Dubai. The name has
become synonymous with wealth, innovation, and the future. To many, it is the land of opportunity, and
to those unfortunate ones, it is also a land of vast inequality. It is a place where dreams can be realized
and just as quickly taken away again; it is truly the Las Vegas of the Middle
East. The leaders should be commended
for their outstanding work in the progress of the nation. After all, how many places in the Middle East
(or even the US for that matter) can you stroll along any neighborhood at night
without fear of being robbed? More than
safety, the modern living conditions that have been afforded to the nation’s
citizens over the past forty-two years are incredible; it has gone from a desert
trade post to a thriving modern city in only a few decades. That progress has certainly come with a
price, however, and my eyes were definitely opened to the people who get caught
on the underside of the nation’s progress.
Living in Dubai can feel like stepping back in time to the
American South fifty years ago. The
concept of “The Help” is still very much thriving in Dubai, with stark
contrasts between social classes. At the
dorms, for example, there are cleaners who came into my room every week to
clean up after me. When I ate a snack in
the common room, they would immediately come and collect the trash from my
table and wipe up after me. There are
always people (typically from India or the Philippines) to serve and look after
the better off residents, and they are often not treated any better than the
housemaids in “The Help.” Furthermore,
there are massive problems with workers in Dubai who have been brought in to
construct the engineering marvels and modern developments. Though I personally did not visit the labor
camps, I heard countless stories of the treatment of these workers who often
send most of the money they earn back home to their families, leaving them with
only the bare minimum to survive.
Fortunately, the government has faced outside pressure and bettered the
living conditions of these people in recent years.
With this influx of a mostly male workforce in their
20’s-40’s come a variety of other social issues, chiefly among them the
inability to start families and to rise from poverty. There is a lack of women for these workers to
marry, creating discontent among the workers who have no goal but to continue
working for money to send back to their families. This causes a largely under-the-radar issue
with prostitution in the poorer parts of the city especially. The women in these prostitution rings are
almost exclusively from East Asia who are often conned into joining these
ventures in order to earn back the money they borrowed to escape poverty in
their home country in hopes of a brighter future in the UAE.
Despite these issues, the government has taken great strides
toward a modern society acceptable by Western standards. Though there is next to no democratic
representation in the country, the leaders have done a good job of ensuring
that the money gained from the oil exploration over the past several decades
has been distributed to the citizens, and developments have increased the
wealth of the nation, bettering everybody’s position. Though only 10% of the population in Dubai are citizens, they have been able to retain an identity of their own with a culture
and traditions that I was fortunate to experience. The Emirati people were incredibly kind and
generous, welcoming us into their homes for dinner and conversation. Furthermore, the country was very modern and
accepting of other cultures and religions.
Unlike some of its neighbors, the UAE has Christian churches and Hindu
temples, much of the land for which was donated by the sheikh to increase religious
tolerance in the emirate.
Over the semester, I experienced just a taste of the Middle
East but learned an incredible amount about the region. Before leaving the States, I thought of the
Middle East as one people and one culture.
Due to the constant news casts which focus on the violence of certain
areas, I was more than a little nervous about going to the region. It took a while for me to realize that you
cannot group all the Middle Eastern countries into one unit any more than you
can say that Mexico, the US, and Canada are the same. Each country has its own problems and
benefits, and it surprised me to find out that many parts of the Middle East are actually VERY friendly to tourists.
Furthermore, the violence seen on TV tends to be sporadic and contained
to certain areas. I can’t count the
number of conversations I had with people from countries such as Lebanon,
Israel, or Saudi Arabia that ask why Americans think of the Middle East as such
a dangerous place when the US experiences random acts of violence such as the
number of recent shootings which often take more lives than events in Middle
Eastern countries. They have a point. It was surprising to realize that I am
statistically safer walking around downtown Dubai at midnight than walking back
to my dorm from the library in Birmingham.
In the past seven months, I’ve been introduced to the world
through studying and traveling abroad.
It’s been quite a ride, meeting countless people who have been
tremendously influential on the life and taught me things that I never would
have learned otherwise. I have
discovered opportunities and made connections around the world through people I
will never forget. But as I sit in the
Atlanta airport listening to the continuous drone of Christmas music and
freezing in my warm-weather clothes, I am remembering why I love the US. The ability to better oneself regardless of
your upbringing. The right to post and
say anything we want, even if the political leaders disagree. The power of the people to decide who rules
over us. But besides all that, it just
feels like home.
