Opinion | Columnists
Poetry turns into reality
Mohammad draws his inspirations to transform Dubai from his poems.
- By Lee Yong Soo, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:22 January 29, 2008
The person who transformed the desert into a paradise is a "poet". The "poet" turned a poor fishing village into the biggest trade port, and the largest commercial and financial hub of the Middle East.
It has attracted hundreds of companies from all over the world and more are opening their offices. This significant achievement is a live lesson for many enterprises and government officers from all over the world.
They should learn from it. Despite the success, the "poet" continues to set his sight on scaling greater heights.
For the past ten years, the "poet" with his wise leadership has managed to sustain a double digit economic growth rate. But for him that is not enough.
More projects are in the pipeline and others are being implemented. Huge construction projects are being completed and more are on the drawing board.
To make it happen, the "poet" works from 6 am, the time he wakes up, to 2 am, the time he goes to bed.
This "poet" is none other than His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai.
The official website of Shaikh Mohammad introduces him as a "poet". During his childhood, he was influenced by the nomadic life in the desert and wrote poems in Arabic in the traditional nabati style.
Most of his inspirations to transform Dubai are drawn from his poems. His poetic imagination is behind the building of a ski slope in the desert, creation of artificial islands, the extension of the shoreline from 70km to 1,500km and in the construction of the world's best, biggest, first projects.
Famous
He is famous for breaking existing customs and formulae with complete practicalism. Experts analysed that this is because of his liberal way of thinking, inspired by his poems.
Soon after the first election to the Federal National Council on December 18, 2006, Shaikh Mohammad said: "The most pleasant thing is that women joined the election. There's no soul without women.''
It shows that the leader of one of the Middle East's most advanced nations protects women's right.
The world will be more surprised this year about the unlimited imaginative power of the "poet".
Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, will be completed this year, so too an artificial Palm Island.
The "Dubai Effect" is even felt in other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, and in North Africa, especially in Morocco, Egypt and Libya who are trying to follow the developmental ways of Dubai. This year will be recorded as the year in which the "Dubai Effect" changed the face of the Middle East.
"Dreams have no limits. Go further". Within this slogan of Dubai, lies the roadmap for the future of Dubai and Middle East. This is what the "poet" envisions.
Lee Yong Soo is a journalist based in South Korea.
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