Fostering national identity is vital

The minority of people in the UAE who are UAE nationals are working hard to reinforce their national identity. They need to know who they are, and be able to express this identity so that the whole world will be able to understand what motivates a UAE citizen.

This self-aware process of fostering a national identity is a positive development, and is absolutely necessary in a country that has welcomed millions of foreigners to live and work in the UAE, and who have an inevitable impact on the nature of society. The non-nationals living in the UAE need to respect this process, and understand why it is so important.

Young UAE nationals need to grow up being able to articulate pride in their society and nationality, which happens in all sorts of ways. Firstly, language is vital. Use of Arabic has been eroded throughout the country, as non-Arabic speakers form the majority of the population. For example, it is very likely that if a UAE lady goes to buy a dress in a fashionable mall, she will not be able to discuss the purchase in her own language. Another case is when UAE nationals meet to discuss business or technology, they may frequently slip into English since this is the language of those subjects.

It has been a shame that UAE primary schools have not been able to teach Arabic well enough. Arabic needs to be taught at a very early age so that learning a second language like English does not harm the native language.

Social traditions

Secondly, the whole area of social traditions is essential. These cover the way that people interact, the style of conversation, as well as knowledge and enthusiasm for those elements of culture that are particularly Emirati, such as poetry or music, or architecture, as well as sports; both traditional, such as horse and camel racing and imported, such as football. These are all elements that come together in that powerful but very hard to define sense of patriotism and pride in a nation.

The third element is the underlying mentality that upbringing, society and education combine to build. The UAE population, and its government and leadership, have made clear that this is an Arab and Muslim country, with Gulf traditions. It is also a growing player in the global world and it is committed to internal economic growth, which will require a larger population than just the nationals, and also to working as part of the open-market system in which trade and ideas move freely. Only a very self-confident nation, which is sure of itself, can easily take that route. This is why the vigorous debate over the UAE's national identity, which started in 2008, is leading into all sorts of areas of government policy today.

The issue is all the more urgent because the older generation, which remembers the days before the influx of oil wealth and millions of foreigners, will start to fade away. Their living memory of the social principles and traditions of the UAE has been a vital bulwark against the inevitable insecurities triggered by the changes due to the extraordinary growth that the country has gone through in the last three decades.

Young population

But time is moving on and the demographic numbers within the population of UAE nationals are in favour of the young, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. About three-quarters of the UAE national population is aged under 30 and that will continue to be the case for some time to come. Figures from Dubai-based GRMC Advisory Services using government statistics show that just over 73 per cent of the total number of 825,000 UAE nationals in 2005 were under the age of 30. Those under-30s will grow up, and after 15 years their generation will have become the 82 per cent who will be under 45 in the total expected national population of 1,198,500 in 2020.

But the high proportion of young people is not what is forcing the UAE to take action on fostering national identity. That is due to the large number of foreigners due to become resident in the country. The total population was 4.1 million in 2005, of which 825,500 were UAE nationals, a proportion of about 20 per cent. Looking ahead to 2020, the expected number of UAE nationals will be near 1.2 million, in a population which before the world recession was expected to be 8.8 million. If this projection proves to be accurate, only 14 per cent of the population will be nationals.

Even if the UAE's total population grows less fast than was expected in the middle of the boom, UAE nationals will still be a small proportion of the total population. But in ti`me, the population of nationals will grow faster, as more people have more families. So, in a matter of decades and maybe two generations, the proportion of nationals will inevitably start to grow, with the total population expected to peak at around 10 million.

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