I visited Dubai for one week in October 2024. I joined my dad, who was working as an engineer with Emirates Airlines. My dad has been here on and off for maybe 20% of the past year or two. I came here because I wanted to understand the material, historical, and cultural conditions under which the United Arab Emirates became the richest country in Western Asia, such that it currently has a per-capita GDP exceeding that of the United States of America. America has money because of theft, and I wanted to know what accounts for the UAE’s position, besides oil. I also wanted to investigate what to make of the fact that 60% of the people are south asian – ~40% Indian, 10% Pakistani, and 10% Bangladeshi.
Dubai is an odd place. It is a place where Arabic is the official language, but maybe only 20% of the population speaks Arabic. It is a place where Islam is the official religion, but maybe only 30-40% of the people are muslim. It is the richest part of a country called the “United Arab Emirates” but, as of 2024, only 10% of the population is Emirati Arab.
Arguably, the official language and religion are both actually money.
Overall, I found it absolutely worth seeing at this particular time in history, but I probably will not come back here. Money permitting, I do recommend that people visit this place once because the early 21st century is such an interesting time in the history of this part of Western Asia.
History
Many of my thoughts were formed while visiting the Etihad Museum . As an aside, Etihad means “unity” in Arabic.
One part that really struck me while visiting the museum was a video that was playing interviewing many government officials who are close to the royal families and lived through the 1971 independence. One official (who may have been a minister of education, if I recall correctly) literally said that within a mere 30 years, the UAE catapulted itself from the 16th century to the 21st century. That is wild, especially when coming from someone who wasn’t a colonial apologist. That really contextualized the gilded nature of 2024 Dubai. Yes it might be gauche and “a bit much,” but the Emirati Arabs have had centuries of very challenging times in a desert without catching many breaks. If the oil is one of the few “natural blessings” they have had in a long time, I say let the Emiratis enjoy it while it lasts.
It seems that Sheikh Sayed Ibn Sultan Al Nahyan was a rather forward thinking ruler who was deeply concerned with emirati unity and using the oil money to set up the UAE for the next 500 years by investing as heavily as possible in literacy, roads, electrification, etc. I respect that, especially given that oil money alone is no guarantee of material prosperity.
There really is something to respect in the cold calculation by the Emiratis to take every possible step to make every material comfort the world has to offer accessible, atleast to some Emiratis, when an alternative absolutely was those material comforts being out of reach of all emiratis. They are certainly an open people; Americans would absolutely be doing pogroms every Tuesday if the majority of people in the country were not white, and no one can convince me otherwise. As far as I can tell, the wealth of the emiratis was not stolen and is not the result of genocide, theft, or ethnic cleansing. There is something to respect about that, as it is more than can be said for America, or Europe. The wealth does not seem to be the result of previous Arab empires which were largely defunct by the 17th century. At some point I will look more deeply into the history of 7th century – 17th century caliphates and the golden age of islam, but that does not seem to be very relevant for understanding the UAE today.
As an aside, I liked how many of the streets were named after some of the great arabs such as Ibn Sina and Khaled Ibn al Walid. I feel like with the right person, one could drive around and get excellent history lessons about where the street names come from. Maybe another day.
Personally, I was not a huge fan of the Burj Khalifa because I despise capitalism too much for any to impress me. But I do appreciate the fact that Western Asia needs atleast one place with the best material goods the world has to offer, be them Japanese, Chinese, French, Indian, German, American, etc. If we are being honest, there is every reason for a Dubai-like place to exist in the larger, richer, more powerful Iran, and the fact that there isn’t attests to the brutality of American sanctions.
Collaboration with Oppressors
The seven emirates that joined together to become the UAE were called the “trucial states,” referring to the truces/peace-treaties that they had with the British starting in the mid 1800s. I read some of those treaties, official documents, and correspondences in the library in the Etihad Museum. At the time, they had little choice. I remember paging through a book in the Etihad Museum library and seeing a painting of one of the emirates being burned down in 1809, and again in 1819.
I know that the UAE has come under a good amount of scrutiny lately for feeding Palestine to the Israeli and American dogs in exchange for american money and weapons, when there is supposed to be fraternity between all muslims. That isn’t great. If this oil money cannot protect arabs and muslims, what is it even for?
A bit of envy
I don’t know that “envy” is the correct word here. I need to think of a more accurate word.
At no time when I was reading this history did I come across some large war, general strike, massive famine, or grassroots movement leading to independence. Though I find it highly improbable and indicative of a need to read more, I get the sense that Emirati Independence largely fell in their lap. Certainly when I went to Indian museums, I see the hardships endured during satyagrahas and the Quit India movement, along with the long list of socialists in their mid 20s executed by the British. I didn’t see any analog in the Etihad museum. My best explanation of this, apart from ignorance and needing to read more, would be that the british “protectorate” (their word, not mine) was a means to control India. This is evidenced by the fact that the Emirates were administered from Mumbai. They also repaired their ships en route to India. After the Indian independence, the emirates were just not nearly as valuable because its value came from Indian labor. Sure oil was discovered in the 1930s, but stealing that would have required thousands of miles of pipelines, which was something the British were too broke to carry out in the 1960s. Unable to steal the oil, they decided that the emirates were simply not worth the cost of controlling directly, and it was more profitable to buy cheaper oil. I haven’t verified this, but I would bet money that the British and the CIA made a deal with the Nahyan and Maktoum families to keep them in power under any threats, as long as they keep cheap oil flowing, just like they did with the Saudi royal family.
I guess it hurts a bit that Indians had to fight to the death on all fronts (political, philosophical, social, militaristic, etc) for independence, while it doesn’t seem like the UAE independence was nearly so fraught. I learned recently that this was the case with Canada as well; they asked for dominion status, and eventually for independence. Why did millions of us die in famines and (non)violent resistance when other people could basically just ask for independence? On one hand I know why, but it still hurts a bit.
What I make of the south asians
One aspect of Dubai that I personally liked was that being here provided a great chance for me to practice and improve on my Hindi, as atleast 50% of the people speak Hindi. Somehow this desert has better south indian food than New York City!?
Most Indians and Pakistanis (who make up 50% of the UAE population and maybe 60% of the Dubai population) I talked to don’t really enjoy this city. They will say that the city is “nice” but can’t name things they actually like doing. They work and work and work some more. They send money back home and many will return home much richer than when they left. The Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis cannot own property in the UAE, but I don’t think most want to. Dubai is a soulless, car-dependent, capitalist-dystopian hellscape, compared to most parts of India (Mumbai and Delhi notwithstanding). I get the sense that many temporary residents, from taxi drivers, to white collar software engineers, to finance bros, feel the same and do not want to live in Dubai forever. They want to get some oil money, and leave.
When I mentioned to my boss at work that I was taking a few days off to visit Dubai and was partly interested in seeing what I make of the majority who are south asian, he finished my sentence with guessing they are “slaves.” In some cases that is roughly correct, though it is more frequently closer to debt bondage, but I don’t think they can be called slaves in anywhere near the majority of cases. I can’t imagine a slave in 1820s American calling Georgia “nice.” I think it is more accurate that the overwhelming preponderance of south asians in Dubai speaks to the brutal legacy of colonialism, insofar as these workers are trying to take (though not by force) some wealth to make up for the fact that the British, Dutch, and Portugese stole so much wealth from us.
I also think it speaks to the tragedy that our homeland simply cannot, at this particular time in history, provide the kinds of material opportunities that the oil can. How is it even possible that ~75 years after independence, it is more profitable for some Malayali to drive a taxi in Dubai than repair phones in India?? I have all of the economic tools to investigate such a question, but seriously require the 2021 Indian census to do so. I am getting quite frustrated at how the Indian government is dragging its feet on conducting the census. I understand delaying it because of Covid (kinda…it was still conducted during wars, partition, and the Spanish Flu) and my best guess now is that it is being delayed by years to hide the fact that the goverment mismanagement of Covid is responsible not for ~500k deaths, but maybe closer to 5 million.
The reality is that the Emiratis have more oil underneath their feet than they can physically extract, and the Indians, maybe moreso than any other people in the world, have more labor than we know what to do with.
The Burj Khalifa was largely built by Indians and Pakistanis construction workers (and designed by Japanese architects). I am torn between thinking that “conditional on the UAE swimming in oil money and needing labor, maybe it is good that Indians are earning a good amount of the oil money” and lamenting the fact that the incentives are not set up to have all of those Indians building metro systems, irrigation, solar power plants, etc in India. Of course, my parents and I are engineers in the United States, and the situation is quite similar.
My father and I probably received nearly the best treatment this country can offer, outside of a royal family and other people with $10m+ in wealth. We were treated to a 4-5 star hotel (a perk of having Emirates airlines pay for accomodations), waited on at every step of the way, bathed in fine wine (in a place where one cannot buy alcohol in most of the country), and pampered with excellent arab, lebanese, and south indian food. But neither of us really want to be there long term because the place simply did not (any maybe could never) speak to our souls. I got the sense that his Indian coworkers felt the same way. If that was our reaction when given some of the best that the country had to offer, I really can’t imagine any of the south asian construction workers, taxi drivers, pharmacists, engineers, etc. want to stay there long term.