On April 25 (Day 102), we arrived in Dubai in the UAE. Ahead of the visit if you had asked me what I expected, my answer would have conflated lots of vague information about the Arab world. What I found surprised me.
Dubai is clean and organized, there are some pretty amazing things to see. Most things work– for the tourist.
It is a very unusual city in terms of demographics. According to this website, only 8% of Dubai’s residents are Emirate citizens. The city is therefore populated by expatriates who do the jobs. All the tour guides I encountered were not citizens. Our guide, for example, was from India and he would be allowed to work there until he had to retire, then he would have to leave the country, even though he had been there his whole working life.
As a result of this mode of doing business, males predominate in the city, with 69% male and only 31% female. Women were almost all dressed conservatively, some with expensive fully covered garb. I can’t offer many more insights into those women’s experiences of life in this city, other than to say it was challenging for me from my perspective to observe it.
I looked for some balanced articles on this labor phenomenon, and this was the one I found that seemed to addressing the pros and cons of this policy, but probably much more to be said from those who have studied it.
My experience in visiting Dubai for a short time was that it felt like a multi-class system that is pretty transparent about itself. If you are one of the many who live and work there who never have a chance to “make it” in the society, you certainly know it and don’t deceive yourself that all are equal.
Another thought I’ve had about this situation (which is much broader than just in the UAE), is that to make any meaningful judgments, I would really have to get much more connected with the perspectives of those who are those workers. We also have many who have chosen to leave children and families to serve as staff and crew on this ship. Hearing the stories of children left behind for six months in the care of relatives can feel painful. For some of these workers, they express appreciation for the financial and work opportunities they have by leaving their home countries. That was certainly the opinion of our tour guide in Dubai. As has been the case in many locations on this trip, I’m left with more questions than answers.
One more observation about the culture. It was kind of eye opening for me to notice the few Arab men who walked around the city in their Kandura white robes and head dress. This clearly marked them out as the favored ones in the society. All cultures have some version of this I think, and this one was easy for me to spot and absorb, especially since I was one of those not favored.
I was dutifully impressed by the city.
There is old style architecture. This nifty design of a wind tower in some of the old buildings brings cooling breezes into the very hot place.
A navigational water artery (called the Dubai Creek) runs through the city and we used a water taxi to go from one side to another.
We also saw lots of traditional Dhows, which were loading up on goods headed for Iran. If I ever wondered how Iran gets good, despite sanctions, now I know at least part of it.
I cannot even capture in pictures the amount of gold we saw in the gold suk (market). I’ll just put two shots in to give the the picture. I cannot tell you anything about the prices, as I just window shopped.
The new architecture is clearly designed to impress. We passed the museum of the future, and yes, this is a building. I did not, however, visit it inside.
We passed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
And we stopped for a photo op in front of the famous seven star hotel, the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah.
Finally, we, off course, saw mosques (this one from the outside.)
I’ve been absent from replying to your last sets of posts and am reading them all at once. This one about Dubai reminded me of my trip there about 20 years ago when I was with the Council of Women World Leaders where we held a meeting of women ministers of finance, one of whom was of Dubai and she hosted the meeting. The labor situation was the same. There were some women in leadership positions and they seemed respected, but somehow a bit differently than the men. As you said, many more questions than answers. I recall serving myself tea at one of our meals and having a male server dash up to me and tell me not to do this as it was his job. I assume he was a worker from another country. He was upset that it would look like, to the women minister, that he was not doing his job correctly. I also remember the gold suk and at the time I was able to purchase a lovely bracelet that I’ll remember to show you sometime.
I also remember the spice suk where I purchased a fair amount of saffron very reasonably priced
and since it lasts forever if kept dry, I still have and use some of it.
Great insight from the commentators as well.
I resonate strongly with the thought process of coming away with more questions than answers. So much in my life, just doesn’t percolate up to the point of being contemplated. Then you see this….. and the questions bubble. Thank you for your insights.
I guess you missed the Dubai airport. It is amazing. It is a huge shopping mall–with dozens of upscales stores. Your tour of the city is very informative— and their role being the business center of the Arab world is evident. Their extensive use of foreign workers (India mainly) is common is other Gulf places too (Kuwait, Saudi, Doha) and a common issue is providing (or not) health care to these persons who come to work and tend to live there permanently, but without access rights to healthcare & education in the country.