Dubai’s defenders love to tell you that their luxury desert paradise is so safe you can leave your phone on the beach and nobody will touch it.
Anybody with an Instagram account knows that this theory is proven about 250,000 times a day, as pneumatic influencers, content creators and aspirational sun-seeking holidaymakers prop up their iPhones, set the self-timer and pose in front of the glittering Persian Gulf, the sleek, curved sail of the 7-star Burj al-Arab hotel towering from its private island in the background.
Depending on who you ask, the United Arab Emirates – and Dubai in particular – is an oasis, a tax haven, a playground for vulgar oligarchs, a gross wealth; a family-friendly society that rewards hard-working people and supports and protects its people from crime, poverty, unrest or any of the other ills that plague broken Britain. The state’s entire infrastructure is geared towards catering to Western convenience, and safety is central to that.
Except, obviously, even a paternal, benevolent, billionaire sheikh, as the UAE’s promotional machine presents Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum to be, cannot insure against conflict in the Middle East.
This week, Britons in Gulf states like the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain have been grimly reminded of their proximity to geopolitical instability, as Iran has launched retaliatory shelling after Israel and the USA launched strikes last week. Airspace is closed, residents have been ordered to shelter in place, repatriation flights are scheduled to bring stranded travellers and concerned expatriates home.
I’m not about to gloat that this fantasy of peace, affluence, and pleasure was all a myth. While I don’t imagine it’d be my bag – though I wouldn’t completely rule it out for a bit of winter sun, if I could afford it – we all have different tastes, and I can hardly defend the human rights record of every country I’ve travelled to. Plus, there is something classist about begrudging the choices of anyone pursuing a better life, especially given much of Dubai’s British community are young and upwardly mobile. Obviously, they are not the real victims of this war, but crass comparisons with desperate refugees crossing the English Channel are still in very poor taste.
But I do think that the events of this week have revealed the smoke and mirrors involved in the reinvention of Dubai. In the past decades it has been constructed and, with the help of social media influencers it has coaxed to move there, promoted, as a place that wealthy Westerners can escape first world problems – be they bad weather, income tax, minor inconvenience, ugliness or the suffering of others. And it turns out that in the end, you can’t.
My heart bleeds. Everyone knows that in the UAE, rich foreigners enjoy untrammeled privilege while an impoverished underclass, often migrant workers in the service and tourism industries, are subject to suppression, abuse and surveillance. Overlooking this inequality has been easy to do. But things get a little bit White Lotus when bombs start hitting the Fairmont. There is no such thing as utopia, and there is only so long you can escape reality. It bites.
Dubai’s influencer-fuelled PR machine chugs on, of course. Instead of recording footage of what’s happening – that might one day have served as historical documents – they are posting hero-worshipping clips of the Sheikh, claiming they aren’t scared “because I know who protects us”. But is that how they really feel? Criticising the government is illegal in the UAE – Dubai police have warned that posting rumours, misinformation, contradictions to official announcements or anything causing “public panic” could face two years in prison and a minimum fine of £40,000.
The ones who have expressed concern have exposed just how embarrassingly they have been infected with state-sanctioned entitlement and cognitive dissonance. In one especially vilified video, a vlogger wails into her front-facing camera from her beachfront balcony as missiles are intercepted in the sky above, “This isn’t supposed to happen here”.
No – it isn’t. This is supposed to happen to poor people, far away, out of sight, the ones who didn’t hustle or make better choices or make their own luck. Dubai was supposed to be a place for brunches and beach clubs and flaunting £80,000 watches and being met with envy and respect, rather than resentment. It was supposed to be a world of personal success, in which everyone is encouraged to strive for more for themselves and can live unencumbered by the troubles of anybody else.
Well it turns out there is a fine line between an oasis and a mirage. Even in Dubai, there are some things money can’t buy.
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