An I.O.U. from the U.A.E. Brother can you spare a few billion??

How is that I’ve come all this way and not written a blog on Turkish food??? How indeed. Coming soon. Promise. The Rakı table will be my specific focus.

 Part of the plan while I live here in Istanbul has always been to travel around a bit. I’m in a pretty cool neighbourhood. Just a few hours to most European capitals, Egypt and other points in the Middle East. I took advantage recently by taking about a week or so to The United Arab Emirates and here is what I found…

 The UAE has been getting a lot of attention these last few years. Mostly this is due to the pictures that trickle through to North America about the extreme luxury of the latest hotel in Dubai or some of the more outrageous ideas of say, having an indoor ski hill in the middle of the desert where outside temperatures can rise to as high as 45 degrees. In the investment world these guys were packing a punch with their sovereign wealth funds taking huge positions in Citibank (Oops!) which caused much hand wringing given the size of these funds and their ability to very quickly take big chunks of ownership in businesses. 20% of Cirque de Soleil is owned by these Sheiks. Real live Sheiks. The very ones that penetrated American culture in the 70’s due to their sudden desire to flex their muscle and tinker with the oil supply. The long flowing robes, the big cars and the confidence that comes from extreme wealth. They dress just weird enough that folks can laugh at them and be afraid at the same time.

In total there are about 6 million people in the 7 Emirates that make up the UAE. 800,000 of whom are the locals or “Emirati”. These are the richest of the richest people in the world and it all is due to oil. Previously, there was nothing here in this desert country save pearl diving. The Japanese put an end to that by starting pearl farms. Oil made this country. Full stop. Albertans like to beat their chests about all the hard work it takes to be rich like they are. There are no such pretenses in the UAE. They know its just getting oil out of the ground. They do however say that it is a gift from God which seems appropriate. Sheik Zayed, the first President of the UAE had a vision. All local born citizens would have a western university education. The thinking went, if one generation has it, they will insist that their children have it as well. He was right. Virtually every one of the adult citizens of the UAE has some sort of formal post secondary education. Studying abroad is completely financed by the government of the UAE if you are one of the 800,000. (Imagine how awesome Alberta would be if that many people there had an education.) Land is given to you to build on. Many of them have several buildings. To establish a business in the UAE by a foreigner requires partnership with a local who would need to be the 51 percent owner. This means there are businesses like Starbucks that still find it worth their while to set up shop with a local partner who would likely do nothing other than collect the profits his 51 percent stake requires. This partner could have many other business partnerships as well. These guys are rich, rich, rich.

So who are the rest of the 5.2 million? Many folks come from other Arab countries like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and of course many Palestinians. My experience was that these folks where the longer term residents. Life can just be better in the UAE than it can say in Egypt or Lebanon so folks move there. No one is permitted to own property out right. Foreigners no matter how long they stay, may only rent. Syrians are an interesting case. Their government requires all men to perform military service that lasts 2 and a half years. Rather than do that, Syria and the UAE have worked out a deal where the young men,  can go and work in the UAE for 5 years instead of say guarding the Israeli border. The UAE wins because now they have someone to work in their restaurants and Syria wins through these young guys sending money back to their families.No one, however ever gets to be a citizen of the UAE, not even children that are born there. That privilege is reserved for the old guard. What the Arabs do in the UAE varies widely but suffice it to say I saw none of them working the municipal jobs and tending to the gardens. The Lebanese, of course, have the best restaurants.

A huge number of people have also come to the UAE from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The smell of curry is everywhere in Abu Dhabi and Bollywood clips are shown on TV. These were the workers of the city by a long shot. They drive the cabs, tend to the gardens, build the buildings, repair the roads. They also seem to be almost entirely men. The terms of their work visas seldom allow for them to bring their families over with them. I believe the cut off was 3,000$  a month before they could. Most of these guys don’t even get close to that. They work long hours, 6 days a week, in the heat and when they are in some sort of service capacity, demonstrate nothing but total and complete deference. Should they do anything to warrant their getting fired, they loose their visa and have to go home and reapply. Or they get banned straight out from coming there at all.  Many of them have families they are supporting back in India or Pakistan. The UAE is not exactly a workers paradise for these guys. Sadly, this seems to be a better deal for them than staying in their home countries.

The other major groups would be of course the Europeans and the Philipinos/as.

The folks of European decent, Americans, Canadians etc who work in the oil industry or in real estate and investments have a pretty good deal. Great salaries, private schools for their kids (usually included in their compensation plans) and nice homes to live in. The word is though most folks don’t stick around past 2 and a half years. Philipinas take care of the children as they do in Canada and were very well represented in the hospitality industry.

Now that we’ve covered the who, what about the what? Abu Dhabi, is an Emirate unto itself. This is the place where most of the oil wealth is generated. Dubai, had very little oil wealth but changed everything by ramping up real estate, investments and becoming a tourist destination. You’ve likely heard of the recent debacle of their not being able to make payment on their debt that financed the recent spike in development. Big richer smarter brother Abu Dhabi had to come along and bail them out to the tune of 10 billion dollars. Huge expansions in infrastructure are taking place. Buildings growing out of the ground everywhere. More apartments, shopping malls and hotels. Economic development these last several years has translated into huge developments in infrastructure with the entire country virtually under construction.

Don’t get me wrong, I like economic development. Rich is better than poor. It just struck me though that there was very little on offer. Shopping is great, but then what? Beach? Okay. Then what? Virtually nothing exists in the cultural realm. I happened to be lucky enough to arrive for the Dubai Shopping Festival. That’s right, the Shopping Festival. Given everything in the press and what I saw first hand, its pretty clear that the guys running Dubai over played their hand. True, it can be excrucatingly hot in the UAE and most life needs to be conducted indoors, but are giant shopping malls the only solution to this?? You may take a cage dive into the shark tank at the Dubai Mall. You can ski at the indoor ski hill(business wasn’t good the day I was there) in the Mall of the Emirates. Everything is artificial, contrived, over the top and no more than 3 years old. Virtually nothing authentic is easily available other than say the beach. I felt like I was in Calgary but without the culture.

Abu Dhabi was a bit better and somewhat more staid. It’s out of the limelight much more but there still are huge construction projects underway. The beaches are nice and that is about it. You can eat reasonably well at the hotels which are the only places that alcohol is served. It’s a great place to relax for a week or so. There was a sort of erie creepiness when visiting places designed for people. "The Corniche" a walk way built by the sea (were the beach used to be!) was spectacular. It's just that there were no people. It felt like a brand new Ghost Town.

This void of culture or lack of soul isn’t likely to change so long as the people that are building the country, the migrant workers, the Jordanians,the Philipinos, the Sri Lankans, are not permitted to have their families with them and become citizens. Cities, never mind cultures cannot grow out of an environment of transience and single mindedness around making a few bucks. While I visited the UAE there was the release of a study produced by the government that said that they where focused on making the UAE one of the best places in the world to live by 2021. In my humble opinion, the UAE will never be the best anywhere so long as it does not allow people to become full citizens rather than economic migrants. It was truly very difficult to imagine how this place could ever be on par with say Switzerland so long as you require a special license to buy alcohol to drink in your home or that you couldn’t go to a bar out side of a hotel.

  Forget about anything else other than beaches and desert trips (which are awesome!). Don’t believe the hype either about Dubai. If you want an authentic urban experience, come to Istanbul.