No flight of fantasy
Once you land in Dubai, you cannot help asking yourself: is this place the future? Or is it a place with no future? Sayed Mahmoud ponders on the city of dreams
The question of Dubai and its future was raised by participants in the Arab- German Media Dialogue, a two-day event recently organised by the German Institute for Foreign Affairs and took place at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dubai. The discussion touched on the role of Western culture in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
With Dubai and other UAE cities adopting modern architectural styles, importing turn-key museums, and borrowing at least some of the Western lifestyle, questions abound about identity and cultural signals. And, with the world financial crisis getting worse, some wonder if the transfer of symbols and icons from the West to other nations will go on unhindered.
Johann-Adolf Cohausz, the German consul in Dubai, said that Dubai was known less for its historical wealth of material than for its ethnic diversity. With nine out of 10 of its population non-nationals, Dubai was an "inspiring model" for today's globalised world. Admittedly, there were question marks about identity and the cohesion of language, as a new vernacular combining Arabic, Urdu and English is often heard in Dubai's streets, but that was inevitable in any place where cosmopolitanism was competing with well- established tradition, Cohausz said.
Dubai has imported cultural and artistic styles that did not exist before, which is a positive thing. Yet how widely accepted are these styles outside the circle of the elite and the decision-makers? Fifty years from now, will the local people regret the breakneck speed of today's changes? To answer these questions, professor Jochen Hippler of the Institute for Development and Peace at the University of Duisburg-Essen traced the current changes to the oil boom of the 1970s. The boom, he said, led to the creation of a super-national financial market. Once the economy succumbed to globalisation, culture had to follow. But can we realistically expect to have globalisation with no impact on national identity? This question, Hippler said, was not just confined to the Arab world but applied to Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.
Discussing the introduction of branches of foreign museums -- the Louvre and the Guggenheim included -- to Abu Dhabi, Lebanese journalist Ahmed Bazun of As-Safir said that the whole thing resembled an "alien landing". He said there was no explanation for the current type of development outside the laws of supply and demand. Economy, he said, was taking charge of both culture and identity. It would have been better for Abu Dhabi to create a museum for Arab and Islamic art, perhaps with a budget capable of bringing back some of the pieces that were smuggled abroad during the colonial period, Bazun added.
Putting it more bluntly, Emirati writer Harb Al-Zahir, chairman of the UAE Writers Association, said the UAE cultural vision is influenced by tourism. That is why we saw contradictions in the way cultural matters were being promoted, he said. Al-Zahir disclosed that he had repeatedly asked UAE officials to strike a balance between the local and the foreign, noting that several the current projects "lack cultural balance". Many of the cultural projects did not target the locals, Al-Zahir said. "The whole scene is orchestrated by other nationalities."
A similar view was voiced by Hippler, who said that promotional films addressed Western tourists and pay scant attention to the needs of local people.
The Syrian researcher Wael Al-Sawwah, editor of the website Al-Awan, discussed the climate in which the cultural institutions tended to operate. "It is alright to import some elements of culture, but what can be particularly helpful is to import concepts such as democracy and respect for the freedom of the minorities," he said.
Palestinian writer Hassan Khadr of Al-Karmel magazine commented on the cultural disparities within Arab societies, as well as the disparities between the Arab world and the West. Having reviewed the ascendance of local identities and the disintegration of the central state, Khadr said that the rise of the middle class in the Gulf had led to a pent-up conflict between the supporters of modernism and the traditionalists. "The very definition of identity is in question. Some see the country's identity as Islamic. Others mix religion with the cultural identity. There are no pure identities; only cross- breeding," Khadr said. There was also a gap between the modernising inclinations seen in imported architecture and the conservatism of values, he added.
Victor Kocher, a German journalist said that the problem in the Arab world was that monarchies preclude any discussion of democracy in the Western sense of the word. Consequently, the gap between the average people and the culture was huge. And modernisation was usually a response to the ideas of the ruler. "There are questions that we cannot ask. For example, can we ask the ruler, why are you bringing in the Louvre?"
Gerhard Matzig, another German journalist, said the contradictions were inevitable at this stage of development. There was no homogenous Arab culture, just as there was no homogenous Western culture, he said. Even in Europe, the culture was a product of "cross-fertilisation". The Louvre itself was proof of this process, if we admitted, for example, that Picasso was influenced by African art. The case of Dubai was not a unique one. And yet the high-rise buildings denoted a Western hegemony and were in essence a response to the needs of the capitalist system, he pointed out.
Said Al-Nabuda, project executive manager with the Dubai Culture and Art Foundation, was displeased with the way the international media reported the opening of branches of foreign museums in the UAE. The reporting, he maintained, often included "racist" remarks. "Our aim is to consolidate our international statue, and we take into account the architectural traits of our Islamic civilisation," he said. Al-Nabuda said that there were several problems facing the pace of urban and cultural modernisation, most important of which was that of demography. There is a certain "peril" in the UAE demographics that had to be redressed, he stated.
Eckhart Ribbeck of the Institute of Urban Planning at the University of Stuttgart, who offered a power point display of the future urban development of Dubai, said that "the contradictions in which Dubai lives are not new. They have been experienced by European cities in the past, and those cities needed years to become successful models."
Ribbeck pointed out that Dubai was currently serving as a testing ground for urban experimentation. "This is what makes this place exciting. That's what brings hundreds of thousands to work here. This is good news for cultural diversification. But there is also the danger of social marginalisation for workers in services."
Ali Abdel-Raoud, professor of architecture at Bahrain University, described Dubai as a "test lab with no control group". A deceptive image of regional rivalries had emerged, one in which environment and human development was being compromised.
Abdel-Maguid Soweilam, professor of economy at Jerusalem University, disagreed. "Dubai is not a flight of fantasy. It is the outcome of a conscious decision to create an international investment capital," he said. "Think what you may, but diversity, in the case of this city, is a planned thing."
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