Because I heart Dubai too

Building on last week's piece on Dubai's need for entrepreneurs, I would like to extend the conversation to the state of Dubai and contexualising its challenges with its goals. The state of Dubai today draws a lot of common lines with a cult film of the 90s called Sleepers. In the film, four men who were abused as young children in a juvenile penitentiary grow up plotting how they could bring their abusers to justice.

Two of the men find themselves in a situation where they murder one of the oppressors and a famous scene occurs where the other two discuss how to move forward and one of them explains that though it is messy and it is not how they meant to fix things, they were still at this situation and must move forward and use this case to light the abuses and achieve justice.

We did not want our wake up call to be this bad; I surely didn't want the price for my lesson to be 80 per cent depreciation in the real estate that I own. But we're here and we should have a frank debate on how to move forward from here.

It's conventional wisdom nowadays to say that the crisis was a blessing in disguise for Dubai; everyone with a measurable level of sanity in them agrees with this statement. The question is what do we do with this blessing? How will Dubai evolve differently? Beyond which industry and what the economic drivers will be, how will the city's mindset change?

Two words: Long-term planning. Dubai has been wrongly criticised for its fascination with all things preceded with the adjectives: biggest, fastest, longest, and tallest. I say this because it was this ambition that set cities like Miami and Singapore to the stature by which they are perceived today.

In addition, this fascination which bore the Dubai Mall and Burj Al Arab (favourite citations among the critics of Dubai) also bore Dubai Ports and Dubal (global leaders in logistics and aluminium, respectively). Yet Dubai has been rightly criticised - on many occasions - for seeking credit before it has been due. Just ask yourself how many times you've read press releases and wondered if this really was going to happen? And even then you would question how? When? And more importantly, why?

The reverse side of this has been that at many occasions Dubai has shunned meaningful investment in long-term projects which may provide little immediate public relations equity, but had the potential of transforming the related sector's landscape.

One can try to analyse why this is the case by relating PR to trade and fishery (the historic sources of livelihood for Dubai's inhabitants) and long-term planning to farming and sheep herding (the historic sources of livelihood for the inhabitants of some parts in other emirates).

What is ironic is that - in the short term - the key to Dubai's deliverance from its PR-centric approach is PR. Dubai must communicate very clearly that its future plans are to develop sustainable associations to the city and that this will include a focus on upscaling health care institutions, an accelerated upgrade of the state of public education, financial and legislative stimulation of content development in culture and arts, the deregulation of creativity by allowing entrepreneurs to set up businesses at much faster and cheaper methods and a case by case approval process for awarding long- term residences.

Specific, measurable goals must be achieved in a realistic manner and period. They need not be large or impressive; they need to be realistically achievable. Civil servants should go back to their job descriptions and remember that they are not locked in an epic battle of competition with other civil servants of the other bodies, cities or countries.

The measure of the success of a civil servant is the continued upscaling of the quality of service to the public and its contribution to the development of society. Those are the operative words for our dear city moving forward: 'public and society' as opposed to 'competition and business centre'.

To sum up, Dubai has established itself as a globally strategic and viable commercial centre (good job, really!), now it must make the transition to a civil society. Otherwise, it will remain inhabited - for the most part - by a transient demography.

Mishaal Al Gergawi is an Emirati commentator on socio-economic and cultural affairs in the UAE.

I was so impressed by the article that I am forced to support it. Dubai need to be owned by people and people who are living, belonging and serving it. You are quite right the things which need tbe best is the health care, education culture and heritage. I am so impressed by the vision of an Emirati which is more sincere than an imported foriegn vision.
Azizunnisa Shaikh
Dubai,UAE
Posted: September 27, 2009, 17:12

Bravo Mishaal!Well said, well written!I often wonder why some, with the eye of envy, love to criticise Dubai, whenever they are opportuned to.Like most cities in the world, nothing is ever perfect, but I am very impressed with the the remarkable transformation the city has made.All Dubaians should be very proud of such undeniable achievements.And to the Haters, I say, Love it or Hate it, Dubai is hear to stay, and the best is yet to come!Bravo Dubai!
Othman Sani Bello
Lagos,Nigeria
Posted: September 27, 2009, 03:38

Thank you Gulf News
Khamis Al Hefaity
Fujairah,UAE
Posted: September 27, 2009, 02:11