensitivity. You don’t have to be in an ostensibly Islamic country to be hauled up for going too far, and that includes fits of pre-coital passion; in many countries this would entail a reprimand and a fine of some sort, whereas in others it could lead to consequences considerably more dire than a three-month prison term.
The incident does, however, highlight one of Dubai’s dilemmas: its cosmopolitan aspirations often clash with its geographical placement.
Dubai’s reputation among expatriates as one of the more socially liberal outposts in the Middle East is by no means misplaced. Alcohol, pork and opportunities for illicit sex have long been readily available, as long as you can afford to pay for them. The first two at least are supposedly restricted to non-Muslims, but no one asks any questions: hotel bars are commonly frequented by men in dishdashas, including innumerable visitors from far more restrictive neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia. On the streets and at beaches, you are likely to encounter everything from burqas to string bikinis.
Coexistence between cultural extremes ought to be regarded as a plus point, of course, but not at the cost of ignoring the thick layer of hypocrisy that underlies it. I recall, for instance, turning up at work one day — this was nearly two decades ago — only to be informed that we could all go home: the newspaper I worked for, as well as its chief English-language rival, would not be published the following day. Why? Well, they had both made the grievous mistake of carrying an advertisement from a local five-star hotel that depicted a wine bottle.
It was all right for such hotels to host events celebrating the arrival of the latest batch of Beaujolais, but too-obvious publicity was forbidden. By the same token, champagne could only ever be referred to in print as ‘bubbly’. Almost every department store catering to western expatriates featured a Santa Claus during Christmas, but the piously white-bearded chap, too, acquired a euphemistic nomenclature in published accounts, and even the time of year could only be described as ‘the festive season’.
Double standards of this nature always struck me as bizarre, not least because they could not seriously have been expected to fool anyone. But these were little white lies compared with the biggest outrage of all: the stupendous disparities between those at the top of the heap — the local sheikhs and their western partners or executive employees — and those on society’s bottom rung: the predominantly South Asian construction workers who poured their sweat (and sometimes their blood as well) into the kitsch architectural projects intended to advance the reputation of the Dubai brand name.
Not much has changed in the intervening years. If anything, the craziness in this sphere has intensified. Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is evidently obsessed with being number one in as many respects as possible. Long ago he made it into The Guinness Book of World Records as the groom in the world’s most expensive wedding. He now seems determined to score several more entries: the world’s tallest tower, biggest shopping mall and largest theme park are all on the cards. Apparently he doesn’t give a toss if, in the process, Dubai also acquires the tag of the world’s most inequitable society.
The mainly Indian and Pakistani workers deported last year had gone on a rampage in 2006, when they ran out of patience while working on the tallest tower, and then had the audacity to go on strike. In a city that boasts the world’s largest concentration of cranes, construction workers are the biggest segment of the population. They are housed in decrepit hovels located far away from the luxury hotels. They earn a pittance for 10-hour (or longer) workdays in searing heat, and all too often don’t get paid for months.
The argument that they are responsible for their own plight because they opt for Dubai in view of even lowlier prospects back home doesn’t hold much water: particularly egregious capitalist exploitation can hardly be justified on the grounds that it victimises the vulnerable.
The wealth of the domain that is a second home to so many Pakistani politicians would be considerably less unacceptable were it more equitably shared. As things stand, in a city-state whose 21st-century slavery (complemented by a variant of apartheid) probably qualifies for a Guinness record, Sammy may well be the least harmful shark around. At least it does not feed upon human souls.
The writer is a journalist based in Sydney.
mahir.worldview@gmail.com
