Learning About Dubai

Ejo #21 – Dangerous Doug Narrowly Avoids Death (By Shopping Trolley)

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This month’s ejo is a relatively short one as David and I have been travelling (yes again!) – this time to Spain for three weeks.  I’ll be writing a bit about that in a future ejo but in the meantime, if you are interested in checking out my new photographic series, titled “The Balconies Of Madrid”, you can do so here: The Balconies Of Madrid.

 

In other news, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve been chatting to my friend and colleague, Doug, about another of his interesting “life experiences”.  When he was living in the neighbouring emirate of Sharjah several years ago, he would often drive into Dubai to do his weekly grocery shop, as the supermarkets here are larger and better stocked.  One hot summer morning, about ten years ago, he made the 20 minute commute to the Carrefour supermarket at Deira City Centre Mall – shopping list in hand, ready to stock up for the coming week.

 

He shopped up a storm, filling his shopping trolley with groceries.  Walking past the fish section, he noticed that they had a really good discount on fresh salmon – his favourite!!!  He jumped at the chance to buy a whole (three foot long) salmon as, even though he loved it, he rarely bought it since it was usually so expensive.  He was very excited at the prospect of several salmon dinners, and smiled contentedly as the fishmonger cut up the fish into 25 steaks, wrapping the whole lot up in paper.

 

After picking up a few more items, he made his way to the register and paid for his shopping, pushing his fully laden trolley out of the supermarket into the busy mall.  Now, Doug assures me that in those days, in Dubai, you could take a trolley onto a step escalator – there were no poles barring the way.  So he did what he always did, which was push the trolley onto the down escalator, holding the front of the trolley up.  Usually this worked.  But for some reason his trolley was fuller and heavier than usual and he was having a bit of trouble holding it up (maybe it was the extra 5kgs of salmon?).  No problem, he thought, and very carefully lowered the front of the trolley down until it rested on the step below – which was quite a steep angle but made it much easier to hold.  Problem solved.

 

He made the journey to the bottom of the escalator without incident.  However (and you were kinda hoping there’d be a ‘however’, weren’t you?), when he got to the bottom, before he had a chance to lift up the front of the shopping cart, it jammed in the lip of the escalator and got stuck.  The escalator, of course, kept moving.  Somehow, in attempting to lift the heavy trolley up and over the lip, Doug lost his balance and fell down, and before he knew it he was carried under the trolley by the force of the forward movement.  In a split second he was trapped under the trolley with the metal bar pushing up against his neck – unable to push the trolley up and over his body and inexorably being dragged forward by the moving escalator.  He saw his life flash before his eyes.

 

Luckily for Doug (and for us all, really), a guy who had been about to step onto the other escalator going up, noticed that Doug was about to meet his maker and jumped over the partition onto the other side.  He lifted the trolley up, freeing both it and Doug from almost certain death (or at least serious injury).  Our friend was unceremoniously dumped in a quivering heap with several of his groceries at the bottom of the escalator.  By Doug’s estimation, if the guy had been another two seconds it may have been too late.

 

He profusely (and sheepishly) thanked the good Samaritan and, quickly gathering up his strewn groceries, got the hell out of there to avoid any more unwanted attention.  His whole body was shaking with adrenalin as he pushed the trolley to his little Astra and unloaded the shopping into the boot.  He carefully drove home, still quivering and thanking his lucky stars for his narrow escape.  He couldn’t help running the scenario in his mind, over and over again – thinking of just how close he had come to perhaps dying under a supermarket trolley in a crowded mall.

 

When he got home he tried to shake the whole thing off and, even though it was just after lunchtime he poured himself a soothing glass of scotch to help calm his nerves.  He’d just had a near-death experience after all.  It was medicinal.  Anyway, he spent the rest of the day relaxing and taking it easy.

 

The next day Doug was rostered to work an afternoon shift, so after lunch he went down to his car to head over to the airport.   Approaching the car park he noticed a foul smelling odour, but thought nothing of it.  It was the middle of summer after all and sometimes the heat makes things pretty stinky.  As he got closer to his car, however, the stench became more and more unbearable.  And when he opened his car door and sat inside, he slowly came to the realisation that the smell was coming from inside the vehicle.  He got out and opened the boot after it finally dawned on him that, in his shaken state the day before, he had neglected to unload his groceries from the car.  What he could smell was the decaying funk of five kilograms of putrid salmon that had been left in the car for close to a day and a half.  And not just the salmon, but fruit and vegetables, milk, cheese and yoghurt.  Everything perishable had gone terribly, terribly off in the 40°C (104°F) heat.  Doug threw the rancid contents of his boot away and drove to work, gagging the whole way.  In fact it took close to a week of driving with the windows down to get rid of the smell (and it never really totally disappeared).

 

Two weeks later, Doug went back to the mall only to find that barrier poles had been placed in front of the escalators to prevent trolleys being pushed onto them.  Doug reckons some security guard had seen his incident on CCTV and initiated the safety measure.  Not that he would have been in a hurry to repeat his performance anyway, but it was probably a very good idea!

Ejo #20 – A Few Thoughts On Islam (And What It Means To Be Muslim)

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“Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I will complain against that person on the Day of Judgement.”  So said the Prophet Mohammed, preaching tolerance, kindness and understanding towards us heretics.  It isn’t the picture most people have in their minds of the Islamic faith – and that is, perhaps, unfortunate.  The reason could be related to the rising number of acts of aggression against the western world, ostensibly in the name of Islam.  But as many Muslims would be at great pains to point out, these acts of terrorism strike against the very kernel of what it is to be a member of the Islamic faith.

 

I’m not religious in the least but I have always been curious about the concept. When I moved to Dubai I was able to learn a little bit about Islam.  I could probably write 20 ejos on the subject, but I won’t.  What I’d like to do is shed some light on a belief system and way of life that is sometimes shrouded in mystery, and quite often veiled by misinterpretation.  If I can bust just one myth or clear up one misconception for anyone that’ll make me happy.  I’m hardly an expert though; what follows is just a few personal observations backed up with a bit of research.

 

Let us begin.  The reason Muslims call their deity Allah is to differentiate him from other gods – it is the personal name of Islam’s one true god.  Whereas the word “god” can be pluralised and genderised, the word Allah cannot.  Allah is merciful and compassionate, and really just a very nice god indeed.  For instance, if you intend to do a bad deed and then don’t actually go through with it, he won’t hold it against you (even though, of course, he is fully aware that you did think about it).  It is only when you act on the intention that it counts against you.  Furthermore, if you truly regret what you did, the slate automatically wipes clean.  The simple act of repentance leads to Allah’s forgiveness.

 

Some people wonder about the importance of the Prophet Mohammed in the faith.  He was just one of many thousands of prophets, but Mohammed is the greatest of them all because he was the last prophet, the one that completed all of Allah’s revelations and sealed them together to create the teachings of Islam as they have been known, unaltered, for the last 1400 years.  He is second only to Allah in importance.

 

The word Muslim means “to submit” and Islam is based on its believers living out the will of Allah, as far as humanly possible.  It is founded on five pillars.  They are:

1) testimony of faith, i.e. accepting that there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.

2) praying five times a day;

3) Zakat, which is the giving back to the community of a certain amount of money, usually as a charitable donation;

4) fasting during Ramadan; and

5) pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca at least once during a Muslim’s lifetime (for those who are physically and financially able).

 

The second pillar of Islam is prayer.  Muslims are required to pray five times a day– furthermore they must be “clean” when they do so.  A ritual ablution occurs before the prayer and this includes washing the face, arms and feet so as to be pure when presenting themselves to Allah.  To facilitate this in Dubai, every toilet (private and public) has a long hose and nozzle in it so that wherever they may find themselves at prayertime, a Muslim is able to wash in preparation.  It is also why, sometimes, when entering a bathroom after a Muslim you may find it absolutely soaking wet.  I guess in striving to become clean, it is sometimes necessary to create a mess.  You get used to it.

 

Zakat is the requirement to donate to charity or to give to those less fortunate. Muslims are obligated to give 2.5% of any income they’ve earned for the year which is surplus to their family’s requirements.  This is usually collected and distributed during Ramadan.

 

Ramadan is the month of the Islamic calendar during which Muslims must fast – refraining from eating, drinking, smoking, having impure thoughts or engaging in sexual activity during daylight hours.  These sacrifices transcend physical discipline and bring the faster closer to Allah.  This year Ramadan has fallen during August, which happens to be the hottest time of year. Fasters have been going without food and water for up to 15 long hours a day, which as you can imagine is super difficult.  Hunger and thirst remind fasters of others who are less fortunate and who go hungry and thirsty everyday.  It also serves as a trigger to commune with Allah, to give thanks, and also to atone for any sins committed during the year.  It is an extremely important time of year for all Muslims.  To read more about Ramadan check out Ejo #9 – Ramadan In Dubai (What It Means And What To Expect).

 

As with all religions, some things are considered right, and others wrong.  “Halal”encompasses everything which is good (and thus permitted in the eyes of God), whereas “haram” describes the opposite – all which is harmful (and thus forbidden).  The word halal actually refers to a wide spectrum of things, but is most commonly used to describe meat that has been prepared in an approved way. A lot of animals these days are killed by electrocution – but this method is deemed haram by Muslims.  The animal suffers and so it is forbidden to eat its meat.  To be considered humane, the knife that will kill the animal must not be sharpened in front of it.  Animals should be killed quickly, and as comfortably as possible, and one animal must never witness the slaughter of another as this would frighten it, making the meat haram.  The animal should be well fed and watered despite the fact that it shall soon be lunch.

 

Intoxicants, such as alcohol, are considered haram – the reason being that alcohol decreases your ability to control your own mind and body.  There is an old Islamic fable: “A man was told to either rip up the Holy Quran, or murder a child, or bow in worship to an idol, or drink one cup of alcohol, or sleep with a woman.  He thought the least sinful thing to do was drink the cup, so he drank it.  Then he slept with the woman, killed the child, tore up the Quran and bowed in worship to the idol”.  Being a Muslim is all about controlling your impulses and you attain closeness to God when you restrain yourself from physical and mental urges.  Alcohol takes away all of that restraint, rendering one vulnerable to the temptations of the devil (and anyone who’s ever been drunk can surely attest to that – I know I can!).

 

The Quran clearly refers to men and women as being equal.  Oppression of women tends to be more culturally and nationalistically based, than theistically.  But often the culture fostering the oppression is so closely entwined in an Islamic identity it is difficult to separate the two.  Although women are thought of as being equal to men, the physical differences between them has been taken into account and because of this women have been granted the right of protection by (and from) men. One of the major components of Islam is modesty (for both sexes, albeit predominantly for women).  As such, men are required to not look upon women sexually and women are required to cover up in public.  Islam sees the covering up of a woman’s body as the opposite of female repression. Because it hides her womanliness they believe that it is really a form of female liberation, allowing her to be appreciated for her character and mind, and not just for her body.  Nowhere in the Quran or in the prophet’s messages does it state that women must cover their faces – to force a woman to do so (as the Taliban do in Afghanistan) goes against the very spirit of Islam.

 

Even with all this covering up though, occasionally a person might find themselves sexually aroused in a public place by a person who is not their spouse. Hey, it happens!  One of my favourite of prophet Mohammed’s recommendations is that, should this occur to you, you must immediately hurry home to your husband (or wife) and satisfy that sexual urge honourably.  Yipee!

 

While men and women are created equal, they most definitely have different roles to play in marriage and family life.  The husband is expected to provide for the family and the wife is expected to look after him and the household (including children when/if they have them).  This doesn’t mean a woman can’t go out and work if she wants to.  She can, but she must still fulfil her obligations at home too (what else is new, right?).  The role of housewife and mother is regarded as one of the most honourable occupations in Islam.  Staying home to raise a family garners the greatest respect from the community, because it is arguably one of the most difficult jobs to do.

 

Polygamy is permitted in Islam but not in the way most people imagine.  Men are allowed to marry up to only four women, and there are many restrictions.  For instance, a man can only marry another woman if he can afford to keep her in the same way he keeps his first wife; giving them the same amount of food, clothing, leisure, living space, time and compassion.  Plus, he actually needs the permission of his first wife in order to take another.  Theoretically, anyway.  Polygamy was sanctioned, initially, with the intention of providing security and a stable family life for the women left behind after the first Islamic war. Rather than leave the many widows and orphans to fend for themselves it was encouraged for families to give them a home – and since a woman and a man who are not married are forbidden from living under the same roof, marriage was the solution.  Today, however, women are able to support themselves.  This negates the requirement for a man to marry multiple women.  Governments look after those in need, providing welfare to ensure financial stability and security.  The burden of this responsibility has been removed from the man, however polygamy (of course) still occurs.

 

Well, that’s just a drop in the ocean.  If you have any questions about Islam please feel free to ask and I will try and get an informed answer from one of my Muslim colleagues.  Look out next month for another episode from The Misadventures Of Dangerous Doug.

Ejo #17 – A Response to A. A. Gill’s Dubai-Bashing Article in Vanity Fair

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A couple of weeks ago there was a little bit of controversy surrounding a Vanity Fair article written by Scottish restaurant critic A. A. Gill. It was a piece that rather viciously attacked the city of Dubai – but that in itself isn’t what caused the scandal. It was the fact that the article had been removed from copies sold in the UAE. There was, of course, the expected furore about censorship and freedom of information, blah blah blah. But when asked about it, the UAE censorship committee shrugged their shoulders and said, “It wasn’t us!”. A theory has evolved that, in fact, Conde Nast (the publisher of Vanity Fair) was responsible for ripping out the “offending” article from copies sold in the UAE in order to drum up publicity for the story.  If so, bravo, because it worked – it was a form of viral marketing that has stirred up far more discussion about A. A. Gill’s work than had it been just another Dubai-bashing story.

If you are interested in reading the article, you may do so HERE.

And if you are interested in reading my response to it, you may do so here:

Dear A. A. Gill,

This letter is addressed to you but it is not, in fact, directed towards you at all because I know that it would fall on deaf ears.  Based on this, and previous articles you have written, you don’t really care about anything except creating a fuss.  Congratulations, you have, yet again, succeeded in offending an entire city (if not country) and its inhabitants.  What a shame that this was actually your goal and that the tools you employed to do so included bigotry, bitchiness and bullying.

If I thought that you would actually be open to feedback and discussion then yes, I would write this for you.  However I don’t.  And thus, I am writing it for anyone who may have read your article and taken it at face value – which, admittedly, it would be easy to do as it reads just like a real article from a real travel journalist.  What most people may not realise is that you are actually just a restaurant reviewer and TV critic.  It seems that these days anyone with a passport and a pen can pose as a travel writer.  I promised myself I would not use against you the fact that you have such severe dyslexia that all your work is done by dictation, so I shall not.  I will, however, rephrase my previous sentence: It seems that these days anyone with a passport and a Dictaphone can pose as a travel writer.

Having read some of your previous scathing travel reports it would appear that being offensive is your ‘bit’.  Well done for having found something that you’re good at (and kudos to you for getting paid for it).  But let’s be honest, it’s not very nice, is it?  And even more importantly, it means that not much of what you write is actually very accurate (it’s a bit harder to be controversial when you have to stick to the facts, isn’t it?).  So, I guess the only problem I really have with your article is that it is being touted as non-fiction when it is nothing more than a deliciously nasty short-story.

For the clarification of your readers, and mine, I will now address a few of the many fallacies in your story (I don’t have the time or the inclination to correct them all).  Let’s start with the first sentence: “The only way to make sense of Dubai is to never forget that it isn’t real.”  The city I have chosen to adopt as my home town is not, as you go on to say, a fable.  Nor is it a fairy tale.  How silly of you to say so.  Of course it’s real.  It’s as real as New York, London, Edinburgh, Melbourne or Singapore.  People live here, work here and play here.  There is an art scene, a stock exchange, several universities, efficient public transport and even a burgeoning film industry.  Approximately 5 million people choose to live here and about 50 million people a year pass through this so-called “imaginary” city.  They demand (and receive) an infrastructure that solidifies it as very real indeed.  So while it sounds really good to start your story off by calling Dubai a “fairy tale”, let’s agree that it’s not true and move on.

You say that Dubai can’t buy a culture of its own.  I shall concede that argument while pointing out that perhaps it isn’t trying to.  Culture can’t be bought anyway.  Culture is grown, earned and nurtured over time.  Dubai, as a city, hasn’t had the time to attain what you refer to as “culture”.  Its history goes back only about 30 years; I challenge you to find any 30 year old you could describe as being cultured.  In that short time though, it’s gone from a small, but thriving, pearling and fishing port village to the bustling metropolis you see today.  It has never been, as you assert, inhabited by a “handful of tented families herding goats and shooting each other”.  I believe that the families you are referring to are Bedouins (from which the majority of locals in Dubai do not actually originate).  And as for your reference to them shooting each other, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.  My guess is that you’re just trying to be inflammatory.  More silliness.

Let’s continue.  You state that Dubai’s economy is maintained by oil rich families.  Not so.  Yes, these families do exist, of course.  But Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi, doesn’t have a huge amount of oil.  As a result they’ve had to work for their money and they’ve done that by creating an international city with first class facilities to entice tourists.  The economy is driven by those 50 million travellers that pass through each year.  And the reason they come is that a member of one of those rich families, Sheikh Mohammed (the Ruler of Dubai), realising that the emirate’s meagre oil supply would be insufficient to feed the growth of the city, invested that money in making Dubai a destination city; making it attractive to tourists; making it a beautiful, strange oasis in the middle of the desert.

And guess what, it worked.  The tourists came and they had a good time.  And yes, some people, including David and me, decided to move here.  Not because we are, as you say, “mercenaries” or “parasites”.   Sure the tax free salary was a contributing factor in our decision but the reality is that we don’t actually make that much more money here than back home.  The primary reason for moving was to take up the opportunity to work abroad.  The options were Dubai or Ireland and I don’t like the cold.  The secondary reason was adventure.  We love to travel and compared to Australia, geographically, Dubai feels like the centre of the world.  In the two and a half years we’ve been here we’ve been overseas nine times and have another three trips planned for 2011.  We simply could never have enjoyed this lifestyle back home.  The money came much further down the list.  So as easy as it is for you to call western expats “greedy sycophants”, in our case (and several others) it simply isn’t true.

Next, you claim that Emiratis are “born retired” and are unable to “even change a fuse”.  I know for a fact that you must not know any Emiratis otherwise you couldn’t make such ridiculous statements.  I do have the pleasure of knowing a handful, and the truth is that they do have to work, and they are actually good at what they do.  Not all of them are born rich and not all of them have been rendered useless by a menagerie of servants.  Yes, people like that do exist but they are not representative of the entire nationality.  Broad statements like that are usually referred to as being “racist”.  Please be careful Adrian.

Finally, I’ll address your crude statement that the Burj Khalifa is a “monument to small-nation penis envy”.  I wonder what kind of envy you suffer from to make such an observation.  Phallic-centric, much??  The Burj Khalifa wasn’t built out of any kind of envy.  It was built as a monument of beauty and incredible architecture.  A feat of modern engineering.  I look upon this building from my living room window every day and I honestly think it is an amazing structure.  As a resident of the city I am very proud of it.  Were the Eiffel Tower, St. Paul’s Cathedral or the Sydney Opera House built because their designers had small willies??  I don’t think so.  All of these buildings may be considered ostentatious too if you look at them through your mud coloured glasses.  What they do all have in common is that they were built by people who had a dream to create something memorable, lasting and unique.  The Burj Khalifa is an incredible achievement; a testament to human endeavour and vision.  I defy anyone to stand before it and not feel some sense of awe.  You don’t have to admit that you felt it Mr. Gill, but I bet that you did.

It seems almost naive of me to even bother writing this response to your article.  I’m sure you’re not even invested enough in what you wrote to care what people think.  I debated with myself whether writing this letter would be falling into the trap of doing exactly what you wanted me to do.  In the end I decided that even if that was the case, I didn’t mind.  I had to respond.  Dubai is very far from perfect and you did actually make a couple of salient points regarding the city’s terrible human rights record.  The treatment of construction workers here is abysmal.  It’s getting better but the process is frustratingly slow and, unfortunately, I can’t see an improvement of the situation in the near future.  But you didn’t write about it in order to find a solution.  You did so for entertainment and that, sir, is just as despicable as the act itself – if not more so because, indeed, you have a platform to bring attention to the plight of the labourers in order to effect a change for the better.  To help them.  Instead, you chose to use it only as a means of belittling the city.  Shame on you.

Dubai is certainly a strange creature, and most definitely not to everyone’s liking.  Anyone who reads my ejos knows that there’s lots about it that really annoys me too.  But it doesn’t deserve to be lambasted by the likes of you.  Leave the lambasting to people who live here and know it intimately and can complain about the real issues.  You, almost certainly, visited here with the intention of being mean and looking for faults.  Sure it makes a great article, but you know what A. A. Gill?  If that’s the way you go through life, I imagine you’ll be unhappy wherever you find yourself, and all I can feel for you is pity.