Dubai: A critique

Dubai is a city in the making, and it's being made fast. When I visited four years ago, I would've called it a large town. Now, Dubai is full of malls and high rises, serving as a commercial hub for the region. Though extraordinarily developed, especially given its age, Dubai still has a long way to go.

In terms of physical and commercial development, this tiny emirate has accomplished plenty. In just a few short years Dubai grew immensely, at one point containing more cranes than anywhere else in the world. It has the world's largest mall, the world's tallest building, and the world's only man-made island that can be seen from space. You could say Dubai has a napoleonic complex of sorts—small city, big stuff.

Everything in Dubai is incredibly convenient. Everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE, delivers: restaurants (the majority of them), supermarkets, pharmacies, etc. There are men who offer to wash your car in mall parking lots. Self-serve gas stations simply don't exist. Many mainstream places provide valet parking. There's even a guy whose job is to sit a the entrance of parking garages and press the button for your parking pass—you know, so you don't have to reach too far out of your car. Unfortunately, this harvests a culture of laziness—there's less movement and less motivation to actually DO anything for oneself. Compound that with the popularity of fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King, and, most of all, KFC and the result is a lazy, obese population in a few short decades. According to a friend, about half the Local population suffers from some form of diabetes, apparently linked to this sort of lifestyle.

The culture of laziness runs deeper than these simple examples. For foreigners who live and work in Dubai, this deeper laziness doesn't seem to exist, but for privileged young Locals, it's a different story. From my observations, this seems to be a problem present in the Gulf region as a whole—young men and women (but especially men) between the ages of 15 and 30 are just plain lazy. They sleep all day and stay out all night, have little desire to pursue a career. They're quite happy with the status quo of their lives. Because they're Local, they receive immense benefits; for example, if a Local man marries a Local woman, the government gives them a “cash prize” of 7,500 dirhams, and for each child they have they're given a stipend. These handouts seem to be counterproductive to the government's “Emiritzation” project—a government-run initiative to grow the Local population and get them educated, as a friend of mine explained to me. For instance, she told me that the Emirati government actually provides a full scholarship plus stipend to Local men who want to go to university abroad. The strange thing is, very few of the Local population actually take advantage of this benefit, which I believe is connected to the culture of laziness.

The “marriage” initiative not only encourages young Locals to marry one another, it inadvertently encourages them to marry young so they get “free” money, thus also inadvertently discouraging them from taking advantage of the education scholarship. The issue of “falling in love”, so important in Western cultures, isn't a problem at all because firstly, the concept isn't as culturally present as it is in the West, and secondly, it's completely acceptable to have more than one wife—therefore, men can marry a Local woman to get the money, and take on a second non-Local wife with whom he has “fallen in love”. Another benefit these young Locals have is that they receive priority in the job market, no matter with disregard to their qualifications or lack thereof. There are many instances when a Local obtains a position, despite the fact that he never went to college or received the necessary training, over a non-Local with the proper qualifications and a university education. Additionally, well-paid, stable, and comfortable government jobs are available only to Locals. These guys work from 9 to 6 and get paid a high salary from the start. The downfall is that there is very little room for growth or promotions, but this appears to be a non-issue for them. These sorts of benefits also discourages Locals from taking advantage of the education scholarship provided by the government and allows them to get on with life very comfortably without working very hard.

This situation can be quite troubling for a nation in which only 20% of its population are actually citizens. Soon, these young men and women will be the ones that have to take the reigns and continue to help Dubai grow, unless they want foreigners to run the show. Given the position of the UAE in the region, and it's disproportional level of importance in the global economy, the young citizens of the Emirates can be very powerful if they learn to take some initiative.

Despite the “culture of laziness” amongst Locals, I believe there is an opposite culture amongst foreigners. It's true, Dubai is the land of luxury, and the superficial laziness does exist, but in terms of working culture, these people work long and hard. Unlike the U.S., they get decent vacation benefits—4 weeks of vacation a year from the get-go. These people work long hours, though, usually getting out of work around 7, despite the fact that they start at 8:30 or 9. Though more relaxed than New York, things feel very rushed in Dubai—it's a high-stress environment compared to the rest of the Middle East. Because Dubai has turned into the commercial hub for the region, investment banks and advertising agencies are plentiful, raising the overall stress level of the city; after all, these are high-pressure industries. The presence of these sorts of organizations also takes away from the “Middle Easternness” of the city.

Overall, for a city in the Arabian Gulf, Dubai isn't very Middle Eastern at all. It does have an Arab culture somewhat present, but the commercialism and capitalism of the West is strongly present, and that's what is taking over the city. Because the city has been built basically from the ground up in the last two decades, everything is artificial--the city lacks history and it lacks depth. For a person looking to visit the Arab world, don't come to Dubai--you won't get what you're looking for. But for someone who wants to go to the Middle East and still have all the amenities available to you in the U.S. (like Starbucks and TGIFridays), by all means, Dubai is the place for you.

As for me, Dubai is a fun place to visit. The people I've met here are lovely, and what the UAE has managed to build here is truly a sight to see. I prefer a place with depth and culture--something that cannot be built overnight, as Dubai has been. A friend of mine who recently moved here from the States put it perfectly. "The one saving grace," he started, is that all that is here has been built over the last 15-20 years, and 30, 40, 50 years down the road, "I'd like to be able to say, 'I helped build that'."