Magic Kingdom or Glass House?

What I have achieved for Dubai is only 10 percent of my vision for it.
— Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

“The Earth Has A New Centre,” announces a massive billboard for a new mall on Sheikh Zayed Road, an eight-lane expressway in Dubai — a city that was, not so long ago, a patch of sand. As a yellow Ferrari driven by a local in a white dishdasha and baseball cap roars up behind my rental car, and Hummers with black-tinted windows pass busloads of labourers who stare out, saucer-eyed, at this strange new planet, I find myself thinking that the billboard refers not only to the Dubai Mall, soon to be the largest in the world, but to Dubai itself.

The world’s largest mall. The world’s tallest hotel. The world’s tallest building. The first underwater hotel. The largest waterfront development. The fastest-growing tourist market. The Earth has a new centre and it is a tiny desert kingdom gone mad.

Uncovering the secrets behind this phenomenon is what has brought me to Dubai, a glittering emirate of 1.5 million people, 80 percent of them expatriates. If not for the discreet presence of Western military personnel and security contractors in transit to Afghanistan and Iraq — like the kbr (a former subsidiary of Halliburton) grief counsellor from Texas I met on the flight over — one would never know that Dubai is situated at the heart of the region’s war zones, right next to Saudi Arabia and across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran.

How did this extraordinary boom town arise in the midst of a Middle East in flames? My quest to find out leads me to Blair Hagkull, an expat real estate developer and part of the wave of global professionals who have come to Dubai (most since 9/11, when the boom began in earnest) to seek their fortunes. Driving to his office, I glance down at my notebook, scrawled with page upon page of detailed directions. In a throw-back to a Bedouin past, drivers in Dubai typically use landmarks rather than street names to navigate a cityscape that becomes more confusing with each new megaproject. Before my arrival, I spoke to an architect friend who travels frequently to Dubai (architects now journey there as merchants have for centuries, as an essential stop on the trade route). Dubai, he said, is “a private company owned by the ruling family. And it’s all about real estate.”

I squint at a line in my notes, trying to remember who told me, “Dubai is Arab leadership, British intelligence, and American lifestyle,” leaving out only Third World labour as the fourth leg of this table. With its population drawn from 180 nations, including the army of low-wage labourers building towers to Heaven, is Dubai another Babel? Will God curse it for its hubris, for attempting to make in the inhospitable desert a glittering Shangri-La? Is it the apogee of human civilization, an “end of history” built on free-market capitalism if not liberal democracy, or is it just a mirage, the oil boom’s final glorious homage to itself?

Arriving, finally, at a glass-encased office tower, I enter by the wrong entrance. I want the other side, indicates the young South Asian doorman. How do I get there? He hasn’t the slightest idea. He makes $200 a month, sends the money home. I find my own way around the building, hopping over construction debris.

Blair is a baby-faced Canadian in his early forties. Before joining a multinational real estate consulting firm, he was an executive for Emaar, a government-run development company that helps to fulfill the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. And what a vision it is: Emaar is building, among other projects, the Dubai Mall and Burj Dubai, to be the tallest building in the world. “At one time the US was the gateway to opportunity, attracting the best and brightest,” Blair says. “Now they come here. And whenever there’s an unfortunate event in the region, Dubai prospers.”

An overview of Dubai’s brief history reveals that through shrewd leadership and entrepreneurial acumen — and perhaps a dash of luck — calamitous regional events have indeed always been good for Dubai. At the turn of the nineteenth century, when Persia seized the central trading port of Bandar Lengeh and hiked tariffs on Dubai’s side of the Gulf, Dubai (then ruled by Sheikh Mohammed’s great-grandfather) welcomed local trade and Persia’s leading merchants by dropping its tax rate to zero. During World War II, when British planes used Dubai as a landing strip, the emirate became home to a thriving black market in smuggled rations.

In 1971, Dubai, along with six other sheikhdoms, gained independence from Britain as the United Arab Emirates. Not long after, during the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990), Dubai began replacing Beirut as the leading Middle East tourist destination, and an ambitious young Sheikh Mohammed defied critics by launching Emirates Airline and making Dubai International Airport a global transit hub. Meanwhile, shortly before the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Dubai built Jebel Ali, the largest man-made port in the world, which became a free trade zone, safe haven, and repair depot for damaged oil tankers navigating the war-torn Strait of Hormuz. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, dozens of Kuwaiti companies were convinced to relocate their head-quarters by officials who argued that the emirate was far enough away to be safe. When the Gulf War ended, Jebel Ali became the base for Kuwait’s post- war reconstruction, the same officials arguing that Dubai was close enough to be convenient.