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Dubai is best known for money, more money and a snow ski slope in the hottest desert, as well as building an island archipelago shaped like the world and the world's highest rated hotel shaped with a sail boat. So it is shocking to hear the news that the country's largest holding company is hundreds of billions of dollars in debt and is feeling the pangs of the world's shaky economy.
I have been to Dubai where the word "awe" is an understatement. Although it is progressive in terms of technology and spending, it still lives in the backdrop of religion. It was no surprise after months of rumors that Dubai World was in financial trouble. Dubai World is a holding company with investments in almost everything, the spearhead of Sheikh Maktoum's aggressive programs that put Dubai on the world stage including on 60 Minutes last year. But it also holds the largest debt, $59 billion of Dubai's total debt of $80 billion. A note valued at a paltry $14 billion in Dubai terms, is to come due Dec. 14 and Dubai used the cover of religion, the arrival of Islam's holiest holiday Eid al-Udha, to announce that it was seeking to ask its creditors to delay payment.
Dubai is not just a leader in Arab World economic development, though it has spent its money more on image than on substance. It is a cornerstone of the Middle East's image of wealth and it showcases the unbelievable, a snow ski slope that stands out like a giant park slide in the distance, attached to the world's largest in door shopping mall.
You can't image how wondrous it all appears to tourists until you actually walk the mall's multi-level maze or stand in awe looking up the ski lope wondering what stops people from splattering themselves at the bottom of the slope near a snowman's cabin against the thick glass as they ski race down the winding man-made snow hill.
The beaches are beautiful and still virgin as the emirate's progress outpaced by leaps and bounds the ability of the world to enjoy and then brutalize these natural wonders as humans so often do to untaped exotic escapes.
The country is a model of freedom in a jar, surrounded by censorship and restrictions. I could not access many web sites will in Dubai. The government there, as they do in most Arab countries, places restrictions on web sites with too much "free" in free speech and writing. Though ironically, Dubai has invited the world's media cast-offs to re-establish themselves in a Media City which is basically a place sheltered from the normal expenses and taxes of building a business. The emirate has several newspapers based there that circulate in English, something the rest of the Arab World has failed to do. While most other Arab newspapers concentrate on speaking to their own people, Dubai has taken the surprisingly brilliant and simple step of writing to the world. It's media is one of the most reliable when it comes to Middle East news, although too much of it rests on banking and economic issues and not enough on political education.
The West badly needs to be written to from the Arab World and not many in the Arab World understand that many of their regional problems stem from the fact that the Arab World has done a poor job, despite all their oil wealth, to tell their story. Free speech is an illusion, though, in the desert there and throughout the Middle East, although Dubai is no different really than most other Arab countries that control their populations through control of what is written.
Still, if Dubai's financial circumstances this year worsen -- more bonds in the billions will come due during that period -- the reverberations will spread throughout the Middle East and have untold impact on many who rely on what are relatively paltry sums doled out to help those causes in need such as the Palestinian refugees and NGO's in the region.
I always wanted to go back to Dubai. It is a beautiful nation with the spirit and the will to do good. It's steady progress towards openness and information and economic growth has inspired many to believe the Middle East can step out of the dark ages and into a modern world someday. In so doing, they might free themselves from ancient constraints and finally resolve many of the great tragedies that define Middle East history, including the failure of the Arab and Islamic World to protect the Palestinians, a sacred trust they took on voluntarily more than a century ago.
-- Ray Hanania
