Felix Arabia

Latest article: Egypt's Brotherhood responds

2012-02-26T12:20:00.000+04:00

My article in Egypt Independent

2012-02-08T01:52:00.003+04:00

Will Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood mend ties with Gulf States?

Russia's UN Envoy threatens to wipe Qatar off the map

2012-02-07T09:54:00.000+04:00

Update

Russia denied the entire episode took place.

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Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr apparently spoke to Russia's UN Envoy Vitaly Churkin prior to the UN vote on Syria saying: "I warn you against using the veto. You will lose all Arab countries"

Russia Envoy Churkin replied: "If you speak to me in this manner again there won't be something called Qatar from today. You are a guest on the (UN) Security Council, respect yourself, go back to your size, I only speak in the name of great Russia with big (countries, could also mean adults)"

The recording was apparently broadcast on France 2. Here is an Arabic transcript and here is one in French. There is no mention of this incident in the English language press.

It's interesting to note that Russia downgraded its diplomatic ties with Qatar last December following an incident on November 29 in which its ambassador to the Arab Gulf State "was attacked by security and customs officers at the Doha airport." Russia then warned Qatar of "consequences" following the incident, demanding an apology and recalled its ambassador from Doha. Russia Today, Moscow's version of Al Jazeera then started broadcasting a string of reports critical of Qatar saying in one report that it is "punching above its weight".

Here is a cartoon by RT's Vladimir Kremlev:

New Kuwaiti MPs Twitter accounts

2012-02-06T13:38:00.001+04:00

These are some of Kuwait's 50 MPs Twitter accounts. Please tweet them (in Arabic preferably) to expel the Syrian Baathist envoy from Kuwait:

@Alsadoun @AlHerbesh @faisalalmuslem @Khsultann @alialomair @k_altahous @maldallal @faisalalyahya @Dr_alwasmi @DrAldamkhi @AL_KANDARY @Altabtabie @mhamdhaif @alanjary_majlis @MarzouqAlghanim @dr_a_alturaiji

I will continue to populate the list as and when more accounts are sent to me.

My article in Jadaliyya: Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula: It's A Family Affair

2012-02-02T13:17:00.000+04:00

Across the Arabian Peninsula and stretching well into North Africa and Sudan, there is a common bond, perhaps only behind religion and language in importance, that binds Arabic language speakers together. Museums across the Gulf proudly display lineage maps illustrating the family trees of ruling members, linking them through lines and photos from bygone centuries up to the current leader. Major financial institutions in Dubai and Bahrain display in their offices large-scale maps detailing prominent ruling family members of the Gulf States and their marital, government, and business affiliations. Tribalism in modern day Arabia is alive and well. In this article, I highlight recent developments to illustrate how those in power in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula use tribalism, and how, sometimes, it is used against them.

Continue reading here

Email I sent my mailing list

2012-01-29T13:11:00.000+04:00

Dear friends

Here is my latest article in The Guardian: Reform in Arab Gulf regimes is unattainable – for now

I am in Cairo once again for the Jan25 uprising anniversary, it was a hassle to go up one of the Tahrir buildings for me to take this photo so I am posting a link to it.

There were several Twitter rankings that mentioned my Twitter timeline these past few weeks. The UK's Independent came out with its voices of 2011: The most influential non-celebrity users of Twitter. Middle East entrepreneurship organisation Wamda has also come up with its own ranking of "The 100 Most Influential Arabs on Twitter". The United Nation's Dispatch had an Egypt special called: #Jan25 One Year Later: The 12 Twitter UsersWho Shaped Our Experience of the Egyptian Uprising and finally the London based Asharq Al Awsat also published a report on the "Arabs that shaped the news on Twitter in 2011"

I spent my birthday in Cairo with many friends and met dozens of Egyptian activists. When I was here three weeks ago a Cairo publication called Campus mag interviewed me on my views on Egypt, so did ON TV (Arabic, with great Special FX).

A good friend of mine who moved to Egypt sent me this highly insightful email about life in Cairo. I asked his permission to share it, it got over 1,000 hits. I recommend you read it.

I have a piece on Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula out in the next week or so, and one on Qatar-Saudi economic relations, keep an eye out for them.

Sultan Al Qassemi

Cairo, Egypt

Egyptian tragicomedy English translation

2012-01-17T16:07:00.000+04:00

A group of people passed near a woman whowas drowning in the sea

The Salafi refused to extend his arm tosave her because he had thoroughly washed himself to pray

The Muslim Brotherhood member insisted on consultingthe Supreme Guide first

The April 6^th Youth member insisted first on reaching an agreement with at least 130 youth coalitions

A Tahrir revolutionary demanded a million man march next Friday under thename “Friday to save the drowning woman”

Those in Abbassia Square (pro SCAF) insisted that if she diddrown she would not be considered a martyr and questioned why she went into thesea in the first place??

And Tamer from Ghamra (dude who called Egypt TV during Jan25 with false testimony) confirmedthat he heard her shout in the English language for someone to save her (i.e. foreign agent)

Ganzouri cried as he apologised because AbuAl Arabi has yet to send a lifebuoy.

El Baradei shuddered as he took out his iPadto tweet “A woman’s dignity is in her right to life”

Nawara Negm and Asmaa Mahfouz said thatSCAF was behind the woman's drowning and it is responsible for saving her.

And Mortada Mansour (notorious pro-Mubarak lawyer) said he has a CD of thisdebased woman who is in a relationship with Mamdooh Abbas (millionaire businessman) and Ahmed Shoubeir (ex-footballer and TV presenter)

And Tawfik Okasha (anti-revolution TV host) insisted that going intothe water is a Masonic rite and demanded from his friends the ducks to head to Abbassia Square to confront the conspiracy hatched by this lady.

The Minister of Interior stated “We don’thave a sea”

SCAF decided to form an investigativecommittee to know who the third party is who pushed her into the sea.

Sadly, this lady is Egypt.

Translated into English by Sultan Al Qassemi. Original Arabic post can be found here. Thanks to www.twitter.com/@Bassem_Sabry. Please credit if using elsewhere.

Egyptian political tragicomedy - ht @Bassem_Sabry

2012-01-17T15:12:00.000+04:00

مر مجموعة من الناس بامرأه تغرق في البحر

فرفض السلفى مد يده لانقاذها لأنه متوضئ

وأصر الإخوانجى على إستئذان المرشد العام أولا

واشترط شاب من ٦ إبريل موافقة 130ائتلاف من ائتلافات شباب الثورة على الأقل قبل انقاذها

ونصحها الليبرالى أن تخلع كل هدومها عشان تبقى خفيفة وتقب علي وش الميه

وطالب أحد ثوار التحرير بعمل مليونية الجمعة المقبل باسم "جمعة انقاذ الفتاه التي تغرق"

فيما أكد كل من في العباسية انها لو ماتت تبقى غريقة مش شهيدة و تسألو هي إيه إلي نزلها المية أصلاً ؟؟

وأكد تامر بتاع غمرة إن سمعها بتنادي بانجلش لانجويدج عشان حد ينقذها

وبكى الجنزورى وهو يعتذر لأن أبو العربى لسه مابعتش العوامة

وانتفض البرادعي وأخرج الأي باد وكتب على حسابه على تويتر "كرامة المرأه فى حقها فى الحياة"

وقالت نواره نجم وأسماء محفوظ أن المجلس العسكري هو من قام باغراق السيده وهو المسئول عن انقاذها

وقال مرتضى منصور أنه يمتلك سي دي لهذه السيدة المنحلة وأنها على علاقة بممدوح عباس وأحمد شوبير

وأكد توفيق عكاشه أن نزولها للبحر هو أحد طقوس الماسونية العالمية وطالب من زملائه البط التواجد فالعباسية للتصدي للمؤامرة المدبرة من هذه السيدة

وأكد وزير الداخلية إن معندناش بحر أصلاً

أما المجلس العسكرى فشكل لجنة تقصى حقائق لمعرفة الطرف الثالث إللي زقها فى الميه

للأسف الشديد .. الست دي هي مصر

Observations from Cairo

2012-01-14T19:21:00.002+04:00

A friend who moved to Egypt following the January 25 2011 uprising sent me his thoughts on life in Cairo over the past few months. He agreed to let me share them online so long as I don't disclose his name.

The past year has been of monumental significance in the Middle East. Dictators of various sorts have been shaken off the backs of their people and several more wait in line for their inevitable exits. In most countries where there have been uprisings there historically used to be far greater prosperity and progressive thinking. In the past few decades these nations have had a lethal combination of population explosion, without the systems in place to provide for such growth, and a degenerate political establishment that has suffocated human development. In hindsight, what is even more shocking than the revolutions is the tolerance for corruption and the erosion of the individual to its current undignified and broken form. The political revolution alone will not remedy these pains. It was just the tip of an iceberg for a massive social revolution needing to happen.

Living in Cairo for most of 2011, I discovered that the political revolution alone is cosmetic in significance relative to the underlying dysfunction within society. Walking through the streets of Cairo or sitting by its riverbanks one comes across a plethora of garbage. Littering has even infected the upper class. I saw a young man tossing his empty box of cigarettes into the Nile while on a yacht cruise. In allegedly upscale neighborhoods such as Zamalek you find no relief from the sea of accumulated trash on the street. Rubbish, dirt, broken poles, parked cars, trees, and fragmented bricks can be found obstructing almost every sidewalk. Pedestrians are forced to walk on the road alongside cars. Some of those roads fit four lanes but three are used for parking and abandoned vehicles, leaving only one lane for passage. Months will pass and not a single thing will change on the street, evidencing the sad complacency people have developed for living amidst the refuse. Crossing the country you notice the problem is not Cairo’s alone. Garbage is a permanent fixture in the landscapes of other cities and towns. Desensitization to uncleanliness is endemic across the country.

People have adjusted to a low quality of life. You don’t feel a strong enough fight for higher quality. Attention to detail is nonexistent. People are busy trying to get through the day and ill equipped with the skills needed to elevate the standards of their goods and services. Across downtown Cairo are cheap shoe and clothing stores peddling fake brands and low quality goods. Most are manufactured locally and represent the deteriorating production capabilities of the country. Most anything that is of reasonable value is shipped internationally. What remains for domestic consumption are the defected and second rate goods. Quality places to eat in are few. Restaurant owners are not solely to blame as there is a dearth of high quality ingredients that are consistently brought in or produced by the country. There are almost no gourmet grocery stores. Anything off-season is unavailable or inedible. Some restaurants can be found with the label “healthy food” or “natural” while mostly severing processed and deep fried chicken. I once ordered a plate of “fresh fruit,” as indicated on the menu, and received a plate of canned fruit.

Walking through Gazera Sporting Club, one of the most posh country clubs in Egypt, the picnic tables were filled with pizzas, processed meats and cheeses, burgers, fries, sugary drinks, and sodas. Their lives used to be built around fresh produce and foods with nutritional value, but this has been replaced with a culture of junk food. Almost all the snacks sold across the country are packaged and processed. If you look around you notice many people are overweight and almost none are fit. Between the various social classes the picture is tragic. The upper class lives in total isolation of the lower class. The wealthy desperately try to avoid interaction with the pedestrian layer of society. They place rules and price minimums on venues and restaurants to try and keep out undesirables. The typical attractive wealthy Egyptian girl doesn’t engage society in any meaningful way. She may spend her entire life between indoor locations and events and driven to them by a personal driver. Her time spent on the streets or integrated with society is minimal at best.

There is no urban planning. Roads are entirely ill equipped to deal with any kind of rain. Traffic is absurdly frustrating, largely stemming from insufficient public transportation alternatives and massive government subsidies for gasoline consumption. For a poor country, those gasoline subsidies come at an enormous cost and result in funds being diverted away from education, infrastructure and health, and into incentivizing everyone to own a car and discounting taxi fares for tourists and foreigners.

Instead of rejuvenating downtown and its classical French styled buildings, rent control laws, remnants of Egypt’s socialist era, are destroying the city core. Landlords collect only a few dollars a month for rent in highly desirable locations and properties. With no incentive to invest in upkeep, those buildings are left in total disrepair. Population overgrowth was supposed to be eased with low-income housing built outside the city, but that initial vision was mutated into the construction of lavish compounds in the suburbs for the rich. The contracting work for those developments was high jacked by government insiders and their cronies who pocketed handsome profits. Those compounds are draining the wealthy out of the city core, disconnecting them entirely from the city life, furthering the fragmentation in society and the gap between classes, and helping Cairo become more like Detroit. In these artificially built California styled neighborhoods, Egyptian architecture and design has been lost and replaced with cookie cut subdivision plots. Developers have taken a land with thousands of years of rich history and turned it into an American suburb with malls.

The level of religiosity is surreal. Virtually the entire population possesses an unshakable conviction and belief in supernatural powers. There is no conversation around whether an alternative perspective may exist. The average citizen has never met an atheist or a Jew, and most have never had someone meaningfully press them on their beliefs or suggest that their beliefs might be wrong or contain fallacies. This goes for all segments of society. The most progressive try to develop liberal interpretations of religion that make life more manageable, but none are able to shed themselves entirely of religious belief. In fact, religious ideas are so engrained that it is virtually impossible for anyone to view them as a burden.

Even when you look at the Christian communities, where you might expect to find more relaxed or diverse views, you discover the same fierce religiosity and unequivocal belief in the supernatural. The unchecked conviction has little to do with the underlying content of the ideas but with the unquestioned way by which religious ideas are formulated.
There is a clear intolerance to Jews, atheists, homosexuals, or anyone who stars as an antagonist in the various vivid conspiracy theories that most buy into. Belief in devils, jin, and spiritual powers are unquestionably true. There is plenty of discrepancy between conviction and behavior. While watching a man drink a glass of whisky he told me that he refuses to traffic hashish into the country because it is not permissible by God. I came across another man who claimed to have deep religious beliefs, but went on to tell me about various trysts he was having with a married woman who comes into his shop. Oddly enough, he was married too.

Endless numbers of men possess an intentionally created piety spot on their foreheads called a zabiba. The mark is allegedly from the incredible amount of prostrating they perform, but more likely from intentionally and aggressively rubbing their forehead on the ground. Females who presumably pray just as much don’t possess any such spot. The spot ranges from a light brown dot to a grotesque pus filled infection on one’s forehead. The irony is the religion they deeply believe in promotes modesty and anonymity in one’s good acts yet they go out of their way to make it known how often they prostrate. Women are not immune from religious fads. The headscarf has turned into a fashion item that comes and goes depending on the seasons of the country’s mood. At the moment it’s in vogue and sported by almost every woman. The pressure to wear it is a cultural current that is hard to swim against and effectively leaves girls only an illusionary sense of choice as to whether they will wear it.

Sexual frustration among the youth is palpable. Packs of young males with poor hygiene and excessive amounts of hair product wander around aimlessly trying to hustle a dollar and make the day pass. The worst of them will harass women on the street and may even help themselves to a grope. Since sexual relations outside of marriage are entirely unacceptable and because females try to retain their virginity for religious chastity, society’s sexual frustration expresses itself in warped and perverse ways. The expressions include females preferring to be sodomized than conventional approaches and males settling for experiences with other males.

Marriage is so far from reach because of the absurd requirements placed on getting married. Bachelors who are educated and work as professionals make only one or two hundred dollars a week. Despite their lack of funds, they are expected to obtain a furnished apartment, car, gold offerings, dowry, and funds for the cost of an engagement and wedding party, before approaching their prospective father in laws.

Broken souls wither away in the useless drag of another day. Bored chain smokers can be found in every corner and in almost every taxi. Semiemployed men linger in alleyways playing backgammon and drinking tea. Too many people on the street seem ready and willing to sell you anything you might be looking for, regardless of the product or service, and regardless of whether they possess what you need themselves or will just broker a deal with someone they know who can supply. Merchants will try to swindle outsiders by not setting prices but rather waiting to see what they can get away with. Pricing battles can lead to lengthy and exhausting exchanges for even simple purchases.

I don’t think all of this can be fixed by a political revolution alone. We can celebrate the political revolutions all we want, but they are just the beginning of a long conversation. There is a social revolution lingering in the horizon wishing for a place in our history. Until we give it the chance to manifest, the average person will continue to have a broken spirit and an empty wallet. It is about time we spring clean the collapse of the individual and set the eruption of that volcano free.

What you get when you try to access Lebanon's Al Akhbar from Saudi

2012-01-10T22:08:00.001+04:00

This is the page that appears if you attempt to access Lebanon's Al Akhbar newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Committee forms road blocks in Jeddah

2012-01-07T14:28:00.002+04:00

Update: According to many tweeps including Ahmed Al Omran, the Saudi Commission denied these were its members. Also this photo has been taken in Riyadh (you can see an iconic Riyadh tower in the background of the upper photo). Ahmed says it may be from the Ramadan افطار صائم outreach.

Friends from Saudi sent me an email apparently showing members of the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice forming road blocks in Jeddah. The email reads (half jokingly): "Make sure you have your marriage cards (for couples) and remember the name of your maid and how many lightbulbs are in your bedroom". ht TAM

ON TV Interview

2012-01-06T13:01:00.002+04:00

My interview on Egypt's ON TV, talking Egypt, Arab uprisings, activists & social media. 6mins Arabic Video

Qatar's new envoy to Libya, bad timing?

2012-01-04T10:29:00.001+04:00

I couldn't find information on Qatar's new envoy to Libya Sheikh Mohamed bin Nasser bin Jassim al-Thani (appointed January 2nd 2012) so a researcher friend sent me some information:

"He's the son of the former governor of Naseriyah, and grandson of former Ruler, Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed."

A Bahraini tweep later commented that the new envoy to Libya is a former Colonel in the Qatari Army (Twitter account protected)

Background: Qatar's former ruler Sheikh Jassim Bin Mohammed Bin Thani of the Bani Tamim tribe of central Arabia was born in 1826 in town of Al Hidd, on the island of Muharraq in modern day Bahrain. He ruled Qatar from the 18th of December 1878 upon the death of his father until his own demise on the 17th of July 1913. (His Wikipedia page can be found here)

In 2007 Qatar's current Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa shifted the official national public holiday from September 3rd (the date of the British withdrawal in 1971) to the 18th of December in honour of the founder of modern Qatar as Sheikh Jassim is referred to (also weather conditions help). Sheikh Jassim is revered for leading a battle against Ottoman forces stationed 15 km east of Doha who were attempting to exert control over the peninsula and defeated them on 25 March 1893.
In September 2011 Qatar appointed another member of the ruling family as director of Al Jazeera, a station that championed the revolutionaries cause from the outset. This video shows a group of Qatari fighters opening the doors to the Qatari Embassy in Tripoli in early October 2011 upon the fall of the regime of Libya's former dictator. The Qatari fighter announces that he has arrived with the Zintan brigades.

Qatar's new envoy to Libya will have his work cut out for him. He's being posted as relations have deteriorated between Libya and Qatar. Several articles in the past few weeks have documented a shift in perception of the Gulf state amongst Libyans. Rather than delving into details I will post some headlines of articles (in chronological order) that dealt with Qatar's role in Libya over the past year.

The Marriage

Qatar slams Libya’s violent crackdown on protesters (Feb 22 2011 - AFP)

Qatar's ambassador leaves Libya amid crisis (Feb 24 2011 - Reuters)

Qatar first Arab country to join military mission in Libya (March 21 2011 - DPA)

Qatari PM defends military participation in Libya (March 23 2011 - Xinhua)

For Qatar, Libyan Intervention May Be a Turning Point (April 3 2011 - NYTimes)

Qatar's Libya Role: 'A Logical Next Step' (April 24 2011 - NPR)

The Honeymoon

Qatari special forces led Libyan attack on compound (24 Aug 2011 - The Week)

Tiny Qatar Flexed Big Muscles in Libya (Aug 25 2011 - Wired)

Gamble on Libya pays off for Qatar (Aug 28 2011 - FT)

Why Was Doha Such a Strong Supporter of the Rebels? (Sept 28 2011 - Foreign Affairs)

Qatar admits sending hundreds of troops to support Libya rebels (Oct 26 2011 - The Guardian)

The Divorce

Qatar accused of interfering in Libyan affairs (4 Oct 2011 - The Guardian)

Tiny Kingdom's Huge Role in Libya Draws Concern (Oct 17 2011 - WSJ)

Libya U.N. envoy says Qatar arming Islamists (Nov 18 2011 - Reuters)

Libyan diplomat unloads on Qatar (Nov 4 2011 - Foreign Policy - uses my live translation)

Why the Libyans Have Fallen Out of Love with Qatar (2 Jan 2012 - Time)

Asharq Al Awsat Top Arabs on Twitter list

2011-12-27T13:53:00.000+04:00

London based Arabic daily Asharq Al Awsat published a list of prominent Arabs active on Twitter (December 2011). The paper is owned by Al Saudi businessman Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud.

The paper highlights the emergence of several Arab Foreign Ministers who were active on Twitter in 2011.

- The Foreign Minister of Bahrain Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa

- The Foreign Minister of Jordan Nasser Judeh

- The Foreign Minister of the UAE Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed

The daily then highlights the top ten Arab Twitter users of 2011 most of whom were active in journalism and news media.

1- Queen Rania, current Queen of Jordan, wife of King Abdulla

2- Wael Ghonim, Egyptian activist

3- Queen Noor, former Queeen of Jordan, wife of King Hussein

4- Ameera Al Taweel, wife of Saudi businessman Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal

5- Sultan Al Qassemi, UAE commentator

6- Dima Khatib, Palestinian-Syrian journalist & Al Jazeera Latin America bureau chief

7- Alaa Abdel Fattah, Egyptian activist & blogger

8- Saad Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon & Saudi-Lebanese businessman

9- Hossam Hamalawy, Egyptian socialist activist & blogger

10- Ayman Mohyeldin Egyptian-Palestinian NBC correspondent in the Middle East & former Al Jazeera correspondent in Egypt

Here is the original link in Arabic via Dima Khatib

For further references check out the following links:

Arabian Business Top Arabs on Twitter (April, 2011)

Forbes Middle East Top Arab Tweeters (July 2011, original Arabic link here)

Independent voices of 2011: The most influential non-celebrity users of Twitter

2011-12-22T22:57:00.001+04:00

@SultanAlQassemi

The UAE-based writer gained 81,000 followers in the course of the year thanks to his constant translations of Arabic-language news from the Middle East and North Africa. His matter-of-fact, reliable updates swiftly established him as one of the most authoritative sources for anyone wishing to make sense of the region's fast-moving uprisings.

I'm proud to be included in such distinguished company.

UAE revokes citizenship of several Islamists

2011-12-22T12:18:00.005+04:00

Twitter has been aflutter the past few days over news that several individuals had their UAE citizenship revoked.

The Financial Times correspondent in Dubai has an English report out today in which he interviews a daughter of one of those now-former UAE citizens who tells him “They did not give a reason, but maybe they did this because the seven are from Islah”. Islah is widely believed to be the UAE branch of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation in the Gulf.

In fact Islah has come out with an Arabic statement calling on the President of the UAE to reverse his decision. Islah's statement blames the UAE Security Agency for the decision demanding that the "cancerous" elements be removed from the agency so that the UAE "doesn't suffer the fate of other (Arab) countries where revolutions have occurred".

Additionally, Al Hewar, a London based satellite channel known to host dissidents from the Gulf states interviewed Mohammed Abdul Razaq Al Siddique, one of those included in the decisions who tells the channel that "there was no reason behind the decision" and that "it didn't follow the UAE laws." Al Siddique tells the channel that "these are all prominent individuals" and recounts their jobs.

The London based website Middle East online published an article a few days ago saying that these individuals were of Iranian origin. The website said that Mohammed Abdul Razaq Al Siddique "deliberately omitted to mention his Iranian background in the (Hewar) TV interview". (link via Nasser Al Shaikh) Most of the Arabic commentaries were supportive of the government decision (which was up to that point not official yet). However some comments targeted Shias in general which is a worrying phenomenon we've seen in other Gulf states and that I had warned against here recently.

The online Kuwaiti newspaper Sabr published an article titled "UAE reformists call for help: We stood against the regime and lost our citizenships".

Finally this morning the UAE's official news agency WAM issued a statement on the revocation of citizenship "for committing acts posing threat to the State's security and safety". The statement mentions the names and the dates of the "granting" citizenship in the 1970's and 1980's which means that they weren't born UAE citizens. One point is as yet unclear, media reports that seven people had their citizenship withdrawn, however the official press release mentions six only.

The UAE had also withdrawn citizenship from a Gulf national in 2002 after forging documents. However the decree had come from the Ministry of Interior not the President as in the latest case. Interestingly the unnamed gentleman had taken his case to the Surpreme Court (although he lost the case in 2011). It is unclear if the six mentioned individuals will also have recourse to the Supreme Court.

Update

This article I wrote on the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gulf may provide further insight

Last email of 2011 to friends

2011-12-22T10:34:00.001+04:00

I visited The Netherlands on a Dutch government funded tour (we visited the UNDU prison cells and saw a number of war lords, really) I met the Moroccan-born Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, this is my article on that fascinating gentleman.

This is an article that bascially sums up my talk at the American University of Beirut last autumn on the Pioneer Bloggers in the Gulf Arab States. Funny enough, the Emirati atheist blogger mentioned was on this mailing list until his account was closed a few months ago.

Here are my comments on Egypt (where I am off to now for ten days) to the German Press Agency.

Check out this awesome pagespread done by Gulf News on our current show in Barjeel in Sharjah, this is the text of the interview. Here's an interview on the role of social media in the Arab Uprisings the London based Al Majallah

Finally, here is a short blog I wrote called Is there such a thing as a Gulf public intellectual?

In honour of the holiday spirits here are two brilliant articles by Emirati writers: Mishaal Al Gergawi's UAE: A forty-year-old minority and Muath Al Wari's The Arab revolutions and “sitting on the fence” on Palestine.

Sultan Al Qassemi

P.S. Don't buy Lacoste anymore.

My article: Pioneer Bloggers in the Gulf Arab States

2011-12-21T15:10:00.000+04:00

Long before Facebook updates and 140-character tweets, a number of cyber activists defined the landscape of non-government led opinion in the Gulf Arab states. In less than a decade, a group of bloggers—many of whom have never met—has paved the way for the emergence of the “other opinion” that was and continues to be largely missing from the government controlled Gulf Arab media. The shake-up to traditional media that these blogging pioneers caused was no less significant than what Al Jazeera’s arrival did to the moribund government-controlled television channels of the Arab world.

Continue reading on Jadaliyya

Alaa Abdel Fattah's brilliant play on words

2011-12-20T12:26:00.002+04:00

الحب خالد والحزن خالد والميدان خالد والشهيد خالد والبلد خالد، أما دولتهم فلساعة، ساعة فقط.

I wanted to share with you a smart play on words by detained Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah. "Khaled" is the name of his son & the icon martyr Khaled Saeed, but also means "Eternal". So Alaa writes in reference to SCAF: Love is Khaled, Sorrow is Khaled, the Meydan is Khaled, the Martyr is Khaled, the country is Khaled, but their state is but for one hour.

Arabic article here: http://bit.ly/vE64z5 English translation here: http://bit.ly/s0vBuD

Translated chants of Nawara Negm

2011-12-18T14:14:00.001+04:00

Egyptian activist Nawara Negm chanting from the courtyard of Cairo's Al Azhar Mosque. Below is a rough English language translation of that fiery chant.

Full video on YouTube here.

O Musheer (Tantawi) traitor and loyal
Frightened, frightened, frightened why areyou so?
What’s left after all this killing?
Down down with military rule!
They are being macho with us
Dumping us in the rubbish bins
The rubbish bin is for the Musheer(Tantawi)
Legitimacy comes from Tahrir
Be a man on the Sinniyya (Tahrir)
And on the border (with Israel) be a woman
They killed their brothers (SCAF soldiers)on the borders
While they continue to protect the Jews
He who kills his family and people
Is despicable from bottom to top.

You can follow Egyptian activist Nawara Negm on Twitter here. Video via socialist Egyptian activist Hossam Hamalawy follow him on Twitter. Original video uploaded by EmadWeb on YouTube on Dec 17, 2011

My article on Rotterdam's mayor

2011-12-16T11:07:00.003+04:00

One of the most accomplished Arab/African emigrants to Europe: my article on Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam

Is there such a thing as a Gulf public intellectual?

2011-12-07T23:17:00.001+04:00

At the Fikr 10 conference in Dubai this morning I had an extensive pre-panel conversation with Dr Fayez Al Shehri, a Saudi writer and researcher on new media (tweets as @Fayez_Alshehri) who told me: "There's no such thing as a public intellectual in the Gulf, only 'Public Intellectual works in progress' or in Arabic مشروع مثقف." Dr Fayez remarked that in the region as soon as a public intellectual makes a name for himself or herself then they are immediately either called in to be absorbed by the regime or sidelined and silenced.

I am particularly interested in this issue having written about the intimidation that public intellectuals in the Gulf face in The National in December 2010. Here's a link to the full article. In it I argued that Gulf intellectuals must be honoured rather than being persecuted.

The value to society of these lawyers, scholars, columnists and professors stems from the fact that they have an independent critical thinking process. Independent public intellectuals provide a much needed critique of society as well as of government plans and expenditures. Public intellectuals reflect the conscience of society and should not be regarded as a threat, but as part and parcel of the community.

I use the example of the late Arab American intellectual giant Edward Said and ask at the very end of the article: "Finally, Gulf leaders should ponder the following: was Edward Said a threat or an asset?"

I must say that I can think of very few truly independent public intellectuals that are free to write and express themselves as they wish in the Arab Gulf States. Every Gulf state has intimidated through publishing bans and have gone as far as detaining public intellectuals who veer off the acceptable track. Recently, Saudi Arabia's Arab News paper published a courageous Op Ed by attorney Dr. Khalid Alnowaiser in which he argued against the introduction of a draconian new "Anti-Terrorism Law" that will most likely also be used to silence critics of government policies. Dr Alnowaiser illustrated the dilemma that Gulf public intellectuals face: how to publish a critical article inside a Gulf country without stepping on the feet of the official in question. Simple answer is to flatter the organisation that this individual heads, in the case of Saudi anti-terror efforts, the person in question is new Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz. Dr Al Nowaiser says: "Our government has succeeded particularly due to the wonderful efforts of the Ministry of Interior..". The Saudi Interior Ministry can perhaps be described with a variety of "safe" adjectives such as efficient, relentless and uncompromising, I would probably avoid using the word "wonderful" to describe it.

In response to my tweet: "As @kalnowaiser illustrates in this brave article, criticism in Gulf Op Eds must be tempered by flattery" the prominent Emirati columnist Mishaal Al Gergawi tweeted: "We all learned that lesson at some point, some harder than others." I am sure many Gulf intellectuals can relate to that.

Which brings me back to Fayez Al Shehri's point: There's no such thing as a "Gulf Public Intellectual" only "Public Intellectual works in progress"

Reuters responds to social media criticism on Yemen reporter

2011-11-17T01:08:00.001+04:00

Social media users have heavily criticised the Reuters news agency after it became clear that Mohammed Sudam, the news wire's reporter in Yemen is also employed as the personal translator of Yemen's dictator who has been in power for over 33 years. More on this issue can be found on Brian Whitaker's blog. France 24 Arabic covered the story including a tweet I sent asking Reuters for clarification on the issue.

Following the report Reuters sent a statement to France 24 Arabic that I have translated below into English:

“For more than 160 years the coverage ofReuters in the Middle East has been a trustworthy source of news. We considerthat the work of Mohammed Sudam as a part-time reporter rises to the internationalstandards that we adhere to around the world.” - Reuters News Agency November 16 2011

Link to France 24 Arabic story provided by Dory Aleryani. More on this issue can be found on her blog.

UPDATE

This is the official English language statement as provided by France 24 Arabic's Tatiana El Khoury:

"For more than 160 years, Reuters coverage has been a trusted source in the Middle East. Mohammed Suddam's contributions to the file as a stringer are balanced and meet the high standards we set for the news organization globally." - Reuters

Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah blogs from detention

2011-11-05T05:22:00.001+04:00

Writing in colloquial Egyptian Arabic from detention Alaa Abdel Fattah:

I am writing this blogwhile being ashamed of myself, I was moved to Tora Investigative [jail] on myinsistence and nagging because I could not take the difficult circumstances ofthe appeal detention, the darkness, the filth, the cockroaches that crawl overmy body day and night, there is no break and we don't see the sun, darknessagain, but the issue that bothered me most was the toilet, I don't know how tohandle the filth of the toilets and the absence of doors and stayed five daysfasting, binded binded binded.

I was confounded byNawarah (Negm)'s article in which she spoke of my manliness, but NaglaaBudeir's article reminded me of my previous detention where the blog was myrefuge and where I was honest with myself.

I didn't know how toman-up and take (the conditions), even though thousands are bearing suchconditions and worse, even though I haven't experienced the agonies of amilitary jail and wasn't tortured like other colleagues of military trials.

I have let down mycolleagues of the Maspero (incident) detention and that of the Ministry ofDefense along with other politicians, I have let down the convicts who weremoved by the commotion that was created for me and decided to tell me about theatrocities of the Interior (Ministry) so I can tell the people, they were happythat someone could tell of the baltagiya (thugs) and the organized gangs, andyet I fled for the toilets.

I have exchanged theyouthful company of the convicts that was filled with happiness & joy withthat of the (ones accused of embezzling) public funds that is full of geezers,depression and boredom. During the appeal (prison time) I was daily discoveringstories of those who were wronged and (other) important cases, the low ranked policeofficers who were detained after their first protest and were accused ofburning the ministry. I didn't believe that there was something genuine amongsttheir ranks until I had met them. Tamer Rashwan, whose case is very ambiguousmakes us doubt that the State Security is developing new discreet tools insteadof detention, torture and neglect that I have witnessed in front of my eyes thatI was memorizing so I can tell you about them when I get out.

It's not the convictsonly who felt that I can play a role from the inside, the detectives were alsoharassing and inspecting whoever was conversing with me and the large number ofinformants and all what I said found its way to the administration.

I left all that for amore spacious, cleaner and brighter cell, and because I couldn't man up andwithstand the toilets of the appeal (prison). This is my capability, these aremy limits and this is my weakness.

Even the decision ofrejecting being investigated in front of a military prosecution that you arecelebrating has an element of cowardice, the day we gathered to take thedecision I did not have any courage to listen to (my wife) Manal's opinion whomI will leave alone in the last days of her pregnancy and will leave her aloneto oversee the workers who are preparing Khaled's room, I who shall be detainedand she who shall be burdened while she is running around for my demands, mysustenance and my visitation permits as well as the campaign that was foundedfor my case.

I took the decision ina meeting with colleagues from the revolution and got her stuck and didn'tlisten to my wife and depended only on the certainty that she will back me upin all my choices.

And yet I am proud,it's true I am not the macho that Nawara (Negm) thinks I am but I am not acoward either, I was offered by an important person from the revolution a pleathat allows me a swift exit, get out but refrain from insulting the General(Tantawi), only that, a small sacrifice was asked but I rejected it, how wouldI have faced my family if I had accepted?

Let's begin from thestart: How are you? I am Alaa, a foot soldier in the revolution, there arethose who sacrificed more than me, those who are much more courageous than me,and those whose role is much more important than mine.

I am Alaa, proud that Iam doing what I can and sometimes surprise myself with what I am capable of.And I know myself and what I am not capable of. I try never to fail my commitments,I try to overcome fear always and I constantly try to be in the front lines atall times.

If you see in me anymagnanimity, courage or bravery know that I draw them from my mom, my youngersisters and my wife (who being separated from is the hardest part ofdetention).

The Fifth Day and theFirst Night in Cell 1/6, Ward 4, Tora Investigative (Prison)

3-November-2011

Alaa Abdel Fattah

@Alaa

Translation by Mina Naguib in Stockholm, Sweden and Sultan Al Qassemi in Sharjah, UAE. Original Arabic post can be found here.

Arab Monarchies: Surviving the Revolts

2011-11-04T10:51:00.000+04:00

In the mid 20th century a majority of Arabs lived in monarchical states, some dating as far back as several centuries. However, by the 1960s, the monarchies of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Iraq and Yemen had transformed into republics. Today, eight Arab monarchies remain, namely, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar and the Sultanate of Oman.

The reason some Arab monarchies ceased to exist varies from popular revolutions to military coups. However one feature they shared is their lack of ability to adapt to the changing geopolitical environment of surrounding countries from South Asia to Africa, gaining their independence and empowering their people as well as their own citizens.

The need to adapt to a changing environment is now more necessary than ever. The 2011 popular Arab uprisings that are spreading throughout the region will affect every single country in the region, if not in the short term then several years down the line. For instance, citizens of nominal republics such as Sudan will not continue to tolerate their dictators while they witness history being made by their Egyptian neighbors preparing to vote in the next few months. The eight Arab monarchies, even those whom, as I have argued earlier, have scored highly on human development reports will similarly have to face new realities that are taking shape both within their borders and in the region.

Due to the varied nature of these monarchies such an evolution into constitutional monarchies will likely occur in three cycles. The first cycle will include Kuwait, Jordan and Morocco, the second Bahrain and Oman, and the third Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Setting up constitutional monarchies has been attempted in the past. Half a century ago, as Arabs were rising up against their governments and mere months after it gained its independence from Britain, Kuwait’s Emir, Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem unveiled a constitution that even today, is decades ahead of both Arab monarchies and republics alike. The constitution guaranteed Kuwaitis freedom of religion, speech and the press. Additionally, while enshrining a role for the Emir, it specifically stated that Kuwait’s system of rule is democratic with an elected assembly.

The managing editor of a Gulf based English newspaper told me he believes that the current controversial Prime Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Nasser Al Sabah (71), will be the last premier to be appointed directly by an emir and the last to be chosen from the royal family. Sheikh Nasser was forced to resign by opposition MPs six times since his appointment in February 2006. Rhetoric that is not often heard used against members of Gulf ruling families is casually employed against Sheikh Nasser, with news wires quoting an MP at a recent 10,000 strong rally demanding his sacking describing him as “incompetent,” and saying that he “cannot be trusted”. These are some of the reasons that indicate Kuwait will likely be the first Arab monarchy to officially transform into a constitutional monarchy.

Meanwhile, the reforms promised by the Moroccan and Jordanian Kings have not satisfied their citizens. In Morocco, King Mohammed VI’s promised reforms – that included allowing prime ministers to dissolve the House of Representatives and choose their own cabinet – are giant steps when compared to the modest political reforms of his peers in the Gulf who failed to put an end to protests. Jordan’s King Abdullah has had to replace the Prime Minister yet again in response to continuous protests calling for faster reforms. At a recent interview, Abdullah estimated that it would take two to three years until voters can elect their prime minister. If so, it would be a first for an Arab monarchy.

Due to Bahrain’s long history of active civil society, the Arab world’s only island kingdom will probably precede Oman in the second cycle of Arab constitutional monarchies. Many intellectuals I have spoken to in the Gulf have told me of their disappointment with the opposition who did not respond positively to the seven principles of reform offered by the island’s Crown Prince in March, calling it “a wasted opportunity” that will not likely be available for another few years.

But, senior leaders at the Wefaq and Waad opposition movements told me that no guarantees were given to them that the government would carry out these promises. Among the seven principles were promises of “an elected parliament with full vested powers and prerogatives” and, in a nod to replacing the long serving Prime Minister, a “government reflecting the will of [the] people”. Sadly, Bahrain may never recover from its deep wounds until such an offer is made once again, perhaps this time with regional guarantees.

In the case of Oman, because the Sultan Qaboos is not passing on power to an immediate family member, it may be easier for him to enact significant constitutional reforms without much opposition. Qaboos reacted faster than any Arab leader to the demands of his citizens when he sacked some of his closest advisors and a majority of the cabinet back in March.

Reforms that were subsequently introduced included the widening of powers of the Oman Council, which can now propose changes to laws. Three activists who took part in the spring protests were elected to the consultative Shura Council and will probably continue their calls for reforms. More substantially, Qaboos became the first Arab monarch to include elected civilians in the decision making process to choose the country’s next Sultan.

The final cycle of Arab monarchies, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar is the most contentious. These three states have the weakest civil society infrastructure, as well as a complex ruling family structure. This is why I have placed them in the final cycle, which is probably an open-ended process.

The UAE is perhaps the most complex. It includes not one, but six ruling families governing seven individual emirates with varying degrees of economic and social development. In the latest carefully managed elections exercise last September, just over a quarter of eligible voters turned out for the country’s parliament, known as the Federal National Council (FNC).

This may reflect society’s general feeling of apathy towards politics as well as popular satisfaction with government policies. The UAE government has suggested that only by 2019 will universal suffrage be introduced, although nothing has been said about granting legislative authority to the FNC. A recent petition calling for greater political empowerment was generally either met with apathy or a negative reaction.

Qatar, the country that championed the principles of people empowerment behind the Arab Uprisings more than any other Arab state ironically does not have an elected parliament. The Qatari Emir promised reforms in a constitutional vote as early as 2003 to form a 45-member parliament with two-thirds of the members elected and the rest appointed.

However this promise has not materialized and is continuously pushed forward in time, although at a major recent speech the Emir once again promised to hold parliamentary elections in 2013. This announcement did not elaborate on political parties and the degree of legislative powers the parliament would include.

The transformation of Qatar's neighbor Saudi Arabia into a constitutional monarchy can potentially mean the survival of all the other Arab monarchies due to its regional and international clout. However, despite mounting calls within Saudi for political reform in Op Eds and petitions by intellectuals and activists, Saudi constitutional reforms will not take place until a constitution that can be questioned is introduced. Saudi Arabia to this day maintains that the Quran is its constitution.

It is unclear what exact shape Arab constitutional monarchies will adopt but what is clear is that more political power will be shifted to parliaments rather than individuals. Accountability, corporate governance and rotation of political power will also be a feature.

The Arab monarchs may retain some measure of power such as the case with the British monarch today, who is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Max Rodenbeck, the Middle East correspondent of the Economist suggested that the process of transformation of these monarchies into constitutional systems might benefit from setting up a “house of lords,” or a senate that is made up of members of the ruling family. This upper house may be given powers such as electing the next monarch from among the royal family members. Saudi Arabia does officially have such a family council consisting of senior princes to elect a future king. However reports emerged that the current King Abdullah had in fact “instructed the princes to pledge allegiance to Prince Nayef as crown prince.”

Ironically, the Arab monarchies can extend the status quo if they eliminate corruption, graft and the increasingly worrying phenomenon of ruling family members who have both a public position and private business interests that often not only encroach on the merchant class but increasingly pose a threat to small- and medium-sized business owners in these monarchies. Another necessary measure to enact is the guarantee of equal treatment in the courts between ruling family and non-ruling family individuals alike.

The transformation of Arab monarchies into constitutional systems is a matter of when rather than if. The alternative may be less appealing to those in power today. On a recent visit to Boston in which I met a number of Arab Gulf states students, the debate veered, as it tends to do nowadays, towards Arab constitutional monarchies. To my surprise it was a Qatari, a citizen of by far the richest county on earth often accused of political apathy who remarked to a friend and I, “I don’t agree with constitutional monarchies,” he paused, “I want nothing less than a republic.”

Without urgent non-cosmetic reform the Arab monarchies will simply be kicking the reform ball forward. Modern Arab history has taught us of the ramifications of perpetual reform delays on monarchies. Fifty years after Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem’s historic constitution the Arab monarchies are in urgent need of such visionary leadership.

This article first appeared in in Al Akhbar English on November 3rd 2011

Translation of article by detained Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah

2011-11-02T13:00:00.001+04:00

A Return To Mubarak's Prisons

Idid not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after fiveyears, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back tojail?

Thememories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skillsof being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unableto remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon threetimes in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when Iwas jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation undersimilar flimsy accusations andreasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchangedState Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to themilitary moment we are living.

Theprevious time, I was joined in detention by 50 colleagues from the Kefayamovement, but on this occasion I am alone, together with eight wrongly accused,the guilty is as wronged as the innocent.

Assoon as they realized that I was from the "Youth of the Revolution"they started cursing at the revolution and how it failed in "sorting out" the InteriorMinistry. I spent the first two days only listening to stories of torture bythe hands of the police that is not only adamant on resisting reform, but isseeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and theinnocent.

From their stories Idiscover the truth of the great achievements of the restoration of security.Two of my colleagues are seeing jail for the first time, simple youth without agrain of violence and their accusation is? Forming a gang. Indeed, Abu Malik aloneis an armed gang unto himself. Now I understand what the Interior Ministrymeans when it reports that it has caught armed gangs. I congratulate us for therestoration of security then.

Inthe following few hours, sunlight will enter our always dim cell, we readcreative Arabic engravings of a former colleague, four walls from floor toceiling covered in Quran, prayers, supplications, thoughts and what appear tobe the will of a tyrant to repent.

Thenext day we discover in the corner the date of the inmate's execution and weare overwhelmed by tears.

Theguilty plan on repenting, but the innocent do not know what to do to avoid asimilar fate.

I stray from them in the radio, listening to the speech of his Excellency the Generalinaugurating the tallest flag in the world, one which will certainly enter therecord books. And I wonder: Was the inclusion of the name of the martyr MinaDaniel as one of the instigators in my case also a record in audacity? On thebasis of it not being sufficient for them to be first to kill the victim and to walk in the funeral but also to spit on the corpse and accuse it of a crime?

Or perhaps this cell canwin the record of the number of cockroaches? My thoughts are interrupted by AbuMailk: "I swear to God Almighty, if the wronged was not absolved,this revolution will not succeed."

The third day, 1/11/2011

Cell 19, Prison of Appeal,Bab Al Khalq

Alaa Abdel Fattah (@Alaa)

Translated by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi from the Arabic version that appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Shorouk on November 2nd 2011.

Statement on detainment of Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (as received)

2011-10-31T01:15:00.002+04:00

We, the Campaign to the End Military of Civilians, condemn in the strongest possible terms the imprisonment of prominent Egyptian activist and blogger, Alaa Abd el Fattah and the unjust and illegal system of military tribunals implemented by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) since becoming rulers of Egypt on January the 28th, 2011.

Today Alaa Abd El Fattah was summoned to the Military Prosecutor's office, accused of assaulting military personnel, stealing military weaponry and inciting violence against the military. On questioning, Abd El Fattah declined to answer the prosecutor’s questions, stating that it is illegal and a clear conflict of interest for the military, as a party accused of a crime, to hold proceedings or adjudicate fairly. He was sent to detention pending further military investigation.

As of today we refuse to co-operate with the military prosecution of civilians and we call on all Egyptian citizens to stand with us. At least 12,000 Egyptian civilians have been subjected to summary, covert military trials. The accused are often denied counsel, the opportunity to review evidence or examine witnesses; there are limited avenues of appeal. Eighteen death sentences have been handed down so far.

Abd El Fattah's targeting is only the latest example of the systematic targeting of journalists, media figures, bloggers and activists by SCAF.

Abd El Fattah is being held responsible for violence on October 9th, the night when the Army killed at least 28 peaceful protesters and injured several hundred more. Several respected human rights organisation have attested to this.

Furthermore, it is perverse that Mina Daniel is listed as the first name on the Military Prosecutor's list of the accused. Mina Daniel was killed by military gunfire on October 9th.

Abd El Fattah is now being held for fifteen days in prison - which can be renewed indefinitely - by a body which has no legal authority to do so. Twenty eight more are in jail. Mina Daniel paid with his life.

We demand that Alaa Abd El Fattah be freed immediately, that military trials of civilians be stopped and all those sentenced thus far be released or at least retried before civilian courts. We support all of those who similarly refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the military prosecution.

This is not the new Egypt we have fought and died for.

For more information please visit: http://www.tahrirdiaries.org

or contact us : nomiltrials@gmail.com

How Urbanisation is Changing Emirati Idenity

2011-10-18T06:33:00.000+04:00

A video taken in the late 1990's shows Sheikh Zayed standing in his majlis talking to Mohammed Khalifa Al Habtoor, the speaker of the Federal National Council who served from 1997 to 2003. I vividly recall watching that video when I was a teenage student in Paris. Sheikh Zayed, wearing his golden embroidered bisht, a sort of cape worn by the heads of tribes in the Gulf on major occasions, gestures to the audience in his majlis, saying, "I swear by God Almighty that I did not know that there were now people (citizens) who were living in rented accommodation. Until I have received their request letters. In Abu Dhabi and in Dubai and from Sharjah and from Ras Al Khaimah. There are people living in rented accommodation. How can they be living in rented accommodation? How can any ruler accept that his citizens are today living in rented accommodation?"

That was as recent as 1998. Today, however, it is a completely different story. Many UAE nationals reside not only in rented houses but also in rented apartments and studios, and many of these shared. When Sheikh Zayed officially became President of the UAE in December 1971, there were 180,000 UAE inhabitants. That was a manageable number even with the country's then meagre resources. Today, the total population has exceeded eight million with the nationals accounting for 923,000 of the total. Many UAE nationals privately dispute the figures of UAE nationals in the belief that the UAE population is less than the official estimate. It is indubitable, however, that many more Emiratis today live in an urban environment. And a significant number of UAE nationals commute daily to the urban environments of Dubai and Abu Dhabi from the poorer emirates such Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.

A friend, an HR manager, told me a revealing story. A bright Emirati girl, whom we shall name Aisha, applied at one of the many job fairs in Dubai to work for a government-owned establishment. After the interview young Aisha asked my friend if she would be getting the job. He told her that she would be notified in a week's time. The girl seemed anxious and told the interviewer that if he could not give her an answer by the end of the day, he need not bother notifying her at all later. Aisha explained that she was one of five young girls who commute daily to work from one of the farther Northern Emirates to Dubai. Aisha, you see, had lost her job and was very close to losing her carpool seat, the cost of which she shared with the other four Emirati girls. It seems that there was another contender for the seat and losing it would mean she could not take a new job in Dubai. Stories like that (and there are many) do not fit well with the flamboyant image of the Emirati national and receive little media attention. The media prefer, for instance, the launch of a brand new real estate project.

Such stories also reveal the divide between the age groups. Young UAE national girls are proportionally more educated than young men but are still confined to the customs and traditions of the country. Seldom do young girls share a flat apart from their families, as is the case with young Emirati men.

Abu Dhabi especially has become a magnet for job seekers as its economy continues to grow rapidly despite the recent global financial crisis. New projects, most of them government-led, were not postponed or terminated as was the case in some of the other six emirates. So high has been the demand for accommodation in Abu Dhabi that the 1980's and 90's phenomenon of Emiratis and expats living in one emirate and working in another has been replicated in the capital.

I half jokingly told my friends that in 2009 Dubai had become Abu Dhabi's Sharjah, the latter being seen by some as an alternative accommodation location to Dubai's relatively more expensive homes. This is not a negative development since it ensures that the numerous projects that are constructed in Dubai remain occupied. The phenomenon has grown so much recently that some Abu Dhabi firms have arranged to pick up their staff from places like Ibn Battuta mall in Dubai and bus them to work in Abu Dhabi, which is about an hour's drive away.

But where does the UAE identity figure in all this? Emiratis from a less wealthy background are, like any other nationality, more willing to work in demanding jobs than are their more prosperous fellow citizens. For example, etisalat, a telecom provider in Abu Dhabi is largely run and staffed by Emiratis from Ras Al Khaimah. That should not be seen as a negative phenomenon since their presence has contributed to a demographic balance between expats and nationals in Abu Dhabi.

In fact, many Emiratis who traditionally came from the northern less-wealthy emirates and regions have chosen to relocate permanently to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and even Sharjah. Commuting time is an issue since, for example, a short drive of fifteen kilometres from Sharjah to Dubai can take up to one hour and forty-five minutes. Movement to the urban areas has drastically affected the locus of Emirati identity in the country.

Today, much of the traditional culture of the UAE is better preserved in the rural areas of the country while the nation's rapid urbanisation is creating realities on the ground that are too fast for us to deal with. For instance, the younger generations of the Shehhi tribe of Ras Al Khaimah, a proud and gracious people, started moving to Abu Dhabi three decades ago for work. Their language, a mixture of Arabian Gulf coastal dialect and classical Arabic, is seldom being transmitted to their children and is at risk of disappearing altogether when the older generation passes on. But in non-urban cities with a slower pace of life poetry is recited in majlises and women and men learn traditional handicrafts and the way to cook local dishes. Many of those traditions are now disappearing because of the rapid urbanisation of culture.

Many majlises have been exchanged with the imported culture of coffee houses that serve tobacco called sheesha or hubbly-bubbly. Some say it is too benign a name for a carcinogenic import that is harming not just Emirati health but also our Emirati culture. In suburban settings, on the other hand, many young Emiratis learn how to keep birds of prey, identify the fish that swim in the Arabian Gulf, and distinguish among various types of dates. Urban Emiratis, those thirty and under, are often loathe to be associated with such non-essential aspects of 21st-century life.

Of all seven emirates it is Abu Dhabi, by far the most affluent, that will probably be the biggest benefactor or victim, depending on which way you see it, of a huge population increase that is projected to take the city's population to 3.1 million by 2030 from the present one million. And like the more urban emirates of Dubai and Sharjah, Emirati culture will probably be a major casualty of this exponential jump. What is the UAE capital doing to combat such serious erosion? Quite a bit in fact, and its strategy seems to be novel and pre-emptive.

First, there is the Sheikh Zayed National Museum that is being designed by the Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Lord Norman Foster and his firm Foster Partners Ltd. The museum, to be located in the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island just 500 metres offshore from the capital city island of Abu Dhabi, will be dedicated not only to the country's founder, its namesake, but also to various aspects of Emirati culture such as desert life and customs.

Second, Abu Dhabi established a National Center for Documentation and Research with the duty to spread awareness of the history of the UAE, conduct school visits and lectures, and safeguard historical documents. Such a center "inspires patriotism, as archives preserve the memories and historical register of the nation" according to its website.

Third, Abu Dhabi is also aggressively supporting the Poet of Millions competition in which nabati or traditional Arabian Peninsular dialect is the ticket to large monetary rewards. In fact, this popular and successful show is so notable that it recently made the front page of The New York Times newspaper.

Fourth, Abu Dhabi made sure that it does not sell land to non-Gulf nationals. Although it is not certain that this policy will persist in the future, it has acted to safeguard any terrestrial claims that expats may have in the emirate. Rather than selling property and land outright, as is the case in Dubai, Ajman, Um Al Qaiwain, and Ras Al Khaimah (Sharjah and Fujairah are the two most strict emirates with regard to property sales), Abu Dhabi authorizes a 99-year lease for non-GCC citizens.

Fifth, in 2001 Abu Dhabi launched the Emirates Film Competition under the umbrella of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH). To the point of Emirati culture, condition number twenty states that "works may be submitted to the competition on the condition that they respect the aims of the competition; specifically, films must deal with Culture or U.A.E. Heritage."

Additionally, in September 2009 Abu Dhabi hosted a meeting of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage "to discuss world cultural traditions that face an immediate risk of being wiped out." The UAE delegation supported the recognition of falconry by UNESCOand nominated the UAE traditional dances of Al Ayala and Al Ahaala for recognition by the international body. Abu Dhabi clearly realizes the danger of the disappearing UAE culture, and rather than battling globalization, Abu Dhabi is employing the strategy of using that unstoppable force to promote Emirati culture.

In the desert oasis of Al Ain, the capital recently multiplied its preservation efforts, and the results are starting to show. The preservation of Al Jahili Fort, for instance, was coupled with an exhibition of the history of Zayed the First who ruled the emirate in the late 19th century. The fort also houses photographs taken by Wilfred Thesiger, one of the earliest Western explorers to the area known then as the Trucial States. Thesiger was embraced as one of our own by the people of the emirates who affectionately nicknamed the British visitor famous for crossing the Empty Quarter as Mubarak bin London.

Abu Dhabi, the city in the UAE that is standing to gain or lose most from the influx of foreigners searching for a better life, may have an advantage over Dubai, the pioneering Gulf city, in that it can learn from other's experiences and limit practices such as foreign ownership of land and employ a pre-emptive rather than reactionary effort to preserve Emirati identity. And yet it is ironic that the city is becoming so expensive that many of its inhabitants, including Emirati nationals (those people it is keen on protecting the most) are forced either to live outside it or to share a rented accommodation within it.

More than a decade after Sheikh Zayed's declaration that he was surprised to learn that Emiratis are forced to live in rented accommodation, the urbanisation of Emirati culture only seems to be gaining momentum. Emiratis like the carpooling Aisha have been trying in their own way to cope with this new culture in their attempts to follow the job market. It may be too soon to tell if Abu Dhabi's strategy of embracing globalisation and employing it as a tool to preserve Emirati culture will be a success. It is likely that as the Emirate heads to tripling its overall, mostly foreign, population, only parts of it will prevail in this rolling cultural experiment.

Finally, there may come a time soon when Emiratis realize that they have exchanged too much, too soon, for too little. By then the old generation would have passed on, and it will be a case of salvaging what is left of Emirati culture in a way like walking into a burned house to salvage what the fire has spared.

On the one hand, urbanization may turn out to be, as many fear, the fire that is slowly eating up Emirati culture, leaving many of us helpless to stop it and left wondering what will be left to salvage. On the other hand, it may be the Emirati culture's best chance of survival in a globalized world.

A Shorter version of this essay appeared in Al Manakh 2: Gulf Continued. This version appeared in Zayed University magazine, Autumn 2011

Email to friends on mailing list

2011-10-08T09:40:00.000+04:00

Dear friends

Excuse the extensive email.

Here is my latest contribution in The New York Times: Arabs Are Waiting for a New Egypt.

I returned recently from a speaking tour that first took me to the IISS in Geneva (photo one, two) and Chatham House in London (audio interview). My first stop in the US was George Washington University which summarised my talk there along with the full video.

I co-hosted Al Jazeera's The Stream's episode on the so-called foreign mercenaries in Libya as well as women driving in Saudi. The next day I spoke at the US Institute of Peace (photo)

I was a guest at James Zogby's show in Washington DC to speak about the role of social media in the Arab Uprisings.

Then in Boston I spoke at Tufts, Emerson and Harvard. Here is a video (on Itunes) of the Harvard event titled: "Inside the Arab Awakening" along with press coverage (photo one, two), live blog & Mondoweiss.

While in Boston I met a group of inspiring Gulf students, here is my article about them which I also posted on The Huffington Post.

My last stop on the tour was University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy to deliver the Rosenthal Lecture (video).

If you were in the UAE next Friday please join me for a reception for our new Barjeel art exhibition titled Caravan at Al Qasba, Sharjah.

Finally, I created a Journalisted profile with various links.

I hope you are all well.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi

My article in Gulf News

2011-10-05T06:44:00.000+04:00

Gulf students in US show the way forward

Video appearances

2011-09-17T01:17:00.000+04:00

My interview with Jim Zogby on 15 Sept 2011

Al Jazeera The Stream part one

Al Jazeera The Stream part two

Chatham House Interview

2011-09-15T02:30:00.000+04:00

Here is my Chatham House interview on the Economics of the Arab Spring with Jane Kinninmont. Recorded in London on September 12th 2011 - 7 mins Audio

My speaking engagements in the next two weeks

2011-09-08T13:05:00.000+04:00

10-11 September 2011

The 9^th IISS Global Strategic Review ‘New Strategic Landscapes’

Geneva

http://www.iiss.org/conferences/global-strategic-review/global-strategic-review-2011/

12 September 2011

The Economics of the Arab Spring

London

http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/176445

14September 2011

Al Jazeera: The Stream

Washington DC

15 September 2011

Tweeting the Arab Revolution

George Washington University

http://www.gwu.edu/~imes/events/IMES.cfm

16 September 2011

USIP: Sifting Fact from Fiction

http://www.usip.org/events/sifting-fact-fiction-the-role-social-media-in-conflict

19 September 2011

Arab Spring: Backdrop, Instruments & Future Prospects

John F Kennedy School of Government

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/events/5559/arab_spring.html

21 September 2011

Rosenthal Lecture at the University of Michigan

http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/events/calendar/index.php?com=detail&eID=1130

2011-09-08T12:48:00.003+04:00

My article in Open Democracy: After 9/11: a painful lesson

2011-09-04T17:25:00.003+04:00

My article in The New York Times: Libya: How the Gulf States Can Help

2011-09-04T17:24:00.001+04:00

My article in Today's Zaman: Turkey and Saudi Arabia: the buildup to Syria

2011-09-04T17:23:00.000+04:00

My article in Foreign Policy: How Saudi Arabia and Qatar Became Friends Again

A Window on FNC Political Scenarios

2011-08-08T13:11:00.004+04:00

"May you live in interesting times" goes a Chinese saying that usually has negative connotations. The emerging UAE political scene is nothing if not interesting, though.

I will attempt to shed some light on this emerging political scene by highlighting a number of "champions" who have both expressed their willingness to run as candidates for the upcoming Federal National Council elections and have a record of association with a specific cause that may be translated into active support for them in the parliament. I have identified four possible blocs: religionist, ultra-nationalist, business and liberal.

On the Islamic leaning side of this square is Sami Gargash, the CEO of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Housing Establishment since March 2009. A lecturer whose interests span Islamic art, designing as well as crafting jewellery, Gargash previously was Deputy Director General of the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai. Since its inception, the four-year-old MRHE as it is known has handed over 1,640 housing units to UAE nationals at a cost of hundreds of millions of dirhams and has further expanded its programme and services under Gargash's stewardship.

One of the latest additions to the UAE political front is also its most vocal. Since the issue of the five so-called reform activists surfaced a few months ago, this particular group whose existence was not taken into consideration earlier has been making its voice heard, announcing their disapproval of those who have criticised UAE symbols including its leadership and style of governance. Sometimes referred to as the ultra-nationalists, conservatives or even the UAE's very own Tea Party, this social media savvy group has only grown in prominence over the past few months, possibly marking their emergence as one of the most significant political developments in the UAE this year.

Popular blog

Amongst its champions is Dherar Belhoul whose previous experience as director of Heritage Projects at the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority makes him an authority on various aspects of UAE culture and tradition. During Queen Elizabeth II's recent visit to the UAE, Belhoul, who also maintains a popular Arabic blog, was on hand to present to the visiting monarch the cultural developments in the country. Belhoul, who served as Student Council president at Dubai Men's College, currently works as Events Manager at the Dubai Media Office in addition to hosting a popular Arabic radio talk show.

The influential business community will look towards the likes of Nasser Al Shaikh, the scion of a prominent business family, who has also become a social media star in the UAE. Al Shaikh's balanced Tweets and Facebook updates have garnered him wide support and he may possibly be amongst the only FNC candidates with his own Wikipedia page. Al Shaikh's colourful career in the private and public sectors saw him take leadership positions in various listed firms in the UAE including Deyaar, Amlak Finance and Dubai Islamic Bank, amongst many others, in addition to previously serving as Director General of Dubai Government's Department of Finance.

As in other societies the liberal movement usually is an orphan child. Community champions in the Gulf are loath to claim the liberal mantelpiece due to the negative connotation of secularism, which loosely translates in some people's minds as an equivalent to atheism. It is therefore likely that the publicity shy liberal movement of the UAE will, as in the case in Kuwait, attempt to build bridges with the above causes' champions according to their necessities. (An interesting story relayed by the late Kuwaiti intellectual and writer Dr Ahmad Al Baghdadi tells of how Kuwait's liberals lobbied the Members of Parliament associated with the business community there to vote down a draft law to segregate schools because it would cost them dearly).

Furthermore, the "royal card" has notably been taken out of the equation. No ruling family members have been included in the electoral pool, but these individuals may indirectly influence the UAE parliament through backing of candidates such as those mentioned above.

All the above aspects of political life are indigenous to the UAE and will naturally produce sympathisers and champions. In the grand scheme of things it is always better to have those championing such causes in the public light, working hand in hand with the government rather than in obscurity. An additional aspect that would determine the influence of these possible political blocs is the federal government "wild card" that allows it to directly appoint half the members of parliament.

The UAE political scene is being formed almost from scratch, as you read these very lines. Not many countries can lay such a claim. The challenge would be to maintain a healthy balance between all elements of the political sphere in the UAE so that no side is allowed to negate the other. It is also likely that these possible blocs or alliances that are formed in these upcoming elections will shape in one way or another the political landscape of the UAE for decades to come.

One thing is for certain, these times are nothing if not interesting.

*This article first appeared in Gulf News on Monday 8th August 2011

Arab Officials Invited to the British Royal Wedding

2011-04-24T01:03:00.005+04:00

1- The Crown Prince of Bahrain (apologised, Bahrain Ambassador to London will attend instead)
2- Sheikh Ahmad Hmoud Al-Sabah of Kuwait, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister and acting Defense Minister
3- Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco, wife of the King
4- Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said of Oman, Minister of Heritage and Culture
5- The Emir of The State of Qatar and Sheika Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned
6- Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and Princess Fadwa bint Khalid bin Abdullah bin Abdulrahman
7- The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi

All Arab ambassadors to London have been invited except for the Libyan ambassador; the invitation to the Syrian ambassador has been withdrawn.

Full list of invitees available here

YAL Farewell Note

2010-12-27T12:33:00.002+04:00

Dear YAL UAE Chapter members

We often hear that the biggest asset an organisation can have is its people, perhaps this is truest at Young Arab Leaders. Each and every one of you made a difference to this organisation, together we form the building blocks of what has become a formidable regional network second to none in the Arab world. Looking back over the past three years, I learnt at YAL that we need not wait for others to do the right thing by our younger generation, it taught me that in fact we are the ones we've been waiting for.

Some of YAL's members have gone on to become members of Arab governments cabinets, others serve in the regional parliaments, between businessmen, editors, artists, bankers and engineers a mosaic of the Arab world has formed giving each of us an affinity with each other. I have witnessed YAL members strike conversations such as those started by alumni of global universities, business links and life-long friendships have developed and in at least one unexpected but welcomed case a couple who have met through YAL have gotten married and are expecting their first child soon.

YAL has been fortunate to have received the full support of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai and Chief Patron of the YAL Board of Trustees who graced us with his presence at last month's extremely successful Young Arab Leader's Entrepreneurship summit and told us "trust in yourselves" along with HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai. The audience of hundreds of attendees, many of them students at colleges and universities in the region is a testimony to the importance of this organisation.

One of the best times I had at YAL was organising the lecture series where many prominent Arab speakers went to universities to encourage young students to take the route of entrepreneurship. Amongst the ones I had the pleasure of personally introducing were Fadi Ghandour, Ahmad Bin Shabib, Wael Al Sayegh and Mohammed Saeed Hareb. I still recall Ahmad Bin Shabib telling the students "I am here to talk you out of working in the government sector".

At other times we organised speaker series where prominent individuals delivered a special address to YAL members based on their experience including Sheikh Khalid Bin Zayed Bin Sagr, HE Noura Al Kaabi, Arif Naqvi, Essam Tamimi, Shehab Gargash, Mohammed Abdul Jalil Al Fahim and Parag Khanna amongst others.

It has been an honour and a privilege to work closely with some of the brightest Arab minds of my generation including HE Najla Al Awadhi, Mustafa Abdul Wadood, Louis Hakim, Rami Makhzoumi, Samar Abdul Hadi, Nathalie Nakad, Mamoun Sbeih and many others who have moved on with their careers.

I would also like to thank my fellow YAL UAE Board members Muna Al Gurg, Mohammed Khammas, Ghazi Atalla, Mohammed Sulaiman, Balsam Al Khalil, Abdullah Bin Sugat and YAL UAE Chapter manager Hala Al Gergawi to whom I will always be grateful.

Finally, I would like to urge you to continue your support for this wonderful organisation that has touched the lives of many young people in the Arab world.

Congratulations to the new YAL UAE Chapter Chair, Ms Muna Al Gurg, a colleague and dear friend.

Sincerely yours,

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Outgoing Chairman, YAL UAE Chapter

The Role of Public Intellectuals in the Gulf Arab States

2010-12-12T12:33:00.003+04:00

Perhaps no Arab is better known as a public intellectual than the great late Arab American scholar Edward Said, whose writings and lectures resonated across the world. Said once wrote: "The role of the intellectual is not to consolidate authority, but to understand, interpret and question it."

In the Gulf Arab states, the public intellectual is often a misunderstood entity; for some reason, it is confused with self-congratulatory sentiment and pretentiousness. Public intellectuals in the Gulf are also often associated with the government or state-backed media. Even in a good case, many can be considered government spokesmen. In bad cases, intellectuals can be accused of having links to outside powers or groups, a label that is almost impossible to shake off in the Arab world. The notion of an independent public intellectual has yet to figure prominently in the common Gulf Arabic vernacular.

Sadly, in recent months there have been arrests and intimidation of public intellectuals in the Gulf. In one Gulf state, a professor was detained for writing an article questioning his country's political future; in another, a lawyer was jailed for highlighting financial connections related to a government official. Both of these are legitimate concerns and independent thinkers deserve to be honoured, not persecuted, for dealing with them.

Gulf states do not need to be anxious as the intellectual sphere expands. In some cases, public intellectuals offer a platform for debate between government and citizens through their activities, columns and discussions. Gulf intellectuals also serve as a bridge between their countries and the outside world, often writing in international newspapers and offering an independent perspective on events within these countries.

Gulf governments and societies alike should be proud of the intellectual capacity that is building in these young nations. Often it will be these intellectuals who defend emerging states in the international media, lobby for their causes at conferences and promote their agendas. During the invasion of Kuwait, for example, public intellectuals played a major role in promoting the cause of liberation in the global media. When Dubai was targeted by a harsh media campaign last year, Emirati intellectuals stepped up to defend it. During the run up to Qatar's Fifa World Cup bid, young Qataris lobbied heavily on social media for the bid. Young Saudi intellectuals are active on new and traditional media outlets, defending their country but not shying away from criticising aspects that they would like to see improved.

The significance of this growing group of intellectuals, whether they act on behalf of their governments or on their own, should not be underestimated. The value to society of these lawyers, scholars, columnists and professors stems from the fact that they have an independent critical thinking process. Independent public intellectuals provide a much needed critique of society as well as of government plans and expenditures. Public intellectuals reflect the conscience of society and should not be regarded as a threat, but as part and parcel of the community. More often than not, they are concerned with the advancement of society.

Ideally, a healthy balance of liberal, secular and religious public intellectuals should be allowed to flourish so that Gulf societies can advance in a stable manner. In the majlis of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed as well as in certain dewaneyas in Kuwait, intellectuals of various backgrounds from across the world are feted and given a platform to share their thoughts. If the leadership in the UAE understands the role of intellectuals, members of society at large and other government officials should enlighten themselves. Independent public intellectuals are a complementary voice to governments in the Gulf.

As long as intellectuals are not affiliated with foreign organisations or other countries, they should not be seen as a threat but as an opportunity for regional governments to communicate with their people, especially in countries that lack effective parliaments. More often than not, the concerns raised by public intellectuals are justified and are best dealt with head on.

Public intellectuals also carry a responsibility to their country, not to allow themselves to become pawns in the hands of exterior powers or fall under foreign influence. They must understand that reform should be encouraged and not artificially enforced; after all, the prosperity in the Gulf states is in no small part due to government policies.

The understanding, interpretation and questioning that public intellectuals carry out are the essence of humanity. These traits are what have led leading global innovators, entrepreneurs and inventors to make their greatest discoveries. Finally, Gulf leaders should ponder the following: was Edward Said a threat or an asset?

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 12th December 2010

A Collection of Citizen Voices Urges the GCC to Cooperate

2010-12-06T08:45:00.003+04:00

Every year, Gulf citizens collectively hold our breath, hoping that a specific 24-hour period ends in a better way than it started. This day starts tomorrow at the Gulf Cooperative Council summit in Abu Dhabi, where the last leg of the Formula One Grand Prix was held last month. But unlike the competitors in that race, we can all emerge winners from this upcoming event.

It is no secret that the aspirations of Gulf citizens far exceed the achievements of the council. Recently I attempted to capture some of these aspirations using new social media forums. On Twitter, I posed the question: "What do Gulf citizens want from the summit?"

Here are some of the many comments I received: Barrak al Babtain from Kuwait, clearly concerned about the environment, responded "abolish fuel and electric subsidies, invest heavily in public transportation". From Qatar, Raed al Emadi commented that he would like to see education and health-care budgets as big as those allocated for arms deals.

In Bahrain, Yacoub al Slaise wants a bullet-train network between GCC countries and better joint cultural and education programmes. From the same country, Saud Albuainain wants to see strict enforcement of civil laws.

A post from an Emirati who goes by the handle AlBaron11 requested that leaders give Gulf women the right to pass their nationality on to their children "especially if the father is from GCC". Another UAE writer known as Al Emarati asked for elected local councils that could vote for a unified Gulf council as well as tackling the population imbalance.

Clearly these are major demands, but what the GCC has already accomplished should not be discounted. Today, most Gulf citizens are able to visit each other's countries carrying only an ID card. One example of the benefits of this system could be seen in bilateral relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Citizens could cross the border easily until a disagreement prompted Riyadh to withdraw the facility, although the UAE graciously continued to allow Saudi citizens to cross. Perhaps the expected attendance of Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi interior minister, in Abu Dhabi tomorrow will pave the way for the ID card agreement to be reintroduced.

Although it was launched in 2003, the Gulf Customs Union is still facing "administrative hurdles" according to Mohammed al Mazroui, the GCC assistant secretary general for economic affairs. Even so, trade between GCC countries jumped from $30 billion (Dh110.2 billion) each year prior to the customs union to more than $70 billion today.

In tomorrow's meeting the $20 billion Gulf-wide railway network spanning the six states is likely to receive the green light for completion by 2017, although it is not certain that it will be bullet trains as Mr al Slaise hopes.

The future of the Gulf currency union, which has been one of the main discussion points of meetings over the past decade, is almost certainly decided. The withdrawal of Oman and particularly the UAE, which had previously championed the currency union, dealt a severe blow to the plan. The crisis facing Europe's common currency means any mention of a common currency tomorrow would be only in passing. But that should not dampen hopes that there are many other areas where we can cooperate.

I would also like to propose the creation of a Gulf Joint Embassy project similar to the Nordic Embassy in operation in Berlin since 1999. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have saved money and other resources, finding synergies by grouping together under one umbrella in the German capital. As in the case of the Nordic countries, Gulf culture, cuisine, history, music and other traditions could be promoted jointly across the world hand-in-hand with diplomacy.

A system patterned after the Schengen Agreement could also be introduced for Gulf states for those willing to participate. Already Qatar and Oman have introduced a joint tourist visa for nationals of 33 countries, allowing them to travel freely between states. Perhaps this visa could be extended to other willing GCC countries. Another project in place already allows GCC expatriate residents in certain professions to visit other Gulf countries for one month.

In another area, unifying investment laws for foreigners would certainly encourage foreign direct investment into the region, which decreased last year to $50 billion after a peak of $60 billion in 2008.

The challenges that Gulf countries face are very similar across a diverse spectrum. We all must find jobs for young people, limit environmental degradation, confront Islamophobia, improve education standards, protect the rights of immigrant labour, and face a host of emerging challenges that include food and water security. All of these issues can best be addressed collectively.

Gulf citizens will hope to see practical steps incorporated in next Tuesday's communique because this summit will signal the work of the coming decade. The Gulf street is holding its breath, and the onus is on our leaders to deliver.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 5th December 2010

The Other Special Relationship: The UAE and The UK

2010-11-21T09:34:00.003+04:00

At a reception earlier this year in the British Embassy in Dubai, the newly appointed ambassador, Dominic Jermey, referred to London as the "eighth emirate" due to the close relationship between both countries. Many people aren't aware of just how close this relationship is today.

For instance, the only country in the world in which Britain - or, for that matter, any other country - is represented by two embassies in the same country is the UAE. The dual embassies in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are probably due to the fact that both were fully functioning outposts prior to the UAE's union.

Soon after the UAE gained its independence from a government formed under the current British monarch, it set up one of its first embassies in London to oversee interests in the British Isles as well as the European mainland.

Today, there are approximately 240,000 British citizens living in the UAE, with another one million plus visiting the country every year and up to 40,000 Emiratis visiting Britain annually. In fact, just this month, Dubai beat other cities to become the second busiest destination at London Heathrow airport after New York.

The British Business Group in the UAE today represents over 1,600 businesses based in the country that are encouraged by an annual trade between both countries exceeding Dh45bn, with ambitious plans to increase it to Dh70bn by 2015.

Many of the UAE's leaders were educated in British academies, schools and universities, including the UAE's Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince, as well as the ruler of Sharjah, who established a centre for Gulf studies in Exeter University, his alma mater. Recently, a number of leading British institutions such as the London Business School, Repton School and Cass Business School have set up permanent campuses in the UAE while the number of Emirati students in Britain today is estimated to be around 2,800.

British nationals have for decades contributed to setting up successful UAE ventures, including Emirates Airlines. This company in turn inked a historic deal to sponsor the Arsenal stadium for Dh662 million in 2004, making it the world's largest sponsorship agreement. The countries' sports relations were further elevated with Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed's acquisition of Manchester City FC in August 2008.

Many successful Emiratis that I have written about are proud of their mixed Emirati-British heritage, including Ali Mostafa, the director of City of Life, as well as Sarah Shaw of Abu Dhabi's Executive Council.

The British media has also firmly established a presence in the UAE, with newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Times being printed in the country, while the Telegraph and Skynews maintain permanent correspondents here.

The UAE's investments in Britain have included a stake in Barclays Bank, Travelodge, the famous London Eye, and span various sectors of the economy. Dubai Ports World, meanwhile, is spearheading the development of the Dh5.4bn London Gateway project to create Britain's newest deep-sea container port.

On the cultural front, the British Council in the UAE has played a major role in deepening the special relationship between both countries.

Besides offering English language courses, it has been instrumental in bringing world class art exhibitions to the UAE, including the Lure of the East and the Jameel Prize, which started at the Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum, respectively, and made their way to the Sharjah Islamic Civilisation Museum. The British Museum also recently hosted Word into Art, an exhibition of modern Middle Eastern calligraphy sponsored by Dubai Holding that was later exhibited at the Dubai International Financial Centre.

I recall many years ago walking down the Dubai Creek and admiring the Dubai Municipality building that was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II on her first visit to the UAE in February 1979. The Queen has demonstrated throughout her life her dedication to her country. At London's Imperial War Museum, visitors can see images of the then princess visiting bombed sites and interacting with the crowd during the Second World War. This spirit of unrelenting dedication touches the hearts of every Emirati as it reminds them of Sheikh Zayed, the country's founding father who hosted the visiting monarch over three decades ago.

Both Britain and the UAE are progressive monarchical federations that have welcomed immigrants from around the world.

The relationship between the UAE and Britain is one that is manifested everyday and goes far beyond a single element; it is one that is rooted in mutual respect and one extends to issues of global security, culture and education.

Finally, it is a relationship between the global capitals of Abu Dhabi and London that will be reaffirmed during the historic visit of Queen Elizabeth II.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 21st November 2010

Entrepreneurial Arabs will make it better for the next generation

2010-11-16T16:35:00.004+04:00

The first few days of November have quickly become known as Entrepreneurship Week in Dubai. The Dubai School of Government kicked off the week with a panel on women's entrepreneurship in the Gulf, featuring leading businesswomen from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the region. The next day at the Young Arab Leaders Entrepreneurship Summit, cross-generational leadership was represented, with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and his son Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan attending.

The youth summit, which I was involved in organising, was a Who's Who of Arab business leaders, including Rabea Ataya, the founder of Bayt.com. Habib Hadad, the founder of Yamli.com, Ihsan Jawad, the founder of Zawya.com, Dr Naif al Mutawa, the creator of The 99 comics, and Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed, the founder of the Bin Zayed Group.

The list of Emirati and regional guiding lights in entrepreneurship goes on and on. But perhaps the most important element among the 500 or so attendees were the scores of students and aspiring entrepreneurs who were there to learn from those who had gone before.

The week was capped with what will be viewed as a day of historic transformation in the world of Arab entrepreneurship. Led by Arif Naqvi, the chief executive of Abraaj Capital, and Fadi Ghandour, the chief executive of Aramex, more than 2,000 budding and established entrepreneurs congregated for the Celebration of Entrepreneurship 2010. At the event, Wamda.com, which means spark in Arabic, was launched as a meeting place for the region's entrepreneurs. (watch video: Impressions of CoE which ends with my quote)

The truth is that Arabs are sick and tired of hearing of the trouble that regional governments' failed policies have got us into. Arabs are now ready to do something about it. According to UNDP estimates, 50 million jobs (some say 100 million) need to be created in the Middle East by 2020 just to prevent unemployment from growing even worse. Harbour no allusions that Arab governments will be able to create these tens of millions of jobs: only the private sector and entrepreneurship have the potential.

Everyone was there for one common goal: instilling the spirit of entrepreneurship in young Arabs. The same podiums were shared by the likes of Naguib Swairis, the founder of Orascom Telecoms, and a pair of brilliant teenage Yemeni students who have started a new coffee-producing business. Their plans are no less grand than ridding their country of the menace of qat and bringing back coffee as an agricultural earner of foreign exchange.

Indeed, we are desperate for grand ideas. We need ideas that will allow the Arab world to make a giant leap into the present, rather than linger in the era of bygone policies.

A consensus was reached at the conference: the fragmented approach that Arab governments have taken will not work. It is simply not good enough for one country to create jobs while others lag behind. When Europe rose out of the ashes of the Second World War, it was not because Germany or France competed or worked in isolation; it was largely because of their joint effort to establish the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union.

Arab governments need to understand that without pan-Arab initiatives, true economic prosperity will not be achieved. We must capitalise on our demographic strengths as a region with a population larger than the United States and comparable to the European Union.

It is no coincidence that Maktoob.com, recently sold to Yahoo! for more than $100 million (Dh367 million), garnered so much global attention. After all, it was always a pan-Arab, not just a Jordanian firm.

The Celebration of Entrepreneurship 2010 featured ministers such as Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi and Reem al Hashimi, entrepreneurial legends including Samih Touqan and Fadi Ghandour, and ambitious young people all voicing their concerns and sharing their aspirations.

One day we will look back on a few days in November, when thousands of young, aspiring leaders came together and believed in what seemed to be impossible: things will be better for the next generation of Arabs. Through entrepreneurship, one person's fledgling business of today will become the transnational corporation of tomorrow. Yes, these are lofty goals, but even Thomas Edison's ideas started with a spark.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 14th November 2010

A Monument of Tolerance in the Heart of Dubai

2010-10-31T10:27:00.002+04:00

Nestled in one of Bur Dubai's older districts is one of the emirate's best kept architectural secrets: the Ismaili Centre of Dubai. It is a 13,000-square-metre structure designed by the Egyptian duo Rami El Dahan and Soheir Farid, who drew inspiration from Cairo's Fatimid mosques.

This prime plot of land was generously given to the Ismaili community by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, in 1982 prior to becoming Ruler of Dubai to celebrate the Aga Khan's Silver Jubilee as the imam of the community. It is a testament to Sheikh Mohammed's long-term vision and respect for other cultures that such a generous donation was given when he was 33 years old. Today, because of this long-term vision, Dubai is a culturally and architecturally richer emirate.

The structure was inaugurated in 2008 by Prince Karim, the Aga Khan, in the presence of senior UAE officials. A 3,000-square-metre public neighbourhood park was also created on parts of the land based on Islamic garden themes.

With its magnificent domes and arches, the limestone-coloured structure transports visitors back to an era of craftsmanship: a large, white marble fountain greets visitors in a high-ceilinged lobby with an octagonal entrance and a brick-inlaid dome. This was the structure, I felt, that the master craftsmen of bygone eras would have produced if they had had today's technology. The masons were flown in from Cairo and learnt this rare skill from some of the greatest brick-dome builders in Egypt, including Hassan Fathy.

The architecture is an amalgamation of everything that is beautiful in Islam. From the outside, honeycombs of amber and limestone embrace the building. The sun's shadow creates ever-changing patterns that merge in and out of each other as the day proceeds. The tranquil sounds of the fountains soothe the soul as one wanders around, admiring the antique Islamic artifacts on display. The building is crowned by a magnificent Ibn Tulun Mosque-like dome, not too different from the one above the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha. The Morning Prayer Hall courtyard features a salsabil, or paradise water fountain, as its centrepiece, while the main garden is inlaid with a network of small water canals connected to a central fountain.

The Ismaili sect of Islam dates back to the branching out of the Sunni and Shia schools of thought many centuries ago. While it is considered to be an offshoot of Shia Islam, it has maintained an independent religious authority.

The most recognised member of the Emirati Ismaili community was the late Noor Ali Rashid, the pioneering photographer who passed away last August at the age of 80, a short time after the centre hosted an exhibition of his works.

As a result of the tireless efforts of the Aga Khan, the Ismailis are perhaps best known today for their respect for art and culture. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which dates back to 1977, was established by the current leader of the Ismailis "to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Islamic societies" in fields as varied as contemporary design, social housing and community development. Projects that lead to the improvement and restoration of historic structures are also highlighted and awarded.

However, it is far from being an award strictly for Muslims. In fact a number of non-Muslims have won the award, including Jean Nouvel, the French architect behind the Louvre Abu Dhabi, for his designs of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Many other projects that have been awarded the prize also serve multi-religious and multi-ethnic communities, such as those in Africa, India and parts of the Middle East.

For the first time next month, the awards will be held in the Gulf, when the state of Qatar plays host. Two Gulf-based projects are among the 19 finalists vying for the award: the Wadi Hanifa Wetlands in Saudi Arabia and Qatar's very own 164,000-square-metre century-old open-air market known as Souk Waqif, which went through a major three-year renovation project.

In addition to hosting classical music concerts, the Ismaili centre in Dubai recently inaugurated a modern school for children where instruction in English and Arabic are given equal emphasis, a rare phenomenon for non-Arab schools in the UAE.

Having just returned from a visit to southern Spain, it wasn't just the architecture of the Ismaili Centre of Dubai that seemed familiar. The spirit of tolerance and respect embodied by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid allowed Dubai the opportunity to flourish. That was the very spirit that existed in Andalusia for centuries under wise Islamic rule where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived, worked and created side by side in peace and harmony. When the history of modern Dubai's architecture and tolerant spirit is written, this building will occupy a very special place indeed.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 31st October 2010

The sponsorship system is on the wrong side of history

2010-10-17T12:21:00.002+04:00

A few years ago, I met up with an Emirati friend whom I hadn't seen since my high-school days. We exchanged the usual greetings and asked one another where our careers had lead us.

My friend pulled out and unfolded his colourful business card, which included at least two dozen logos of businesses on the front and back that he was the "owner' of. I was barely able to make out his name on the card. Strangely, all the businesses were named after British towns: Bristol mobiles, Manchester carwash, Oxford cafeteria - the list went on.

At first, I was quite impressed. I had only started two businesses by then, a small photography studio and a brokerage firm that took me close to two years to set up. How did he manage to accomplish such an extraordinary feat? He later told me that he "discovered a system" in which all he had to do was offer sponsorship services to expats wanting to reside in the UAE.

UAE law obliges expatriates who care to reside and do business in the country to either do so through a partnership with a UAE national in which the expat can own up to 49 per cent, or through a sponsorship system that allows the expat to own the entire business, though not on paper, provided they pay a fee to a UAE national. This fee can range from as low as a thousand dirhams a year and go up to several hundred thousand, depending on the size of the business.

This sponsorship system is on the wrong side of history. If the federal government doesn't end it, then international labour laws will probably do so.

Bahrain has taken the brave step last year and removed this disagreeable system completely. Even bureaucracy-prone Kuwait recently announced that on the 20th anniversary of their liberation from Saddam's occupation next February, they too will liberate the foreign workers from an outdated 19th century bondage system. And yet the UAE, traditionally the pioneering Arab Gulf state, has only come out in support of it through official statements.

Often the "special circumstances" of the UAE are evoked, since the population of nationals is somewhere below 20 per cent of total residents. This makes it even more necessary to reform expatriate labour regulations that are frankly full of loopholes as they stand today.

What is interesting is that the local governments have recognised the drawbacks of the sponsorship system as early at the 1970s, when Dubai founded the hugely successful Jebel Ali Free Zone. Today, there are dozens of free zones in the UAE under various names that allow foreign businessmen to set up companies, provided they don't operate within the UAE non-freezone districts.

Although businesses have found solutions and loopholes to bypass the outdated sponsorship system individually, collectively they are unable to take the giant step and reform the system. I therefore suggest that the UAE government takes the initiative and establishes an Emirates National Residency Authority to handle all forms of sponsorship. This government body can establish a standardised fee structure for expats who want to start a business in the UAE. The fees can be put into a fund that assists needy Emirati families.

This authority can also be the sole issuer of visas for domestic workers. UAE nationals wishing to employ foreign workers can approach this body and submit the necessary documents to them. The authority can even extend longer-term visas to those investing a substantial amount of money in the country and those who employ a large number of UAE nationals.

This will also provide assurances to workers. Local companies will not have to keep the passports of their employees since they will not have reason to do so. Like the Bahrain model, employees wouldn't have the right to switch jobs until they honour the contract time period.

The truth is that the existing sponsorship system in the UAE breeds complacency and suffocates innovation among nationals who find it an easy way to make income.

It also is a barrier towards the free movement of labour within the UAE, which is a requirement for any competitive, meritocratic society, as it allows market forces to determine the value of one's skills.

Finally, the existing sponsorship system may be regarded as a reason behind the relatively large population of eight million in the UAE. Like my friend, some nationals will not shy away from sponsoring large numbers of expats regardless of what skills they possess, as long as they are paid an annual fee.

Reforming the UAE labour laws, starting with the outdated sponsorship system, is very much a challenging task. It may also be unpopular. But it is necessary and overdue.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 17th October 2010

Linking capital's knowledge hubs can fulfil its vision

2010-10-10T23:46:00.002+04:00

Even to the casual observer, the past few years have witnessed a seismic shift in Abu Dhabi's efforts to create a knowledge-based economy.

There was the establishment of The National as a platform to report news in English to the nation and the wider world; the announcement of plans to build the Guggenheim, Louvre and other landmark museums considered to be global cultural centres; and the advent of education and research institutions such as Masdar City and the Masdar Institute, NYU Abu Dhabi, the Sorbonne, and INSEAD. These institutions were also met with an expansion of local educational entities such as Zayed University and the Higher Colleges of Technology.

However, Abu Dhabi's desire to build a knowledge-based economy started decades earlier, when the late Sheikh Zayed decided to establish UAE University in 1976, the oldest higher learning establishment in the county. Six years earlier, Al Ittihad newspaper had also started, while my favourite knowledge hub, the Cultural Foundation, began in 1981 as the National Library.

Today, it houses over 400,000 books and holds numerous activities and events under the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. For Abu Dhabi's 2030 vision to succeed, it is imperative that these institutions compliment each other and the UAE community.

Last week, I had the good fortune of hearing a number of national and global experts speak about Abu Dhabi's pursuit of innovation and knowledge to develop its economic vision. Knowledge and culture were identified back in 2005 by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, as strategic sectors of diversification for Abu Dhabi. I was very impressed with the fact that each national who spoke was well aware of the role that his or her department played in making Sheikh Mohammed's ambitious goal a reality.

In order for this vision to be fully realised, it is important to create a network in which the above knowledge hubs interact and compliment each other rather than exist in isolation. This network should ideally be built in layers, connecting first the hubs in Abu Dhabi with each other, and then branching out across the country and into the wider Arab World, since much of the content being created is in Arabic and can thus have a regional impact.

With the great wealth of knowledge that Abu Dhabi creates comes great power, and with power comes great responsibility, as I always remind myself. What are Abu Dhabi's responsibilities towards itself and towards others? We have already seen the UAE capital sharing this knowledge with the creation of National Geographic's Abu Dhabi TV channel and the recent launch of National Geographic magazine in Arabic, which brings a wealth of knowledge and quality information to Arabic-only speakers.

Soon, TwoFour54, a media content creation community based in Abu Dhabi, will debut its CBeebies hit animation show Driver Dan's Story Train in Arabic as well. This cartoon geared towards children - the most important element in any society - promotes tolerance as well as education. On the show, children read and are read to by their parents in a crisp, classical Arabic - a marked contrast from the screams and shouts we witness on TV today.

The ability to absorb high quality information and turn it into high quality content for a local, regional and global audience is a sign that this great responsibility is taken seriously. The successful creation of Abu Dhabi's knowledge network must also include the private sector's participation. The synergy that will result in the alignment of public and private stakeholders could generate a momentum that would propel Abu Dhabi not only towards its Vision 2030 goals but perhaps even exceed them.

But how would such a network operate? The leaders of these various knowledge hubs must familiarise themselves with each other, along with the heads of universities and even high schools. They could do so by meeting periodically to share expertise and ideas and keep each other updated on future plans. In this way, students in Abu Dhabi will be able to study in world-class universities, undertake internships in world-class institutions and perhaps carry out research in Abu Dhabi's strategic industries.

Secondly, these knowledge hubs must launch community outreach programmes to make sure that their benefits reach a wider audience, while also amassing a coalition of stakeholders who are keen on building a knowledge-based future. NYU Abu Dhabi has already launched a successful free public lecture series that feature top professors. By reaching out to others, Abu Dhabi's knowledge hubs can function as musical instruments that, when played together, create the effect of a harmonious symphony.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 10th October 2010

Stereotypes are but a dressing for our own prejudices

2010-09-26T13:13:00.002+04:00

Among the many casualties of globalisation across the world is the disappearance of local customs and traditions. A few cultures have managed to embrace globalisation while keeping habits such as national attire – the colourful boubous and kaftans of West Africa for instance, or the sari and shalwar kameez in South Asia, and of course, the abayas, dishdashas and kandoras in the Gulf.

Such traditional clothes, however, can also place restrictions on the interactions that happen between people when a certain style of dress is enforced. Last Ramadan, for instance, a group of us organised a small iftar at a restaurant. I contacted a friend and asked if she would like to join us, but her answer was: "I'm not going if you're dressed in a kandora." I initially thought it was a joke until she proceeded to explain that she was once with an Emirati man dressed in national attire and a girl told her she "looked like a prostitute" with him.

Ironically, that message was from a person of mixed background, from whom one would expect a more tolerant view of the world. But one can scarcely blame non-Emiratis in feeling uncomfortable around someone wearing a kandora when official policies place restrictions on those wearing them. Various officials justify this policy, which includes prohibiting Emiratis from entering bars and pubs, as keeping in line with "tradition".

There have been several cases in which persons wearing the national dress were refused entry into restaurants. A high profile case back in 2007 led to a warning being issued to the offending establishment by the director of the compliance division at Dubai's Department of Economic Development. And rightly so. Borrowing from the director's words: if food is being served there, then everyone has a right to access it.

In response to such discriminatory policies, Gulf nationals have become very versatile in switching between national attire and contemporary outfits. It is not uncommon to meet someone in the daytime wearing a kandora and see the same person at night in jeans. Gulf women are in fact a step ahead and wear an abaya above jeans or trousers. A quip I heard a few times among Gulf nationals when wearing jeans is that they're dressed in a "civilian" outfit.

Apparently, the person who accused my friend of "looking like a prostitute" was an Emirati lady. So do Emirati women who see nationals in kandoras with expatriate women wearing contemporary clothes really think they are "working women"? Huda Sajwani, a researcher on gender studies in the Gulf, tells me that in that specific case the Emirati lady might have projected her own insecurities onto my friend. "Not all Emiratis think that way. The media might also have had a role in establishing these stereotypes through television dramas," she told me. Huda said that what is needed today is more interaction between nationals and expats and that events such as TEDxDubai and those in The Shelter, where Emiratis address mixed audiences, play an important role in shattering such stereotypes.

Wael al Sayegh, an Emirati cultural commentator, says a person who stereotypes people by their dress will have a narrow experience of the country, only living in a small circle where there is no chance for personal growth. Wael tells me that there is a similar inhibition from people who don't trust men in suits because of issues related to finance. "Because of psychological reasons, some individuals will require counseling as there could have been a traumatic experience associated with the feeling of discomfort around certain costumes similar to those who feel uneasy about gothic styles and men with shaved heads," he said. Wael contends that reasons of religion and culture, as well as those relating to safety around construction sites and certain sports, could justify some limits on wearing the kandora.

Recently, a close friend of mine who went to a mixed gender high school told me of an incident many years ago in which he was asked not to go to the airport wearing a kandora to bid a female classmate good bye. I was glad to hear from him that he went anyway, wearing a kandora. For me, a person who wears traditional costume is a proud person, an honourable person and above all a person whom I would be insulting by passing judgment upon them.

It reflects poorly on the Emirati national who accused my friend of such transgressions but it also reflects poorly on my friend who perpetuated this notion based on false pretences by allowing it to alter her lifestyle. Many among us hold prejudices. The best method to eradicate them is to do what we believe inside and not take ignorant comments by others to heart. The last message I got from my friend regarding the iftar was: "Whenever you're not dressed in a kandora, I'll come." The answer I would have liked to send was: "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm keeping my kandora."

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 26th September 2010

Municipal councils could foster spirit of civic participation

2010-09-19T11:46:00.001+04:00

For many Emiratis, experiences with the current Federal National Council have been less than ideal. If asked to name a major achievement accomplished by any FNC member, few Emiratis would have anything positive to say.

The record of this partially elected body should not sour Emiratis’ overall impressions of the movement towards national civic participation. That movement was launched by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the President of the UAE, in 2006, but four years later, some Emiratis still do not feel that they have a say in many issues in their country.

One way to bring Emiratis into the civic process and engage them in decision-making would be to allow citizens the right to run and vote in municipal elections where they themselves could work to improve services in their districts.

The role of municipal councils in the UAE does not differ from other countries. For instance, according to Sheikh Khalifa’s decree, councils in Abu Dhabi are responsible for improving services for residents in their districts, including public works, town and suburban services, infrastructure and town planning committees.

In some of the emirates, different municipal councils are responsible for different enclaves. For instance, in addition to Sharjah City’s municipal council, there are two others to be found in Kalba and Khor Fakkan. Abu Dhabi added a third municipal council in 2006 to administer the Western Region, which complemented the Abu Dhabi City and Al Ain municipal councils.

The Western Region of the emirate, also known as Al Gharbia, covers an area of 60,000 square kilometres and includes townships such as Madinat Zayed, Ruwais, Liwa Oasis and Dalma Island. Its municipal council is made up of 16 members who are serving two-year terms. At least six of the council members have to be selected from among the residents of these towns.

Besides the FNC, a number of other councils can be found in the UAE, including executive councils and consultative or Shura councils. However, the practical role that municipal councils fulfil was evident in the wake of Cyclone Gonu that hit the shores of neighbouring Oman as well as towns on the UAE’s east coast in June 2007.

In response to the natural disaster, Dr Mohammad Saeed al Sahi, the chairman of the Kalba City Municipal Council, created an emergency response committee that co-ordinated, among other responsibilities, the financial compensation that was allocated by President Khalifa and Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed, the Ruler of Sharjah, to those who were affected.

But in addition to their role organising community services, municipal councils can be powerful tools to cultivate civic awareness and participation among the nation’s citizens. This is vital to give Emiratis a stake and responsibility in the affairs of their communities.

The ultimate prize will be the engagement of nationals who must be more than spectators in the development of their country. Emiratis should be participants, suggesting new policies, interacting with Government and ultimately empowering national institutions through citizen participation.

The truth is, in their current form, many Emiratis do not know that municipal councils exist, much less their function. If citizens know that they are able to elect a representative who can look after the everyday needs of their communities, we can turn society from a group of passive bystanders to active contributors who promote issues as varied as environmental awareness to civic responsibility.

The governments of the seven emirates have an opportunity to demonstrate that, by empowering Emiratis in cities and towns across the country, government and public services can make great strides forward. Eventually, the EU model might be considered, which would allow citizens to vote in whatever district they resided in regardless of where they were originally from.

These changes do not need to be abrupt. Partial elections could be held for each municipal council, and the number of elected seats expanded if the experiment proved to be a success. In all likelihood, elected council members would represent Emiratis who were dedicated to the wellbeing of their communities and who would make every effort to lobby for improvements on behalf of their constituents.

At present, some Emiratis seem to be disconnected from public service and civic duty. If they are empowered to represent their communities, then the energy of a young and growing population could be harnessed in the right direction.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 19th September 2010

Mixed marriages bring strength upon strength to the UAE

2010-08-29T11:14:00.003+04:00

Not too long ago, I boarded a plane in Dubai bound for the United States. There were a number of Emirati families on board, some of whom I recognised and greeted. After a 14-hour direct flight, we descended from the plane and made our way to passport control.

One Emirati family walked towards the line for US citizens and, in my naivety, I almost told them they were standing in the wrong queue. I hesitated, correctly it turned out. They were American citizens and obliged to stand in the US citizens section.

Many people who hear this story immediately assume that the mother was a foreigner. Not only is that incorrect – the mother is a true-blue Emirati – but she also works in the UAE government.

In the past week, I was reminded of this by an article in The National relating to mixed parentage. The Grand Mufti of Dubai, Dr Ahmed al Haddad, made controversial comments questioning whether there should be restrictions on Emiratis marrying outside their nationality.

In truth,a substantial number of talented Emiratis have been born to mixed marriages, a point that Dr al Haddad’s comments did not seem to take into consideration. According to one person who was present at the panel discussion, Emiratis from mixed marriages may have “mixed loyalties”. So are they Emirati enough?

Well, let us take a look at some of these Emiratis to find out. Ali Mostafa, the director behind City of Life, is the product of a mixed marriage. City of Life, which depicts contemporary life in Dubai in a powerful and realistic fashion, has become an international ambassador for the UAE after opening in Australia and Canada with a screening scheduled in Washington DC. Is its director Emirati enough?

Omar Saif Ghobash and Yousef al Otaiba, the UAE ambassadors to Russia and the United States respectively, both have foreign-born mothers and yet they serve the UAE with as much attention and dedication as any other Emirati ambassador. I have written before about how Mr al Otaiba has worked tirelessly on behalf of the country, in particular on the nuclear 123 agreement with the United States. Mr Ghobash speaks six languages and was heavily involved in bringing New York University to the UAE’s capital. Are they Emirati enough?

Razan al Mubarak is also a product of a mixed marriage. Her late father, like Ambassador Ghobash’s, gave his life for the country. Ms al Mubarak, in her roles as assistant secretary general of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and managing director of the Emirates Wildlife Society, is busy protecting the country’s wildlife on both land and sea. Is she Emirati enough?

At Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment arm Mubadala, the chief operations officer, Waleed al Mokarrab al Muhairi, also happens to be chairman of Yahsat, Advance Technology Investment Company and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. But perhaps most importantly, he is credited with being “one of the principal architects behind the Abu Dhabi 2030 Economic vision”. And yes, Mr al Mokarrab comes from a mixed family.

Wael Al Sayegh is a writer, poet, translator and founder of the consultancy firm Al Ghaf, which delivers “inter-cultural induction programmes to multinational organisations serving the region”. Mr Al Sayegh has spoken to many multinational corporations about UAE culture and offered a Dubai perspective to foreign news outlets, including the BBC, during recent high-profile criminal cases. Is he Emirati enough?

Sarah Shaw, an Emirati whose biological father is English, currently works at the General Secretariat of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and is a huge supporter of Emiratisation. Is she Emirati enough?

Other Emiratis from mixed families who have made substantial contributions include the director general of the Dubai World Trade Centre, Helal Saeed al Marri, the film director Nawaf Janahi and the columnist Mishaal al Gergawi, among many others.

There are examples in my immediate circle of Emirati friends who genuinely care about this country, not despite one of their parents being foreign born but perhaps because of it.

Should the UAE, and specifically Dubai, known for being hospitable and welcoming to people of all ethnicities, backgrounds and cultures, make our very own citizens feel unwelcome?

The truth is the UAE is a richer country because of these individuals of mixed backgrounds. What we should concentrate on is strengthening the ties that people have to this great nation. I have previously suggested military service for Emirati high school graduates, cultural immersion and social volunteering as ways to build civic participation.

Frankly, it would be insulting to question the loyalty of Emiratis who are born to a foreign parent. It is also unfair, un-Islamic and ultimately in this case un-Emirati to generalise about people of any background. The Emirates is a vibrant country of many colours – only seeing a single shade excludes too many of its strengths.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 29th August 2010

Gosaibi served the public with far more than his pen

2010-08-22T13:29:00.002+04:00

Several dozen obituaries have been written about Ghazi al Gosaibi in the past week. The Khaleeji literary giant passed away in Riyadh at 70 years of age after decades spent in public service.

He held a number of posts: as Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Industry, he set up the petrochemical giant Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic); he was an ambassador to Britain; and finally, he was Minister of Labour from 2005 until his death. On a personal note, I wish he had turned down the last government post and dedicated his time to his writings. But Ghazi was supremely devoted to his government duties, and that might have been his greatest conflict.

Unlike the dozens of writers who penned an obituary for Ghazi, I had never met him in person. And yet, I feel as though I have known him. He is the only writer whose every publication I have read.

My favourite was one in which he filled in the blanks: Suhaim, the true story of a slave who was burnt at the stake for his mistakes as he recited poems about the tribal daughters he slept with. The tale was lost to Arab history and was only saved by Ghazi’s vast imagination.

Seldom do Khaleeji writers venture beyond the artificial borders that separate the indigenous culture shared from Kuwait to Oman and see themselves as sons of the blue waters of the Gulf. And yet, with An Apartment Called Freedom, Ghazi did just that.

Ghazi was a Saudi citizen who felt just as comfortable portraying Bahraini students as he would his compatriots. This masterfully written book revolves around four Khaleejis: Fouad, Yaqoub, Abdul Karim and Qassim studying in Cairo after the 1952 revolution. The students party with girlfriends and dabble in religion, politics and literature.

Bahrainis and other Gulf nationals received these stories as though they were written for them and about them. I can’t imagine another Khaleeji writer ascribing controversial traits to another nationality in the Gulf without being accused of political bias.

Few other writers have transcended the notion of distinct nationalities that is common among many Gulf writers today. The late Kuwaiti intellectual Ahmad al Rubie, who spent seven months in an Omani jail for fighting on the side of Dhofari socialist revolutionaries, also saw the Gulf as a cultural whole. Like al Rubie, al Gosaibi was part of a generation that believed in a single Khaleeji identity.

However, Ghazi’s most controversial moment came when he wrote a poem praising a Palestinian girl who blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket in March 2002. It was an impossible circle to square for many Arabs, since it came so soon after September 11.

Simultaneously, the memory of Muhammad al Durrah, a 12-year-old child allegedly killed by Israeli soldiers, was still fresh in many minds. That poem contained harsh criticism of the Arab world that still rings true today. Shortly after the poem was published, Ghazi voiced his support for a two-state solution for the Middle East conflict and the Saudi government-backed Arab peace initiative.

Ghazi has been the latest in a string of Arab literary figures to have passed away over the past decade. Others, such as Abdul Rahman Muneef, Mohammed Choukri, Tayeb Salih and Naguib Mahfouz, weren’t compromised or conflicted by government posts. But what concerns me the most with the passing of these literary giants is whether the new generation of Gulf and Arab writers will be as capable and brave in their writings as their predecessors.

The above writers, including Ghazi, had to struggle for the right to pen their thoughts; some were shunned, others banned, exiled – a few were jailed. Is the new generation of Arab writers willing to struggle and pay a price for their ideas? More specifically, is the new generation of Khaleeji writers willing to look beyond state boundaries as Ghazi and Al Rubie did, and see the vast, united expanse that is the Gulf and the Arab world?

As time passes, there will be more and more people like me who have been impacted by Ghazi’s writings. What is clear from where I stand is that Ghazi may have made better choices as a fiction writer than as a politician.

His relationship with the government may have put pressure and limits on his literary career, forcing him to put his public service first. Perhaps one day, like Ghazi’s rendering of Suhaim, some young Gulf writer will fill in the blanks of this complex writer’s life-long struggle.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 22nd August 2010

Holidays abroad shouldn’t mean breaking the law

2010-08-15T10:42:00.002+04:00

Last week, the UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported that two Emiratis were charged with driving recklessly without insurance after their Lamborghini spun out of control and crashed in London.

The impact of the crash was so forceful that a parked BMW flipped over. Seemingly indifferent to the situation, the two men allegedly told a passerby: “It’s all right, we’ll pay for the damage.”

Contempt for the law, which is a common noveaux-riche trait across the Gulf, has been highlighted in a series of unflattering reports in the British media of late. Though the vast majority of Emirati and Gulf tourists to the UK and elsewhere are law-abiding visitors, a small number of delinquents have sadly found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

For example, a photograph was heavily circulated in the Gulf last month of a blue Koenigsegg and Lamborghini parked outside of Harrods. The reason for the image’s popularity? The cars, which are registered to Qatar’s royal family (who now own Harrods), were ticketed and clamped by a London traffic warden.

Another article in the Evening Standard highlighted the complaints of a ticketing officer in London who found it difficult to issue fines to offenders from the Gulf driving cars with foreign licence plates. Bugatti Veyrons, Porsches and Rolls-Royce Phantoms were some of the vehicles named. In response to the noise these cars generate, residents have also launched campaigns to restore the peace and quiet that has been lost on the quieter streets of London.

Reading all this news made me remember a quote by the late Sheikh Zayed, in which he said: “The biggest advice I can give Emiratis is to stay away from arrogance.” Driving vehicles dangerously and without insurance as well as a total disregard for the law are symptoms of the arrogance and overconfidence that Sheikh Zayed warned us about.

Even before travelling, the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website reminds Emiratis to fully comply with the laws and regulations of their host state.

Mofa’s advice is to be heeded. Its recently launched Tawajudi project, meaning “my presence”, is an online portal on which citizens are invited to register the destinations where they will be traveling. This allows the Ministry to help its citizens “in cases of crisis and emergencies to provide them with guidance and advice regarding what they must do”.

Tawajudi was immediately put to use during the recent forest fires in Moscow. Mofa contacted its registered Emirati citizens visiting Russia (at last count, over 28,000 in total have registered) and advised them to leave as soon possible due to the toxic smog. The UAE embassy in Russia also offered logistical assistance to nationals wanting to depart the capital.

The least that Emirati citizens can do to reciprocate Mofa’s numerous services is to make sure we represent our country, culture and religion in the best possible manner.

After tweeting the Daily Mail story, an Emirati suggested that such reckless individuals should pay the country for damaging its reputation; several others suggested that there was a link between those misbehaving at home and abroad.

Whatever the case, travelling abroad on an Emirati passport is a privilege that must not be taken for granted. The passport that these individuals carry when they travel effectively makes them ambassadors for the country, for better or worse.

Since we expect tourists to be on their best behaviour when they visit the UAE, it is only fair that we feel equally outraged when our own misbehave elsewhere. The tiny minority of Emiratis who act irresponsibly abroad must not be allowed to tarnish the image of this country or their fellow compatriots.

Perhaps it should be made clear to the minority of Emirati and Gulf citizens who misbehave while traveling that acting inappropriately can cause them to lose their travel privileges. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs could opt to send letters of warning to Emiratis who disrespect the law abroad.

Committing crimes is a serious offence that we must take exception to regardless of where it was committed.

The features editor of a London-based Arab newspaper recently told the Evening Standard that Gulf citizens prefer traveling to the UK because unlike “France or the US, they are made to feel welcome here”. This welcome must neither be trampled upon nor taken for granted.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 15th August 2010

Moderate Saudi voices have found a home in the UAE

2010-07-18T09:30:00.003+04:00

Over the last few years, an array of prominent Saudi intellectuals have come to call the UAE their home. As the midway point between the West and the East, the magnetic draw of the Emirates is understandable; it has become a cultural oasis for those who are intellectually hungry.

For instance, Abdul Rahman al Rashid currently presides over Al Arabiya in Dubai Media City as its general manager. Prior to his appointment by Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim of Saudi Arabia, he was known as the editor of the most-recognised Arabic newspaper, the London-based Asharq Al Awsat. The newspaper’s popularity was high during his era and he continues to publish widely read and influential pieces.

The Saudi columnist Dr Sulaiman al Hattlan is also a Dubai resident, as he was appointed in 2008 as the chief executive officer of the Arab Strategy Forum, which is akin to a Davos for social development in the Arab world. The institution’s Arab Knowledge Report 2009 is one of the few locally produced studies that examines the challenges of building knowledge-based economies in the region.

Dr al Hattlan also hosts Gulf Talks, a weekly talk show on the US-government sponsored Al Hurra news channel that examines the most important political and social issues in the Gulf. Although Al Hurra is widely regarded as having failed in its goal of providing an American perspective on global news to the region, Gulf Talks is known more than any other show to host controversial guests and free thinkers.

Additionally, Al Hurra airs Mosawaat or Equality, which is presented by the Saudi Arabian journalist Nadine al Budair. It discusses women’s rights in the Gulf and the Arab world, including taboo issues that many state-funded channels would shy away from tackling. Ms al Budair is also most recently known for a controversial article in which she called for women to be allowed the right to take multiple husbands.

Also in broadcast media is the presenter Turki al Dakhil, who has become as much a household name in the UAE as he is in Saudi Arabia. Mr al Dakhil presented a radio programme in Jeddah prior to moving to the UAE, where guests would call and air their grievances. It is widely believed that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was among the listeners of that extremely popular show. Today, Mr al Dakhil presents Ida’at, a courageous weekly debate programme on Al Arabiya that focuses on Gulf thinkers and intellectuals.

And although this is mere speculation on my part, it may be likely that the newly announced Fox News Arabic channel will be based in the UAE. Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, the channel’s main backer, met Rupert Murdoch during the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in March this year, where it was announced that NewsCorp, which owns the news channel, would base its regional operations in the UAE capital.

The channel will be headed by Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist who is known for interviewing Osama bin Laden and his former post as editor-in-chief of Al Watan, the most influential newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

Also in the UAE resides Mansour al Nogaidan, the Saudi columnist behind Losing my Jihadism, a Washington Post article that I consider to be the most important column written about reform in Islam in the past decade.

Other noted Saudi voices on the Emirates scene include Dawood al Shiryan, a veteran journalist who presented the hugely successful Al Maqal, or The Article, on Dubai TV, as well as Dr Ismael Mohammed al Bishri, who previously held the title of chancellor of Sharjah University and who today serves as an appointed member of the Saudi Shura Council. Saudi researchers also occupy the halls of the Dubai School of Government: Dr Khalid al Yahya is a professor of public management and political economy, and Dr May al Dabbagh specialises in gender, social and cross-cultural psychology.

What makes the UAE experience feel like home to many of our neighbours from Saudi Arabia is that popular culture and official channels have both embraced them. It is not uncommon to walk into the majlis of a sheikh, minister or businessman and encounter these individuals, who have been invited, feted and honoured for their insights and intellect.

UAE society has both enriched these personalities and has been enriched by their presence. The media and academic platforms of the Emirates allows the moderate and informed voices of these Saudi intellectuals to reach not only the corners of the Arab world but also extend beyond our region.

Like other non-Emiratis, these individuals choose to be here because of the encouraging, fair and merit-based social environment that exists in the UAE. It is an environment that we need not only protect, but also to nourish and nurture.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 18th July 2010

How do you hold a majlis in 140 letters or less?

2010-07-11T10:27:00.005+04:00

What was once a platform to broadcast trivialities has, in the last year or so, matured into a powerful global phenomenon.

The social networking site Twitter has more than 100 million users today. That number includes many journalists, writers and commentators who use the medium to disburse their latest articles and appearances.

Despite the relative youth of Twitter, a vernacular has already developed around it. Tweeps and tweeple, for instance, signify Twitter users, and a tweet is used to refer to a single update. Hash-tagging, or inserting a hash-tag sign, as in #AbuDhabi, signifies that the discussions are revolving around the UAE capital.

A study conducted by Spot On PR last summer found that there were more than 5,000 Twitter users in the UAE. Today, that number is undoubtedly much higher.
Although the account has not been updated since mid-May, the most popular Emirati Twitter account belongs to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the country’s Prime Minister, who has more than 340,000 followers.

Many politicians, including the US President Barack Obama, have accounts, but most of them are managed by other people and therefore the effect is diminished. You don’t feel like Barack Obama is talking to you on his Twitter account.

This is not the case, however, with the Foreign Minister of Bahrain, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, who tweets in English, Arabic and Spanish. Sheikh Khalid’s portfolio, coupled with Bahrain’s strategic importance as the host of the US Fifth Fleet and its consistent cordial relations with neighbouring countries, makes his updates relevant to all Gulf residents.

Many Gulf citizens and residents don’t feel as connected as they would like to be to their politicians. Through Twitter, we have come to learn Sheikh Khalid’s likes and dislikes, his hopes for his country and his aspirations. We have come to learn that politicians are people like us, not just faces that appear in newspapers.

I have no doubt that politicians who are better connected to those they represent are better informed and therefore better able to do their jobs. In the Arab world, Twitter should not be discounted as a vital avenue of communications between citizens and politicians.

Twitter has also brought many expatriates and Emiratis together, creating what I called an “Emiratian” culture. For instance, there was an outpouring of public grief on Twitter when an Air India Express airliner crashed in Bangalore last May, not least because one of the victims was a 17-year-old twitter user known by her handle as netizentwo.

Twitter has also been used by organisations such as Shelter in Dubai to inform people of social events like Geek Fest and “Care Packages Day – Emergency Appeal”, which brought together scores of volunteers to collect clothes, toiletries and tin foods after hundreds of labourers were left to starve when their employer went out of business. Since we are all stakeholders in this society, the more lines of communications between us, the better.

Wild Peeta, one UAE business run by two Emirati brothers, relied completely on the power of social networking – Twitter in particular – to promote itself. The founders told EmiraTalks 1.0, a gathering organised by Emiratweet in January, that they hadn’t spent a single dirham on media advertising and had hundreds of followers on Twitter even before they opened shop.

They did it by asking potential customers what flavours they liked and which sauces they wanted to include in their sandwiches. They could have hired a consultancy and research firm to carry out a survey that would have cost thousands of dirhams to filter the results; instead, they chose to open a direct line of communication with their clientele.

The networking site became a political force during the protests that followed the Iranian elections last summer. It was so essential to the movement that the US State Department asked Twitter to delay a planned upgrade, which could have potentially interfered with the organisation of protests.

Many will continue to dismiss Twitter as a trivial phenomenon, but we have already seen it enabling community charity events, bridging decades-old communication gaps, bringing politicians and their citizens closer together, and ultimately allowing people to reach out to one another in the real world, where real events take place.

Traditionally in the Gulf, a majlis was the place where people would reach out to each other, stay in touch with the community, and perhaps seek official help. Today, Twitter has become a virtual version of that place – and it can all be done in 140 characters or less.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 11th July 2010

The lobbyists are here and it’s time we knew why

2010-07-04T16:43:00.003+04:00

The act of lobbying, either officially or behind the scenes, is prevalent across the world. It is most often associated with politics in the United States and negatively so. In fact, lobbying dates back to just after the American War of Independence when William Hull, a war veteran, was hired by those who fought alongside him to lobby those in Philadelphia, then the US capital, to compensate them for their service. The rest, of course, is history.

The UAE is no stranger to lobbying firms. It hosts various companies, some of them US-based, who provide global services to UAE-based firms and the various governments. The UAE also hosts business associations and Canadian, US, Indian and British groups, which executives belong to meet for educational and informative sessions as well as to celebrate occasions such as national holidays. Other lobbying organisations press for oil rights and contracts for their clients.

An interesting development occurred when the former UK business secretary Lord Mandelson visited the UAE and addressed a group of British businessmen and women in the UAE earlier this year. Lord Mandelson urged the UAE to settle an estimated £400 million in unpaid fees to British firms from companies in the UAE.

He also reportedly said that the UK government was “firmly behind UK business in the country” and that he “did not mind raising issues” on their behalf to the UAE government. Foreign newswires quoted the mixed response to the UK business secretary’s statement, with one member saying: “There’s nothing the UK can preach to Dubai.”

The incident did mark how lobbying can take on another dimension here in the UAE, with some business groups calling upon their governments to press the UAE to further their members’ interests.

The Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ADCCI) elections last year were amongst the clearest examples of lobbying’s importance in the UAE. The capital’s chamber of commerce is an important body, considering that Abu Dhabi’s GDP is more than $150 billion. ADCCI’s stated mission is to be the “private sector representative working to advocate policies, connect businesses and expand member opportunities”. Sound familiar?

Initially three coalitions were formed to field candidates for the organisation’s 21-member governing body. In only the second time in the ADCCI’s 40-year history, its 71,000 members from Abu Dhabi and Al Ain were able to vote and decide on their representatives. Sixty-seven Emiratis competed for 13 seats and a dozen expatriates were competing for two expat seats. The government of Abu Dhabi would appoint the remaining six to the board.

The elections were intense and hotly contested, with a group known as Abu Dhabi First taking out full-page advertisements, launching a website and a radio campaign to promote their candidates. Abu Dhabi First could be seen as the first official commercial coalition to promote common goals, effectively making it the first local business-lobbying group.

Among other parts of its platform, it enticed voters by promising to slash membership fees by 50 per cent for small businesses in Abu Dhabi. The results were remarkable; Abu Dhabi First won all 15-membership seats including the two expatriate allocations.

With close to 5,000 votes, the female Emirati candidate on its slate, Fatima Al Jaber, garnered more votes than any other Emirati on the way to becoming the first woman to be elected to the ADCCI board.

There are other registered lobbying groups in the UAE whose goals are non-commercial, including environmental groups and human rights associations. Not all lobbying is negative. Still, it is an industry that is growing in the UAE and is largely unknown and completely unregulated.

So should the UAE look into establishing a law to govern these lobbying associations? The United States first federal lobbying regulation, known as the Lobbying Act of 1946, sought to make sure that the process was transparent and there was full disclosure of financial payments. It has been amended several times since.

In December 2006, the first FNC partial elections were held, and the body’s tenure was extended for two years despite its failure to meet the demands of UAE citizens, raising questions regarding its ability to introduce and debate reforms in the UAE. The tenure extension expires in 2010, though the government has yet to announce new election dates.

It may be prudent to announce electoral reforms along with an election date and to include legislation to make any lobbying activity official. The success of Abu Dhabi First will not go unnoticed by many in the business community that want to silence any debate, for instance, on laws that protect monopolies.

Unofficial and community lobbying manifest themselves in various forms, including an online petition in 2007 to save Jumeirah’s public beach, which resulted in the scrapping of a development. But whether we like it or not, lobbyists are about to become more prevalent in the UAE, and not all of them are out to save a beach.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 4th July 2010

A more balanced federal budget benefits us all

2010-06-27T10:40:00.002+04:00

The news this month that the various emirates do not contribute evenly to the federal budget should not have come as a surprise to many Emiratis.

In 2010, Abu Dhabi will contribute Dh17 billion of the Dh43.6 billion total budget and Dubai will allocate an additional Dh1.2 billion, according to figures published in The National. The remainder of about Dh25.4 billion will be paid by the revenues earned by federal bodies.

The Northern Emirates must understand that what they invest in the federation will only be multiplied in the most positive sense in terms of the value created by federal expenditures. If an emirate contributes even Dh100 million, the “return” provided by federal ministries that spend more than Dh43 billion each year will more than make up the expense.

But how can the country cover a federal budget shortfall of Dh18.2 billion, which is now carried by only Abu Dhabi and Dubai? One way of generating cash flow would be through the introduction of a tax regime. The issue of personal income taxes may be far too sensitive and complicated due to the bureaucracy needed to ensure that individuals declare their real income. But there is one group that is already declaring revenues – publicly listed firms.

In 2009, the top 25 listed firms in the UAE by market value registered profits of nearly Dh35 billion, according to Bloomberg. If a 10 per cent tax on the profits of these listed companies was levied by the federal government, it could rake in about Dh3.5 billion.

A great step forward was taken in November 2007 when Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the President of the UAE, issued an Emiri decree to establish the Emirates Investment Authority (EIA). Led by the savvy Emirati investor Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, the EIA looks after federal government holdings in more than 30 corporations, including Etisalat, Du, Gulf International Bank, United Arab Shipping Company and Gulf Investment Corporation. And in the wake of the financial crisis, EIA could play an even bigger role with a new and energised board of directors.

In terms of the individual emirates’ contributions to the federal budget, they should be calculated not just in terms of cash provided, but also include the costs of certain infrastructure projects in that total. The purpose of this construction, which includes federal government buildings, is to serve the federation. It would encourage these kinds of key projects by acknowledging the contributions of the emirates’ to the union as a whole.

The 2008 figures for the UAE’s gross domestic product – the value of all goods and services the economy produced – provide some perspective on the size of the individual contributions of each emirate to the federal budget. In 2008 the country as a whole registered GDP of Dh934 billion with the share of each emirate as follows: Abu Dhabi Dh520 billion, Dubai Dh301 billion, Sharjah Dh72 billion, Ras Al Khaimah Dh16 billion, Ajman Dh11 billion, Fujairah Dh10 billion and Umm Al Qaiwain Dh3.7 billion.

Abu Dhabi’s contribution to the federal budget was in the neighbourhood of three per cent of its GDP. And it should be highlighted that Abu Dhabi also generously assists its fellow emirates outside the context of the federal budget. Dubai’s contribution of Dh1.2 billion in 2010 amounts to about half of one per cent of its 2010 expected gross domestic product of Dh254 billion.

There must be a mechanism after nearly 40 years of federation that would ensure an automatic process for collecting fees based on a specific percentage of an emirate’s GDP. Having each emirate contribute one per cent of its income is unfair to the capital, for instance. Therefore, a recalculation of the ratios that the various emirates ought to contribute may be essential until the federal budget is covered entirely by revenues of federal bodies.

All seven emirates must take the matter of uneven contributions to the budget seriously. It is a classic case of the more one gives, the more one receives. An automatic mechanism could be instated in which an emirate’s contribution would be calculated using the averaging ratio of the past three years’ income, for instance.

Paying even a symbolic amount to the federal budget would prove that the Northern Emirates are as involved as their wealthier fellow emirates. No one can expect the less wealthy emirates to contribute as much as the powerhouse of Abu Dhabi, but what we ought to expect is that each of us does our bit as best we can for the sake of the union.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 27th June 2010

Emiratis listened to Bill Gates – can they emulate him?

2010-06-13T11:34:00.003+04:00

The UAE has hosted a number of successful and high-profile entrepreneurs in the past few years who have shared their experience of starting businesses. The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, visited in 2008 and 2009. Earlier this year the UAE capital played host to Eric Schmidt, the Chairman and CEO of Google, who spoke at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit along with Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Indian philanthropist and billionaire. The list goes on.

Each of these famous businessmen has shared stories of his firm’s journey from a humble beginning to huge success. They are often given a royal treatment that suits their stupendous achievement. The most important people they interact with are Emirati youths who are eager to listen to them, learn from them, and perhaps start their own businesses.

Sadly, the UAE commercial laws do not differentiate between a young entrepreneur and a multinational corporation. Each party must rent an office, appoint a number of individuals depending on its mandate, and pay high fees for licences and other expenditures.

It is therefore curious that we invite and celebrate entrepreneurs when we do not offer our youth the opportunity to emulate them. The message we are sending is “look but don’t touch”, which amounts to a tease. Emiratis can learn from these over-achievers but face a stark reality when they try to start their own businesses.

According to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, it is easier for a person to start a firm in Saudi Arabia, which ranks at number 13 in the world, than in the UAE, which ranks 33rd. Here’s a quick comparison with our sisterly neighbour: in Saudi it takes four procedures over five working days to start a business. It would take a person 15 procedures and at least eight working days to start a business in the UAE. In regard to closing down a business, it takes less than two days to do so in Saudi Arabia and five days in the UAE. From starting up a business to winding it down, Emiratis face considerable obstacles.

Contrast this with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who started Google as a couple of students in a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California in the late 1990s. Other garage start-ups include Apple, Hewlett Packard and Youtube, which Google went on to buy for $1.6 billion in 2006. Mittal was started with a $500 loan from a parent to establish an exchange for bicycle parts. Microsoft was kicked off by two excited geeks who stayed up late at home working on computer programs.

The common thread in all these stories is that we needn’t burden young entrepreneurs with licensing fees and fancy offices, which can restrict their creativity and finances rather than develop their insights. Would these successful entrepreneurs that we celebrate have been able to set up their businesses in the UAE?

Others would point to the fact that the various UAE governments have gone a long way to support young entrepreneurs by launching initiatives such as the Khalifa Fund in Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment in Dubai and the Ruwad Fund in Sharjah. But there are two points here I would like to highlight. First, it is disappointing that there is no federal fund for young Emiratis keen on starting their businesses and that individual emirates have to resort to local government funding initiatives. Second, as appreciative as we are of these opportunities, due to the layers of the screening processes and bureaucracy that some projects go through, not all Emiratis are keen on approaching these funds, nor do many of them need to. For instance, I doubt that these funds would have noticed an eager student such as Mark Zuckerberg, approaching them with an idea for a social networking website.

Visiting entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates get the chance to address students the world over, telling them to follow their dreams. But in the UAE, those dreams can fail to launch, grounded by bureaucracy and fees.

The UAE should consider allowing its young entrepreneurs the freedom to innovate without government supervision, support or bureaucracy by creating the right circumstances and environment where ideas can flourish. Sometimes the younger generation knows better which ideas will fly than the mature adults who are supervising them. In fact, the genius of an entrepreneur, whether it is Bill Gates or a young Emirati, is that he or she can imagine opportunities that others can’t.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 13th June 2010

An education vision with an eye on all Emiratis

2010-06-06T09:29:00.000+04:00

Not all university students’ projects can turn heads. And yet this is exactly what one study by an Emirati graduate student at Al Hosn University has done in the past few days.

Thuraya Khalifa al Salmi’s study on adult education centres in Abu Dhabi has uncovered that a much larger percentage of secondary students are dropping out of high school in Abu Dhabi than originally estimated. As many as 51 per cent of students drop out, mostly due to social and economic challenges.

The results were quickly picked up by WAM, the UAE national wire service, and published across the country. Ms al Salmi’s findings can serve as a reminder to young Emiratis that their work will not go unnoticed if it is professionally resourced and executed in addition to addressing a social challenge. Her study also sadly serves as a reminder of the substantial challenges the UAE faces with regard to educating nationals.

Abu Dhabi’s Vision 2030 states that “the emirate intends to become a regional centre of learning and culture with world-class higher education institutions and schools in order to attract the best teachers and students”.

According to Ms al Salmi’s study, this noble and ambitious goal faces a major stumbling block. Also, unless this issue is addressed, Abu Dhabi may turn into a global centre of higher learning and education targeted only at visiting students rather than its national population.

Using Singapore as an educational benchmark, Vision 2030 also outlined the emirate’s desire to see an increase in the level of higher education its workforce received. The plan proposes to more than double the share of the Emirate’s population that holds a tertiary degree (undergraduate and postgraduate education) from 16 per cent, estimated in 2007, to 35 per cent in 2030.

The study by Ms al Salmi can serve as a wake up call for those implementing Vision 2030. In fact, the Abu Dhabi Educational Zone found in an earlier survey that the number of dropouts in the last year of high-school is not only high but is steadily increasing.

Earlier this year, Paul Dyer, a labour and demographics expert and fellow at the Dubai School of Government, told The National that some Emiratis drop out of school because older family members lacked formal education. He also cited the option of joining the military, which allows them to start earning money at an earlier stage to support their families.

The National also found that an Omani plan to deal with the high number of high-school dropouts (estimated at 7,000) did not meet with much success, as it did not provide educational facilities for those who dropped out because of learning disabilities or special needs.

When I was living in London three years ago I recall meeting Hamad, one of my nephew’s good friends, whose school in the UAE had bluntly told his parents that he was incapable of completing his secondary degree due to a handicap. His father contacted a specialised school in Manchester, which identified his so-called handicap as dyslexia. Hamad recently informed us that he will soon be graduating from university thanks to the simple fact that an instructor would read his questions out for him during examinations.

The UAE must provide high-school dropouts with alternatives to completing a high-school degree, including vocational training and back-to-school incentives. Ironically, some Emiratis still view the American General Educational Development, or GED diploma, as a more accessible alternative than the UAE Ministry of Education’s programme that provides night classes. Upon completion, the GED allows holders to access American or Canadian universities not only in the UAE but also internationally.

Abu Dhabi’s Vision 2030 education targets are quite ambitious, but attainable. And yet, it seems that in our rush to plan for the future, we are forgetting the present complex set of realities.

Vision 2030 is not solely an educational vision; it is a social promise to the people of Abu Dhabi and the UAE that things will only get better for them in the future.

In order to succeed, those who are implementing it must work hand-in-hand to plug all the loopholes that could jeopardise its success. The Vision must also learn how to walk before it runs, so to speak, since the challenges facing many young nationals are of an immediate nature.

For Vision 2030 to work, this ambitious plan must be brought back to the ground and made to work from the bottom up. As a start, it wouldn’t hurt to ask what the young Emirati who has helped bring the situation to light, Ms al Sami, what she thinks ought to be done.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 6th June 2010

Judicial reform will make the country stronger

2010-05-30T09:39:00.002+04:00

Authorities in the UAE proved their sophistication and diligence in uncovering the plot behind the murder of the Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh earlier this year and in swiftly confronting many of those who have committed financial crimes. In the past several years, however, there have been other areas in which the judicial system has been found wanting.

For instance, a tourist was sentenced to four years in prison for a speck of cannabis on his shoe. A handful of former CEOs sit in prison without having been charged with a crime.

An Emirati man who was convicted for murder was released, only to commit another heinous act. And most recently, an 18-year-old girl reported that she was raped by several men, only to be charged with having sex outside of marriage by the authorities before she retracted her statement.

The delicacy of this particular matter cannot be underestimated. If the woman was found guilty of deceiving the authorities, her sentence could extend to up to two years. If she was found guilty of engaging in consensual sex, her sentence could extend to life in prison.

The incident presents a conundrum for women in the UAE. If a woman reports that she has been a victim of rape she also risks being charged with having sex out of wedlock. In a country where the ratio of men to women is the highest in the world, women must not feel reluctant to approach the police to report a crime for any reason.

This is sadly not the only example why broader reforms to the judicial system should be considered. The case of an Emirati man who kidnapped, raped and murdered a woman in 2004, leaving her body to rot in the mountains, is particularly concerning.

While the killer was sentenced to death, he was spared this punishment when the father of the victim forgave him if he promised to devote the rest of his life to God. Last month he was back in court, accused of having participated in the gang rape of another woman.

How could he have been set free in the first place? I respect the forgiveness of the victim’s father, which spared him the death sentence, but an unstable murderer should not have been let out of jail.

A killer walks the streets and yet a tourist spent time in jail for inadvertently having a trace of cannabis stuck to his shoe. This unsuspecting tourist didn’t serve his full sentence, but if he had, he would have found himself in the same detention centre as hardened criminals.

Newspaper reports last year indicated that certain detention centres in the UAE, which differ from jails, are overcrowded. One centre that held 230 inmates was built to hold only 40. Additionally, there was no separation between the suspects according to the nature of their crimes or the danger they presented to others. Those accused of financial fraud found themselves among drug dealers, addicts, and those accused of murder.

One reason for this overcrowding is the extended detention terms that usually occur in high profile cases of financial crimes, among other offences. The former CEO of Deyaar has been sitting in jail for over two years without charges, as has the former CEO of Tamweel.

Prosecutors in the UAE can detain suspects for 21 days without charge and 30 day extensions are permitted for an indefinite amount of time.

Detainees are only allowed access to a lawyer after the police have completed their investigation. If these cases were related to terror or national security, one would be able to justify the extension of holding these suspects until the cases are cleared, but for civil offenders in the UAE who post bail, the confiscation of their passports and national ID and banning them from leaving the country should suffice.

Finally, there are cases where misdemeanours such as kissing in public result in offenders serving time in jail. An alternative would be to issue fines along with a warning of the possibility of deportation.

There appears ample reason for reform of the country’s judicial system. As the laws are reviewed, the premise that a person is innocent until proven guilty ought to be considered. A more distinct separation between civil and criminal law and separation of criminal and civil offenders in prisons and detention centres should also be looked at. Furthermore, no woman or man should fear approaching the state for protection.

The trust that people invest in a country’s judicial system is tied to its reputation. We shouldn’t allow it to be tarnished.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 30th May 2010

We didn’t start the fire but we can help to put it out

2010-05-16T10:43:00.002+04:00

Barely a month goes by without news of another fire in Sharjah’s industrial area consuming a warehouse or more. In response, the Arabic blogosphere has been united in expressing two concerns: first, over the safety of the civil defence workers and employees of companies affected by the fires, and second, over why there have been so many fires in Sharjah to start with.

Sadly, fires are not uncommon throughout the Emirates. Dubai’s brave fire fighters battled a blaze in the Atlantis hotel’s lobby a few weeks before its opening. There was the infamous Al Quoz fire in 2008, which General Saif Al Shafar, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, described as the biggest in the history of the UAE with losses of nearly Dh900 million. Last December a fire gutted an eight-storey building in the UAE capital, injuring 36 people. Dubai’s fire fighters are frequently seen assisting their colleagues in Sharjah when a fire breaks out, which serves as testimony to the brotherly ties between the emirates.

The truth is that fire fighters can only do so much since their work is not preventive. Many of us in the UAE wonder why there aren’t more fires. We see people smoke in their cars in petrol stations and building construction that appears to flaunt fire safety laws and the regulations that require certain distances between structures.

Often roads that lead to warehouses are blocked day and night by parked cars and, to make matters more difficult, the lack of an address system in the UAE makes it impossible to find a location without referring to landmarks nearby. And finally, the most important factor in the entire equation, there is a human element. The public must be made more aware of the basics of fire fighting, including the storage and use of fire fighting equipment within the household.

When I returned to the UAE 12 years ago, I realised that the fire hydrant in front of our office building had not been checked for more than a decade. Fortunately, there had not been any fires. The mere fact that authorities only inspected the hydrant upon completion of the building was a cause for concern. Ultimately, the onus falls upon us regular folks to make sure that fire hazards are contained and removed within our own environments. We cannot just rely on others.

A fire such as the one that broke in the National Paints factory in Sharjah last week is one too many. This time there were no human casualties but judging from recent history it is only a matter of time before the next fire breaks out in the same vicinity. According to the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the industrial area where the paints factory is located makes up some 40 per cent of the total area of Sharjah divided over 17 districts with 60,000 small and medium-sized businesses. This area is the workshop of the UAE, which is what also makes it prone to fire hazards.

The day of the National Paints fire in Sharjah, Al Ittihad newspaper had reported that the Sharjah Emergency Committee of Industrial and Commercial Establishments in charge of fire inspections had stopped working with 10 fire- fighting supplies firms because they had supplied counterfeit products. The UAE needs an overhaul of rules and regulations as well as stiff punishments and deterrents against such culprits. The sale of counterfeit fire fighting equipment in any city in the county creates the potential that it will find its way into a home or business and endanger human life.

However noble and hard working the four-year-old Sharjah Emergency Committee is, it is only staffed with 98 people who must cover tens of thousands of establishments in the industrial areas to ensure that they employ the latest fire fighting equipment and procedures. This is a gargantuan task.

Abu Dhabi has announced that it will be the first city in the Middle East to implement the International Fire Code this year, which will “require buildings to clearly indicate fire exits, have smoke detectors, sprinkler systems and alarms that will alert occupants of any emergency situations”. This superb initiative could be replicated throughout the country under a single authority since fires know no borders.

While it is unlikely that the risk of fire can be eliminated outright, it is possible that the authorities can shift some of the responsibilities for basic fire prevention to the public, significantly increase the number of inspections, and strengthen the punishments for flaunting fire safety rules. Since this work involves the collective safety of those who live in the UAE, it should involve a federal response.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 16th May 2010

Value expatriates, but still build on Emirati talent

2010-05-09T12:48:00.003+04:00

Emiratis have always been proud of the role that expatriates play in our young and still developing society. Even before the federation was founded in 1971, expatriates from both East and West who called this region home were, and continue to be, welcomed by a grateful community eager to learn and share knowledge.

This respect, tolerance and appreciation has helped to catapult the UAE into the ranks of advanced countries in less than four decades. That said, it is time that the nation starts to believe in itself and the capabilities of its own citizens as well.

One field where the UAE has made major strides is education. The country boasts scores of universities offering degrees from finance to architecture to engineering, with thousands of Emiratis and expatriates graduating every year.

Last year The National reported that Traffic, a gallery in Dubai, showcased 20 works by students of the American University of Sharjah’s College of Architecture, Art and Design. Among the designs on display was Xeritown, a land development plan by the Emirati architect Ahmed Ebrahim al Ali, a co-founder of the architecture firm X-Architects. The idea was to create a community with sustainability at its heart, which would use building orientation and shade to reduce water consumption and to maintain a cool environment during the summer months.

Mr al Ali’s work did not go unnoticed and in 2008 the Zurich-based Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction awarded the concept its Acknowledgement prize. Xeritown also won the 2009 Middle East Architect Award Mixed-use project of the year. In the same ceremony, his fellow Emirati Khalid al Najjar, the founder of dxb.lab Architecture, was recognised as Architect of the Year.

Over the past few years Mr al Najjar has positioned himself as the face of modern architecture in the Emirates, speaking at prestigious forums from the Art Basel Conversation 2006, the International Design Forum in Dubai in 2007, and the Abu Dhabi Interior Design Show in 2008. Three years ago Wallpaper magazine featured dxb.lab in its directory of the 101 most exciting new architects in the world. It was the only firm from the Arab world to be included.

Then there is Wasel Safwan, an Emirati architect and artist based in Al Ain. Mr Safwan’s keen eye has allowed him to transcend and combine his two disciplines. Recently, he created works of art for Formula One in Abu Dhabi last autumn and the recent Womad music festival. Mr Safwan was also one of the people chosen to represent his country in the UAE pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Last week, I read with mixed emotions, both pride and disappointment, that the Dh77 million pavilion was designed by Lord Norman Foster, a British award-winning architect. Lord Foster was also chosen to design the Sheikh Zayed National Museum, arguably the museum that most powerfully symbolises the UAE, which is planned for Saadiyat Island.

Also on Saadiyat there will be Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, Jean Nouvel’s Louvre, Zaha Hadid’s performing arts centre and Tadao Ando’s maritime museum. The common thread in all of these landmark projects is that their architects are not Emiratis.

The Egyptians have coined a phrase that applies: the Khawaja complex. Dr Numan Gharaibeh a psychiatrist at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, defines it as “a social phenomenon characterised by indiscriminate over-valuation of everything and everybody western, European or white regardless of real or true value”. The phenomenon also applies to ideas, not just individuals.

The truth is that the UAE, like other Arab states, sometimes seems to suffer from Khawaja complex, which can be seen in various fields and practices across the country. Architecture is only one, less controversial, example.

The achievements of these respected foreigners aside, there are questions that must be answered. Do we as Emiratis wholeheartedly believe in local talent? Do we believe in indigenous creativity? Do we believe that Emiratis know their country better than foreigners, some of whom have never stepped foot on the UAE soil but are still asked to represent the country abroad?

Unless we allow nationals, both men and women, opportunities to showcase their abilities, we only pay lip service to indigenous talent and show that we do indeed suffer from Khawaja complex. While we continue to respect and appreciate foreign contributions, it is time that Emirati talent is also recognised.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 9th May 2010

Expectations haven’t advanced with UAE women

2010-05-02T12:16:00.002+04:00

The National celebrated its second birthday recently, and although it has only been around for 24 months, its impact has been heavily felt across the UAE and the region.

This occasion also allowed me to recall the very first article I wrote, The pen, the book and a boss in an abaya, which tackled the rise of women in the UAE and the Gulf. Two years on, that phenomenon is becoming stronger and is widespread across the country.

The numbers are quite interesting. In UAE national universities, more than 60 per cent of the student body is female. The ratio of national female participation in the workforce is also rising. But these rather impressive achievements have created their own social impacts that deserve consideration.

There are certainly some repercussions to the increase in the levels of education of Emirati women. Already, one can easily assess through a quick survey that the size of families is smaller when levels of education increases.

It was not uncommon, for instance, for Emirati families that were formed in the 1960s and 70s to have six or seven children. But these numbers have decreased to three or four today – provided that Emirati women choose to marry and have kids in the first place.

At the outset, it is important to dispute the widely held notion that an unmarried woman, who may be as young as her mid-twenties, is a spinster. This is sexist and denotes that women are somehow less worthy than men and are duty-bound to procreate. It is also interesting that the word “bachelorette” isn’t commonly used for women, who choose not to marry or decide to marry later in life.

However, as the ratio of educated and successful women continues to grow, the number of available bachelors for them to marry will continue to dwindle proportionately.

We have already come to a point in society where many women must settle for men who are less educated than them. This is partly a reflection of the pressures that are put on women in society and the failure of many men to sustain as much ambition as their female peers.

The government is also inadvertently encouraging men to take up public service jobs, where higher education isn’t a prerequisite and wages are immediately paid, which attracts high school dropouts and exacerbates the situation.

Although the UAE is a modern and progressive nation, there are still certain expectations of national women that are widely held by society. Families not only hope but expect their daughters – however educated and independent – to get married. It is seen as the natural step forward in a young woman’s life.

I have even heard of women telling their daughters to lower their expectations since there simply aren’t enough “good men” to go around, not to mention the possibility of nationals who feel insecure about marrying more successful and better educated women.

We must first accept that adult women may choose out of their own conviction to marry younger or older men. UAE society should also accept the possibility that a substantial number of Emirati women will not end up being married – for whatever reason. That said, could anything be done to tackle this matter?

The country must intensify efforts to encourage men to first enrol in universities and then see them through to their degrees.

Secondly, consideration should be given to allowing women who marry non-Emiratis to pass on their citizenships with all that it entails to their children from non-Emiratis. The practice of using technicalities, such as giving their children passports but not citizenships or family books, should be reviewed. The Government should also consider allowing Emirati women married to non-nationals to apply for government grants and health cards for their families.

As a result of these skewed ratios, along with the seemingly unlimited number of expats coming to the country, the demographic make-up of the UAE’s society will be significantly altered within two decades’ time.

This happens to be a matter of national security, as the UAE has crossed a point of no return with regards to its millions of expatriates making a life and servicing this giant economic wheel that we all call home. And while expat numbers continue to increase, the ratio of Emirati nationals will decrease proportionately as a result of the gender-educational imbalance.

It is a peculiar situation to be in where educated women end up with the short end of the stick. Academic ambition ought to be rewarded and not punished. But being labelled spinsters, denied the same rights as their less-educated male counterparts, and expected to marry within a shrinking pool of educated men seems to be their lot.

It is an unfair situation that should concern Emirati men and women alike, and without urgent government attention, the social impact could one day become irreversible.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 2nd May 2010

A concern for all Emiratis: Abu Musa’s occupation

2010-04-25T12:19:00.003+04:00

"As an Emirati, it is normal that I should be more sensitive about an occupied part of the UAE than other Arab territories. Otherwise, one would be fooling himself,” said Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the Foreign Minister of the UAE, during a question-and-answer session of the Federal National Council referring to the Lesser and Greater Tunbs and Abu Musa.

Emiratis know little about these islands that were occupied by Iran in the short window of time between the British withdrawal from the Trucial Coast emirates on November 30, 1971 and the declaration of the United Arab Emirates on December 2. The day after the invasion Iraq, Libya, Algeria and South Yemen lodged an official complaint on behalf of the Arab countries regarding Iran’s occupation. Abdullah, an 80-year-old Emirati who was born and brought up on Abu Musa, told me that the Sharjah government sought assistance from Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser but he dismissed the matter. The occupation hasn’t received much international publicity since.

Abu Musa is today the only inhabited island among the three and the plight of our compatriots must be highlighted to nationals, expatriates and the international community. Abu Musa isn’t a desolate piece of land.

“I was born there. I was there in December 1971. I remember those days when the Iranian forces arrived,” said Ahmed, an Emirati in his 50s. “I studied in Abu Musa in a mixed school.”

Because of the occupation forces’ policy of discouraging children from attending the school that Ahmed attended, it enrols 150 students today. In the 1970s, it had as many as 400 pupils.

A boat named Abu Musa leaves Sharjah daily for the island. I see it everyday as I drive to work. But Ahmed told me that in the past two decades the Iranian occupation forces have been turning away young visitors, allowing only the elderly to visit. “They want us to forget about it,” said Ahmed.

For too long the issue did not receive the public and media attention that it deserved. So it is fascinating to see that when a dynamic personality like Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed speaks frankly about the matter, calling Iran’s continuous occupation of the islands “shameful” and comparing it with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the UAE media and public quickly adopt the cause. On Thursday, the matter dominated the television, newspaper and radio scene in the UAE.

Emiratis are appalled by the harassment their compatriots on Abu Musa face from the Iranian occupiers, whose policy is geared towards encouraging them to leave once and for all. There is only one clinic there, one small supermarket, one telephone exchange and one school. Like Israel’s abhorrent ban on importing building equipment into Gaza, the residents of Abu Musa aren’t allowed to trade freely and import the necessary materials for maintenance and construction.

And while Jerusalem is a Pan-Islamic issue and Palestine a PanArab concern, the occupied islands are a Pan-Emirati cause. Abu Musa is our Jerusalem, and without a resolution, relations between the Iranian government and the UAE will always be strained.

Moving forward, the UAE could draw a lesson from the superb awareness campaign launched to promote the island of Bu Tina as part of the New Seven Wonders of Nature competition. Within a few months the beautiful crescent shaped island jumped from number 28 to number 11 as a result of a well-organised media campaign. The same modern methods could be used to promote awareness about the Iranian occupation of the three islands.

Emiratis also appreciate the peaceful policy that the UAE adopts towards our Iranian neighbours, repeatedly asking Iran’s government to reach a solution either through direct dialogue or international arbitration. Sadly, the Iranian side continues to drag its feet.

The issue of the occupied islands must be taught in schools, discussed in majlises, and featured on all UAE government and embassy websites. We must continue to urge the Iranian government to end this unlawful and unjust occupation by peaceful means.

Do your best to educate yourself and others about this just cause. Do it because it’s right. But as Sheikh Abdullah explained, there is another reason: we should be sensitive to it because we are Emiratis.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 25th April 2010

The heart of the UAE, captured by one photo

2010-04-18T15:01:00.002+04:00

Seldom do newspapers in the UAE carry the very same photo on their front pages as they did last Wednesday. Arabic and English dailies across the Emirates featured what is already an iconic photo in the mind of the Emirati, featuring Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, with the US president Barack Obama.

The photo, taken from behind the two leaders, shows them seated and leaning towards each other, looking one another in the eye during the US-sponsored Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last Tuesday. The UAE flag can also be seen on the table in front of Sheikh Mohammed, while the large meeting hall in front of them seems like a distant mirage. During a group photo at the end of the summit Sheikh Mohammed can be easily singled out in his brown kandorah and white ghutra.

By attending the Nuclear Security Summit upon the instructions of the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa, Sheikh Mohammed represented the UAE in front of world leaders from six continents. Effectively, it was the moment that the UAE declared its arrival on the international stage. After decades, the man wearing the Gulf national costume in a sea of suits was not the veteran Saudi foreign minister; it was an Emirati.

In fact, during the opening dinner, open only to world leaders and closed to their staff and ministers, Sheikh Mohammed had the best seat in the house. It was a testament to the UAE, to the development of our peaceful nuclear programme, and the stature of our relationship with the US.

The historic Nuclear Security Summit was the largest gathering of world leaders on US soil since the end of the Second World War since the summits that take place in the UN in New York are not considered as being hosted by the US government. While the UAE had among the smallest population of the nations represented at the summit in Washington, it was without a doubt a major force in discussions about nuclear security.

Last December, the UAE awarded a consortium of South Korean companies a $20.4 billion deal to construct four nuclear power plants by 2020 after a transparent and open bidding process. South Korea was also chosen to host the second Nuclear Security Summit in 2012.

According to an official statement released by the White House, Sheikh Mohammed and Mr Obama discussed “broadening co-operation between the US and UAE in areas like energy, science, and entrepreneurship” in addition to their conversations about nuclear security and the Middle East peace process. Under Sheikh Mohammed’s vision and in his capacity as the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, entrepreneurship and science have played a major role. Last November the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania opened the Wharton Entrepreneurship and Family Business Research Centre in Abu Dhabi to promote that sector.

Sheikh Mohammed has also spearheaded the creation of what is arguably the most ambitious scientific research centre in the world. When completed, the $22 billion Masdar City will be a hub of research and lifestyle revolving around making the planet a greener place. Already, Emirati students are studying at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, which was developed along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the leading American university in this field. When Sheikh Mohammed sets his mind on achieving a goal, only the best will do for Abu Dhabi and the UAE.

During his brief stay in Washington, Sheikh Mohammed and his brother Sheikh Abdullah, the Foreign Minister of the UAE, completed a year’s worth of diplomatic visits for the UAE. In addition to meeting the US vice president, Joe Biden, Sheikh Mohammed met the leaders of South Korea, Chile, France and Singapore for long discussions in addition to dozens of other meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the summit.

Sheikh Mohammed’s international debut on the global political scene was chosen carefully. It was an international event hosted by the world’s superpower about issues in which he has taken a personal interest.

Within a few hours of its release, that iconic photo of Sheikh Mohammed was adopted by Emiratis on their social networking sites, mobile phones and circulated via e-mail. This organic movement was quite familiar to Emiratis.

After all, we’ve seen it before. Not too long ago we were summoned by a modest, dignified, kind man. His name was Sheikh Zayed and we miss him very dearly. In an instant, through that iconic photo, Sheikh Mohammed channelled Sheikh Zayed’s lasting image and personality into the heart of every Emirati.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 18th April 2010

Lack of corporate governance holds Gulf states back

2010-04-04T11:07:00.001+04:00

Over the past two years, the Gulf has witnessed a number of major scandals in public corporations which have come to light despite the secretive nature of the region’s business world. Even in the 1990s, it was not uncommon for rulers to get involved to resolve problems, regardless of a company’s transgressions. Not surprisingly, some remember that period as the “good old days”.

Today, corporate governance must be taken more seriously. The growing economies of the Gulf states are becoming a centre of attention in financial circles. Unfortunately, despite many people’s efforts to reform corporate governance laws and stamp out corruption, very few changes have actually been made and collective action has been largely absent.

The issue of the Saudi Arabian Al Gosaibi and Saad groups, which are in debt to the tune of $20 billion (Dh73.5 billion), much of which is owed to Gulf and Emirati banks, highlights the importance of collective reform and responsibility. Ideally, the collective leadership of the GCC would function as a board of directors, with citizens as shareholders and expatriate residents as stakeholders in the establishment. In the business world, a board of directors represents the interests of both the shareholders and the stakeholders – the latter need not own shares in a firm to still be affected by its decisions.

The recent misfortunes of the jewellery retailer Damas International, which is listed on the NASDAQ Dubai, were particularly notable. The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the exchange’s regulator, acted swiftly when it realised that the management at Damas was taking advantage of the firm’s shareholders and spending the company’s money, raised through an initial public offering, on personal expenditures. The three brothers who ran the company were then removed from their positions.

It is hard to imagine such strict – and appropriate – measures being imposed on firms listed on the stock markets of other Gulf states. While the DFSA must be commended for its action, what is missing here is collective accountability.

The DFSA stated that its investigation into Damas revealed “the company’s board did not exercise appropriate governance after key executives drew down reserves without approval.” The board of Damas was dismissed by the DFSA and a new one appointed, but so far there have not been any other measures taken against the former board members. Isn’t the board responsible for what happens in a firm? What are its duties and obligations towards shareholders?

The lack of so-called “Chinese Walls”, ethical barriers between divisions of a company, is unfortunately prevalent among the region’s family-run businesses, so there is no clear line between family and company finances.

That leads to many of those companies being poorly run, but it should never be acceptable in companies that are listed on an exchange. Once a firm goes public, it’s a whole new ball game. And it seems that many businesses and their board members in the UAE are simply not ready to play by the new rules.

Examples are all too easy to find. One major listed company in the UAE, which will remain unnamed, was publicly sponsoring the hobbies of the son of its chief executive. In another case, a former chairman of a regional bank who is under investigation for corruption had real estate investments financed through his own bank at quite attractive terms.

When a friend of mine inquired about the brazen practice, a senior staff member at the bank answered: “How would it look if the chairman sought financing from another bank?” In both cases, members of the board should have objected privately or publicly to the lapses in corporate governance.

When businesses go bust, downsize or close down due to poor management, the entire community suffers. People lose their jobs, children’s futures are put at risk and livelihoods are destroyed.

A quick glance over the names of the previous board members at Damas, or any other firm hit by scandal, is enough to show that board members are more often than not simply “prestige picks”. They are there because their names carry weight. In many cases, the board members don’t have time to contribute to overseeing the company’s affairs because they have so many other responsibilities.

What prompts them to accept invitations to serve on so many boards if they have no time to dedicate to these firms? Regulators should consider tightening rules about board members’ responsibilities since so many are paid for doing almost nothing.

The lack of accountability in board rooms may also reflect that too many leaders in the Gulf are not accountable to either shareholders or stakeholders.

Frankly, I hope that the DFSA pursues strict measures against the former board members of Damas. Their collective responsibility to the firm demands tough action.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a non resident fellow at the Dubai School of Government

This article was first published in The National on Sunday April 4th 2010.

Islamic scientific history contradicts today’s extremists

2010-04-04T10:49:00.001+04:00

A British boy of South Asian descent, about eight or nine years old, was pressing the buttons of an interactive display at a new exhibition in London. “Yassin, Zak, come over, you ought to check this out,” he called out to his classmates.

The exhibition, “1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World”, was created with children in mind. The interactive displays are large and colourful with cartoon-like characters guiding visitors as they explore the history behind some of Muslims’ greatest inventions

With the support of the Saudi Arabia-based Jameel Foundation, the 1001 Inventions exhibition is being held at London’s Science Museum until summer.

There are displays describing well-known Islamic contributions to science in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, but there are also interesting facts about a number of unsung heroines in the field. One example is Fatima al Fihri, a 9th century Muslim woman who inherited a vast sum of money from her merchant father and spent it all on building al Qarawiyin, a university and mosque complex that still stands in Fez, Morocco. It is considered to be the oldest university in the world, not just the Islamic world.

How ironic, I thought to myself as I stood there looking at the display honouring her contributions to religious instruction as well as political and natural sciences education. More than a millennium later some ignorant souls who claim to share her religion want to deny women an education or employment. Have these individuals even heard about Fatima al Fihri?

The truth is that secularism played a large role in the advancement of science in Islam. Because religion was seen as a tool in life – not the objective, as it is often preached today – people were free to create, imagine and dream without the imposition of artificial boundaries. Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars conducted research side by side and thus both Islam and humanity were enriched.

The displays at 1001 Inventions very much resemble the exhibition on the ground floor of the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation, where the interactive and child-friendly displays include buttons, screens and levers. The idea is that children can combine entertainment and learning by pressing, pulling and rotating the controls to create action in the displays. It is a model quite unlike the adult-orientated, but equally fascinating, Islamic Arts Museum in Qatar.

What a powerful tool education can be, especially at such a young age. It instils pride for one’s culture, and understanding and respect for others. Imagine the magnitude of the message that such an exhibition would have in countries where Islam is wrongly used to justify crimes against women, which continues to happen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Allowing children to see the great deeds and creations of Muslims who dared to dream denies the evil and the ignorant the opportunity to indoctrinate them.

Inside the hall in London, a teacher called upon two pupils, Michael and Chelsea, telling them to hurry up before a short film began; the story of 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets, starring the Oscar-award winning actor Ben Kingsley, unfolded.

After being approached by three children, the librarian, played by Kingsley, is transformed into Abu Alez al Jazari, the mathematician and inventor who is considered one of the fathers of modern mechanical engineering. The children ask him about the so-called Dark Ages, and al Jazari responds: “Never was a period of history so poorly named.”

Al Jazari introduces them to characters such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, the Berber mathematician known for his early attempt at flight, and Abu al Qasim al Zahrawi, a 10th century doctor who was one of the most prominent pioneers of surgery of his time. Al Zahrawi is credited with inventing numerous surgical tools as well as using catgut sutures to stitch internal wounds, a technique used in hospitals today.

His name, I thought to myself, is eerily similar to that of another doctor, Ayman al Zawahiri. But whereas the former contributed to the advancement of humanity and saved countless lives across the centuries, the second became a cave-dwelling terrorist. The movie concludes with al Jazari telling the students as they are about to leave the library: “Remember, spread the word.”

No one, adolescent or adult, who has been educated about the scientific history of the Muslim world would be an easy target for the brainwashing of the doom mongers. I hope that the Jameel Foundation takes the 1001 Inventions exhibition across the world, even to Kabul, where children and adults could learn about Islam away from the indoctrination of the ignorant.

This exhibition, unlike many others, does not include priceless or rare artefacts. Instead, it is made up of panels, projection screens and child-friendly gadgets that resemble the original inventions. The show could be easily transported across the world and appeal to any child, regardless of background.

It is not only Zak, Yassin, Michael and Chelsea in Britain who need enlightening about the many contributions of Muslim scientists. Spreading the word to the forsaken children of Kabul, Baghdad and Quetta, who have a much greater need of this valuable knowledge, would arm them with moderation and protect their minds.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a non-resident fellow at the Dubai School of Government

This article was published in The National on March 27th 2010

Nothing should be ambiguous about what’s indecent

2010-03-21T14:20:00.002+04:00

‘Sexpats in trouble again in Dubai” is how one web portal summarised last week’s recent allegation of explicit text messaging.
There was also the incident of public kissing involving a British couple in Jumeirah Beach Residences earlier this month. The truth is that this case and others that have occurred over the past several months, including allegations of rape at a five-star hotel, as well as fornication on a beach, demonstrate the ambiguity of decency laws in the UAE.

Last year The National reported on a story that originally appeared in the Dubai-based Arabic daily Emarat Alyoum. The latter had run a full front page story about the potential introduction of a public decency law by the Dubai government. The draft law, as it was reported then, intended to clarify what was deemed unacceptable public behaviour.

Included in the list of inappropriate displays of physical affection were kissing and holding hands. Playing loud music, dancing and nudity could also potentially land the offender into trouble with the law, including a prison sentence. The law wasn’t introduced, however, and may well have been a “teaser” to gauge public reaction by the authorities.

As early as September 2001, Sharjah officially issued a public decency law stipulating that men could not wear very short shorts, go into women’s only areas or walk around bare-chested or in their undergarments in public areas. Women could not expose their stomachs or backs, wear tight or transparent clothing or short skirts. Failure to adhere to these guidelines could potentially deprive the offender the right to enter government buildings.

More recently, shopping malls in the country have taken it upon themselves to affix posters requiring shoppers not to kiss and avoid “public displays of affection”. It is no surprise then that various establishments have come up with their own guidelines. Except for Sharjah’s rules, there is a vacuum of information regarding what is and isn’t officially acceptable in the country – “officially” being the operative word.

Abu Dhabi is embarking on a major programme that is set to place it among the cultural capitals of the world within the next few years. The Guggenheim and Louvre, both of which will open world-class museums in the capital, have been assured that the work they choose to display will be “beyond censorship”, and that everything that appears at their shows in Europe and North America will be allowed to show here.

And while most of what is shown in these institutions is in good taste and conforms with Emirati values, it is difficult to imagine, no matter how liberal one is, that the edgier exhibitions depicting sexual themes and violence will be easily displayed to the public.

It is time that the UAE has a serious conversation with itself about what is and isn’t acceptable in public. It is no longer possible to expect that these issues will sort themselves through a policy of ambiguity. Emiratis must also be brought in to the conversation as stakeholders in the future and shape of their country.

Ideally, this is the role of the Federal National Council, a body that I discuss often in my writings because it should be the voice of the citizens. And perhaps in its absent-mindedness or lack of interest, the local fourth estate can play the role of the parliament by debating what citizens deem acceptable. For instance, Mishaal Al Gergawi bravely referred to what he called “Dubai’s Unwritten Social Contract” in a recent article in the light of the alleged hotel rape case.

I have been told that Abu Dhabi Police started handing out local decency guidelines to visitors at the airport. Well-informed tourists, in addition to keeping out of potential trouble with the law, will probably enjoy their stay in the country knowing their rights and the accepted boundaries. And as an Emirati, I prefer to know my rights and boundaries even if I were to disagree with them.

Although the UAE is turning 40 next year, it is still very much a work in progress as a nation. When the federation was formed in 1971, tourism was not a major industry, while today about 10 million tourists visit the country each year, contributing billions of dollars to the economy.

The National has reported that personal judgment is used by Abu Dhabi police officers in matters of public indecency. Clearly, such a model of self regulation, however successful, is unsustainable in the long-run. It must be supplemented by a nationwide policy on what is and isn’t acceptable for visitors, residents and nationals to do in public.

One must also keep in mind that however unacceptable public displays of affection are, they do not constitute a hazard to others’ lives, such as drunk driving. The latter is a criminal offence, whereas public kissing is a misdemeanour; how can both be punishable by a jail sentence?

What the “sexpat” cases are instigating is a long overdue self-reflection and conversation that the UAE needs to have with itself about what it wants to be.

Indeed, we need to talk.

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a non-resident fellow of the Dubai School of Government

This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, March 21st 2010.

We must believe in our unified identity, or no one else will

2010-03-14T15:29:00.003+04:00

As I read earlier this month that the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, had announced the development of a unified corporate identity for the country as part of Vision 2021, I was pleased. It speaks volumes that the word development was used instead of “strengthening”, which would infer that a common brand already existed.

In fact, individual emirates have all too frequently had their separate identities promoted abroad in the past decade. Some people may regard this as acceptable – I would like to assure them that among nationals, acceptable is the farthest thing from the truth when the fragmentation of the country is portrayed in the media.

There are already corporate symbols of unity that Emiratis regard with pride. One that comes to mind is Etihad (or Union) Airlines, the award-winning carrier. Of course, Emirates Airlines, which bears the federation’s name, is also an important global ambassador of the national brand. Back home, one looks towards the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and the towers in Dubai.

On the other hand, there are examples of Emirati corporate branding that have favoured highlighting individual emirates over co-branding. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman have all launched global tourism campaigns featured on CNN, BBC and other television networks with one common factor: they all unashamedly neglect to mention the name of the United Arab Emirates.

By contrast, the now-acclaimed Incredible India campaign, conceptualised in 2002, understands that country’s history, symbolism and the message that should be portrayed. The campaign was so successful it managed to increase high-end tourism to India by 16 per cent in its first year and today is a case study of tourism marketing. When cities or regions promote themselves individually, like Kerala, Goa or Uttar Pradesh, Incredible India always appears in the background to build Brand India.

The same goes for Malaysia’s Truly Asia campaign, which markets the federation as a single destination. Even when one of the states promotes itself individually, the phrase “Malaysia Truly Asia” appears clearly in the background. Frankly, I have no doubt that if Emiratis were responsible for the UAE’s tourism campaigns we see on television, the name of the country would have appeared.

The truth is, in order for us to project a unified single identity, we need to start reflecting it in ourselves first. Until Emiratis start taking this matter seriously, our fragmented branding will continue to remain the victim of global marketing agencies.

It is no surprise that a unified corporate identity for the UAE is not marketed abroad. While the UAE prides itself as an early member of the World Trade Organisation, it is not a member of the other WTO, the World Tourism Organisation. In fact, many are unaware that the UAE does not qualify to be a member of this global tourism body for the simple, and some may think absurd, fact that we do not have a federal ministry of tourism. As I highlighted in a previous column in The National about the Federal National Council (FNC), in April 2007 a draft law was sent to the FNC by the Ministerial Cabinet on establishing a National Council for Tourism and Antiquities, effectively a tourism ministry. Almost three years later, we have yet to hear from the FNC about it.

But why does a country that is about to enter its fifth decade in existence and is counted among the favourite destinations for travellers from across the world not have a federal tourism ministry? It was never emphasised in early years, because, like other fledgling federations, unifying the armed and police forces, social services and education were and continue to be the priority.

During last week’s ITB Berlin, the world’s biggest tourism convention, the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah were represented in separate booths. There were 253 exhibitors from the UAE, but not a single federal institution promoting Brand Emirates.

There is a risk that as more people abroad see the various emirates as separate states, this mentality will seep into the culture of this mostly expat nation. Unless Emiratis take this matter seriously, no one else will, Vision2021 or not.

*This article first appeared on The National on Sunday 14th March 2010

Breathing life into Bastakiya and the history of Dubai

2010-03-07T10:37:00.002+04:00

Tucked away in the southern shore of Dubai Creek lies Bastakiya, one of the most fascinating districts in the Arabian Gulf. Not only is this area one of the most aesthetically pleasing in the region, it is also one of the most symbolic.

Not long after the Al Maktoum family laid the foundation of modern Dubai in 1833, a significant process of evolution began in the region. Commerce flourished as a result of the tax-free trading and as well as a new culture of tolerance. This new culture was manifested in the migrants from Persia and across the region who were allowed to reside and build homes in Bastakiya, within a few score metres of the Al Fahidi Fort, which then served as the home of the Rulers of Dubai.

Legend has it that the area was slated for massive redevelopment and that it was Prince Charles of Britain, known for his appreciation of Islamic architecture, who during an official visit advised that the then-dilapidated old structures were too important to be demolished. Not too long after, Dubai Municipality launched a massive conservation programme under the supervision of the capable and qualified Emirati architect Rashad Bukhash. In 2001, he was appointed as the head of the Historical Buildings Section in the municipality and oversaw the restoration of more than 50 buildings as well as designed several museums within a short space of time. In fact, it was a very personal endeavour for the architect whose own ancestral home fell victim to the rapid redevelopment that the UAE was witnessing.

Nowhere else in the Gulf is there such a diversity of architecture inspired by Arab Hijazi masharbiyas, Levantine decorations, North African courtyards and interior Arabian Peninsula windows as well as Islamic calligraphy, Persian Barjeels, and East African and Indian motifs – all within a short walking distance of each other.

Because of this diversity, this unique area, which encompasses the Dubai Museum at Al Fahidi Fort, Bastakiya and Shindagha, should be redesignated as the Dubai Museum District. There one can take a journey through several centuries and be inspired by the numerous cultures that have shaped this great city.

On a recent visit to the kingdom of Bahrain, I was given a special tour of the historic area of Muharraq island and the Souq district. The narrow alleyways and mud and coral houses reminded me very much of home and of how the cultures and peoples of the Gulf are connected.

What sets Muharraq’s historic quarter apart is something altogether different – the actual permanent residents. It isn’t only tourists and short-term visitors who can be seen on the streets, but the urban life found in any traditional Arabian town. While I was there, a group of children were playing, while others had just returned from the children’s library; old women in abayas walked to and fro, visiting their neighbours. A cultural centre houses a theatre for 330 people. An emporium of traditional textiles and an art cafe add to the splendour. A water garden has been built into the landscape where a small house once stood.

The roads aren’t perfectly kept and the flowers aren’t perfectly trimmed, but they are authentic. What made another substantial difference was the smell of Gulf Arab food emanating from the kitchens of the houses that were attached to the small converted museums.

Then it hit me: because families inhabit this area side by side with the cultural centres, it has become a living, breathing testimony to the country. This is what is missing in Bastakiya to make the magic complete.

One idea that could be studied is allocating housing to low-income Emiratis from the surrounding area, where so many consulates are being built. There could be certain criteria, such as giving preference to families that have children who will register in after school educational centres that could be established in the district.

There are many houses that have been magnificently restored to their former glory that are now standing empty, so I also propose that one or two dozen of these houses be converted into museums to display the private art collections of Dubai and UAE-based patrons of the arts. In that spirit, one building could be selected to house a permanent display of Arabic and Islamic calligraphy, another could be designated for photography, a third for modern design concepts, etc.

And because Bastakiya is so culturally diverse, we could invite non-Emirati art patrons to display long-term loan collections of Persian, African, Asian and western art in converted houses as long as the integrity of the structures was maintained. It need not be too many pieces – keep in mind, these houses are no more than 200 square metres, but it would be a case of quality superseding quantity.

By itself, one such converted house might not be enough of an attraction for people to brave the Bur Dubai traffic. But with a dozen or more permanent art displays, a few local families living nearby and the opening of the adjacent Metro stations in Burjuman and Musalla, Bastakiya could be transformed into an art destination unrivalled in the region. And it could continue to serve, as it always has, as a testimony to the ambition, diversity and culture of Dubai.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 7 March 2010

The sacrifice of our troops and a need for civil society

2010-02-28T13:01:00.001+04:00

Noam Chomsky believes that post-Second World War capitalism in the United States conspired with the media and fundamentalist religion to devastate civil society. I believe that something similar has happened in the Gulf. In our case, it isn’t because of war but on account of a massive flood of materialism that has affected citizens and residents alike.

The absence of a civil society has not just limited interest in important issues such as the environment, labour rights and energy conservation, but extends to apathy over the fate of Emirati peacekeepers serving in Afghanistan.

Consider this: the number of troops the UAE has in Afgahnistan as a proportion of the UAE population is comparable to America’s commitment. And yet, the American press is by far more active in highlighting the role that their military plays, both positive and negative, than the media in the UAE.

The National broke the silence about the UAE’s troop presence in Afghanistan shortly after the BBC’s Frank Gardner reported it in the spring of 2008, detailing how Emirati troops distributed aid and provided protection for relief workers. In the UAE, it is exceptional when a newspaper reports about our troops; in the US, it is exceptional when a newspaper doesn’t.

Part of the reason for this apathy may be attributed to a less than satisfactory awareness of any debate about the matter within the Federal National Council. Recently, there have been calls for the FNC to emulate the US congress or the British parliament whose deliberations are carried on C-Span and BBC Parliament. This could help bridge the gap between the body and the civil society it represents.

Frankly, the problem as I see it is that Emiratis in general have other matters on their mind. Extreme capitalism may have transformed us into a society where issues such as environmental degradation, migrant and national labour rights, as well the role of the public sector, rarely register as important issues.

Recently, an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs from a European country’s parliament contacted me while on a regional tour. She asked me why, when she encountered Emiratis, they didn’t have an opinion about our commitment in Afghanistan. It was a question I couldn’t answer. I was left wondering if this apathy is due to the local media, or if the media reflects the people’s lack of interest. After all, news about our troops is not only absent in the dozens of newspapers and magazines that are published in the UAE, but also from programmes on radio and television.

Alternatively, is conversation about the issue discouraged? Even if one assumes that to be the case, this does not explain the apathy in majlises and in the blogosphere. Sometimes, during my numerous visits to majlises across the country, certain topics can be overheard, and some result in animated and heated discussion. Sadly, the subject of these heated debates isn’t the welfare of our brave compatriots risking their lives to help others.

Few Emiratis who are not connected with the military have heard the name of Major Ghanem al Mazroui, the commander of UAE forces in Afghanistan. And yet, who among us hasn’t heard of Generals David Petraeus or Stanley McChrystal?

Emiratis who are not affiliated with the military are equally unaware about the number of troops serving in Afghanistan, their mandate and how successful they have been. Will I ever see “I support our troops in Afghanistan” on a bumper sticker? Will I ever hear an Emirati poet chant about their courage? Will I be able to listen to a healthy debate about the issue?

In fact, the very presence of our troops in Afghanistan was authorised under the leadership of the late Sheikh Zayed in 2002, meaning it has been nearly eight years and our media and civil society has yet to awaken from its slumber.

I can’t imagine a more pressing matter to take an interest in than the welfare of our citizens risking their lives for others. Civil society in the UAE, including you and I, have failed them. Could this be the price of extreme capitalism that Mr Chomsky warned us about?

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 28th February 2010

Some long-term residents should have residency

2010-02-24T10:12:00.003+04:00

In Shelter, a converted warehouse in Dubai’s Al Quoz industrial district, a young Emirati stood up in front of a crowd of 200 nationals and expatriates. They gathered to hear him speak about his vision for Dubai as it emerges from the effects of the global financial crisis.

Mishaal al Gergawi, the speaker, who also happens to be a local government official, stood in front of the crowd sporting a black blazer and blue jeans – not the kandoura and ghutra that many expatriates typically associate with Emiratis. While his clothes weren’t representative of the country, his ideas and values were very much reflective of popular sentiments.

The National’s Tom Gara covered Mapping Dubai, a talk that grappled with various issues ranging from labour reform to accountability within government. One issue that Mr al Gergawi mentioned that continues to be misrepresented within the local Arabic press and among nationals is that of residency.

Though a report carried in an Arabic language news service stated that Mr al Gergawi had called for giving citizenship to second and third generation expatriates living in the country in his talk, that was simply not true. I know this because I was there. What was called for and debated was a long-term residency programme for expatriates so they would no longer have the status of transient interlopers, but instead be acknowledged as stakeholders.

In fact, The National has reported other efforts in this direction: the Abu Dhabi Police is initiating a pilot programme whereby it would start recruiting non-Emiratis into its community police force to deal with issues such as antisocial behaviour, dangerous driving and crime prevention. With this, the Abu Dhabi Police have taken the first step into converting the expatriate population into stakeholders.

A misrepresentation of what Mr al Gergawi has said has happened before. Recently a friend of mine told me that he didn’t appreciate “your calls” – as in Mr al Gergawi’s and my own – for granting citizenship to foreigners in the country. Neither of us has ever proposed this. When I asked my friend if he read Mr Gergawi’s article his answer was “no, but someone told me”.

Many locals know expatriates who have been here from as far back as the 1970s. Today many of them are approaching retirement age and are being asked to leave. Many of these individuals contributed to the UAE’s formation; they, along with their Emirati colleagues, were the building blocks of this country.

In fact, my very own business partner arrived in the UAE in 1969 on a British issued visa and has been here ever since. He went on to serve in the UAE army for nearly two decades before starting his own enterprise.

It is not a secret that many Emiratis, including myself, believe that the vast majority of expats would not qualify to be nationals. They don’t speak in our accent, let alone in our language. They don’t dress like us or celebrate according to our customs. The thought of granting them UAE passports doesn’t sit easily at all with us. On the other hand there are expatriates who have served this country well, raised their families here and though they didn’t adopt our customs and traditions, they respected them.

It must be made crystal clear that this residency carries no promise of citizenship whatsoever and is granted completely upon the discretion of the federal government. This could never be a local government initiative as some have promised. It would have been beyond their scope to grant long term residency to people who purchase apartments. The difficulties of such an effort came undone when the financial crisis hit the country. Long-term residency should also be introduced in a manner so that only the right people qualify for it.

But without a long-term residency programme, people will continue to view Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and their sister emirates as a short-term investment where they can make a quick buck and move on. I would prefer that those who worked and saved money in the UAE in their productive years could enjoy this wealth and spend it in the country, for instance, in the local malls, using our airports and eating in our restaurants, when they retire. These individuals after all are familiar with UAE customs and, if they returned home, they wouldn’t rant about their problems with this country.

Like Mishaal al Gergawi’s attire during his talk, long-term expatriates may not appear to be representative of the country, but as the Abu Dhabi Police showed with their efforts, their values are not always so different from ours after all.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 14th February 2010

A national vision to prevent a north-south divide

2010-02-21T10:46:00.003+04:00

It was refreshing to read earlier this month that the federal Government has outlined a unified vision for this country’s golden jubilee. Before this federal vision was established, planning for the future had been conducted by each emirate on an individual basis, as if we were a group of neighbouring countries and not one nation.

The 4,000-word document that was unveiled on February 6 after a three-day marathon meeting at the Qasr Al Sarab (Mirage Palace) resort in Liwa is a charter for the state of the union in 2021. While such an initiative should be lauded for its emphasis on women’s empowerment and environmental concerns, among other issues, the next step no doubt will be the most challenging – implementation and follow up.

A comparison could be made with Bahrain’s Vision 2030, which was based on specific deliverable points that will make it easier to measure success or failure. The plan envisioned by the island kingdom provided milestones that can be measured against world developmental indices. For instance, the contribution of the small and medium size sector will be measured by the number of jobs that this sector creates along with its contribution to real GDP growth. In Vision 2021, the word entrepreneurship is mentioned nine times, but is accompanied by adjectives and not deliverable goals.

Another issue that I have with Vision 2021 is the fact that it promises nationwide mobility, quality health care and economic growth. The key word here is nationwide. It is fairly obvious that the growth of the UAE has centred around three emirates, from south to north: Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.

Growth in the northern emirates has not met Emiratis’ aspirations. Visiting Umm al Qaiwain for instance, despite its beauty, is a solemn reminder of this fact. Perhaps the Cabinet should convene its next retreat there or in any of the Northern Emirates to display unity and allow the decision-makers to experience various parts of the country firsthand and see for themselves the urgency of the matter.

It would also be encouraging if Vision 2021 included, for instance, a promise that certain federal authorities and institutions would be distributed across the country rather than in the unbalanced concentration we see today. Without such a plan, a resident of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah will find little reason for visiting the Northern Emirates except for a weekend getaway.

Another challenge is the state of education in the country. Once again, the south-north divide is in danger of widening. Because of the relative wealth of some emirates, their local governments are able to invest more than the federal budget on education. The National reported on February 11 that in one emirate there exists two public school curricula, an updated version for wealthier, locally funded public schools and an outdated version for federally funded ones. A plan to reconcile the two failed.

Because of such discrepancies in education, along with differences in health care, infrastructure and job opportunities, it is likely that Emiratis will continue to choose living in the wealthier emirates. Those responsible for the implementation of Vision 2021 must take these issues into consideration and tackle the south-north divide.

Unless there is a solution, northern Emiratis will be doomed to a poorer quality public education and standard of living, while their compatriots in the south go to well-equipped and staffed schools. This vicious circle will lead to graduates from the Northern Emirates employed in low paying work, further deepening the south-north divide.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, I wonder how this vision compares with other plans that have been announced in some emirates.

Here is what I propose to make Vision 2021 closer to becoming a reality. A dedicated follow-up committee made up of representatives from the various emirates should be created to measure the success of Vision 2021’s implementation and report candidly to the Prime Minister on an annual basis. This annual report must be shared with the public to reinforce trust that this document is taken seriously.

Milestones must be set to measure the progress that is achieved. The challenges that plague the UAE’s less developed regions in the Northern Emirates are not too different from those facing much of the Arab world, as detailed by the United Nations Development Programme, the Arab Thought Foundation and our very own Mohammed Bin Rashid Foundation in Dubai.

The experts are available, the capital is available and, as the will seems to be available as well, there is nothing stopping this country’s northern region from making a giant leap forward.

The spirit behind Vision 2021 is noble and should be commended. However, the lack of detail, measurable milestones and follow-up steps may leave much to be desired by the average Emirati.

*This article was first published in The National on Sunday, 21 February 2010

Book that proves some Emiratis are more equal than others

2010-02-07T09:09:00.002+04:00

The phrase “all Emiratis are equal, but some Emiratis are more equal than others” sums up the idea behind this article. For there is a world unknown to a majority of Emiratis whose tragedy cannot be overestimated.

Before the advent of the official Emirates Identification card, a passport was thought by many to be the most important legal identification. However, unlike many other nations, “real” Emiratis have to be holders of a document known as Kholasat Qaid, or a Family Book. If a person is married then the name of the spouse is also included in this book along with the names of parents and children. Possessing this book, not a regular passport, is what apparently make one a “real Emirati”. Not having one is not too different from carrying a passport from the United Nations. One can use the passport for travel but it doesn’t show that you belong anywhere.

The vast majority of Emiratis have a family book except for a small number of children of Emirati mothers and foreign fathers. In the past few years the UAE government has taken positive steps to naturalise the children of Emirati mothers who married non-nationals so that they could be given the same rights of children whose fathers are Emirati but whose mothers are not. Previously these mothers had to resort to seeking exemptions for their children to enrol in public schools and to receive treatment in government hospitals.

This was a welcome step and hailed by the local media. Sadly, there are two issues that remain unresolved. These steps were not equally applied to the children of all Emirati mothers married to non-nationals. Some were given passports while others continue to be in a state of suspended identity. The mothers of these children continue to go to the naturalisation departments to get residence visas for their sons and daughters, whom they have given birth to and raised in the UAE. The lucky ones were handed a magic document, a passport to better opportunities and infinite possibilities, or so they had thought.

Not long after these children were granted passports did their mothers discover that this was a bittersweet and incomplete step since they still lacked the precious family book. Take the case of Ayesha, a UAE citizen and mother, whose love for this country is unquestioned. Ayesha decided to marry an American of Arab origin whom she had met during her time as a student in the US. Ayesha put her faith in the country, moved back after her studies and raised her family here, teaching her children about Emirati culture, values and traditions. Her children were Emirati in all but citizenship. When the government’s other Emiratisation scheme kicked off, she applied for citizenship for her children. She was told that her children would have to forgo their US passports in order to qualify for Emirati citizenship, which they gladly did. Their US passports were returned promptly and the children continued their studies in their respective private schools. Today, however, Ayesha’s eldest is enrolled in her final year of high-school but will be prohibited from attending Zayed University, the Higher Colleges of Technology or the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain because she lacks a family book.

To add to their financial burdens, Emirati women married to non-nationals don’t qualify for subsidised housing provided by the numerous housing programmes across the country. Emirati women, like their male counterparts, should have the right to marry whomever they wish and not be punished for their decision.

On the one hand, it is not uncommon for Emirati men who study abroad to marry foreign women, decreasing the “pool” of potential spouses for Emirati women. On the other hand, as Emirati women continue to outnumber men in university, many of them will not be in a position to meet suitable husbands with equal levels of education, making them more likely to marry non-nationals.

These different standards for national men and women can no longer continue. In this globalised world, who among us can claim to be 100 per cent pure and real Emirati? I do not dispute the need for us as a young and wealthy country to protect our identity and customs. We must make sure that no marriages of convenience take place for the purpose of taking advantage of the generous government welfare programmes. But we could balance these necessities by granting spouses, both male and female, citizenship after a long period of marriage. Still, we should grant their children equal opportunities immediately, which means providing them with a family book.

When the UAE announced that it had ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1997 it vowed to make education “free for all stages starting from kindergarten to university”. Nothing was said about the law only applying to UAE citizens who hold a special little brown book.

This must end. It’s against human rights, against our religion, customs and traditions. Above all, it’s un-Emirati.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 7th February 2010

To safeguard our future, learn from mistakes of the past

2010-01-24T11:47:00.002+04:00

The financial loan package provided by Abu Dhabi to Dubai last month has allowed us all to breathe a sigh of relief, for the time being at least. But while the Dubai government is working diligently to raise the capital needed to meet its creditors’ demands for 2010 and beyond, it must also look into the causes of this crisis.

It’s time for Dubai to graduate from developing-economy status and proceed like other ambitious emerging economies into the big league. The biggest measure of responsibility and good governance at this time would be to look inwards and investigate exactly what led to Dubai’s accumulation of $80 billion in foreign debt, equivalent to its annual Gross Domestic Product.

This inquiry must be carried out by independent, practical and professional individuals. It should be chaired by someone who is not involved in the government related entities (GREs) under investigation nor should it be a figurehead who comes from an unrelated industry. Also, it would be ideal if the committee were federal, since the Dubai debt issue is not a localised event but a nationwide concern.

The United States dealt with the current financial crisis by initiating steps to remedy its effects, as well as by launching an 18-month inquiry into its causes by establishing the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The 10-member bipartisan committee started work in the summer of 2009, with the task of examining what led America into the financial debacle, and is due to present its findings on December 15 this year. This commission has been armed with wide ranging authority, including adequate staff and subpoena powers. It has also been assigned $8 million to ensure that it is able to conduct its work independently.

In fact, this is not the first such financial inquiry in the US. In 1932, the US Senate set up an inquiry to establish the causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. The inquiry, which became known as the Pecora Commission when Ferdinand Pecora was appointed its chief counsel in 1933, lasted for two years and interviewed powerful bankers and stockbrokers. Its findings paved the way for the establishment of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933 to separate commercial and investment banking, the Securities Act of 1933 to set penalties for falsifying financial information, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which set up the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate stock exchanges.

In the wake of the recent global meltdown, Australia and the European Parliament have launched similar inquiries. And the Republic of Ireland, another state that has gone through the same cycle as Dubai, has launched a comprehensive investigation into what went wrong with the Irish banking system.

Such an inquiry would ensure that the mistakes made by some of the GREs will not be repeated. It would also ensure that how GREs use the funding provided to them by the Dubai government would be adequately monitored in the future. For instance, heads of GREs need not use private jets to travel to meetings overseas when Dubai has one of the world’s leading airlines that flies to more than 100 destinations.

The findings of this inquiry will also enable the government to understand how paper-based gains were passed on as realised gains, thereby allowing some individuals to claim premature bonuses. The Dubai inquiry would also learn why the debt of $80 billion was accumulated using short-term loans to finance long-term projects, meaning that payment was due much in advance of the projects’ completion.

Some of the money that Dubai has earned through decades of hard work was also spent on trophy assets abroad that had more to do with media headline-grabbing than sound investment strategies. My proposed Dubai financial crisis inquiry commission will be able to investigate the reasons why so many GREs disregarded basic sound investment rules.

We have already seen how in some cases the left hand of some Dubai GREs did not know what the right hand was doing. One example of this was in 2007, when Dubai World raised a $2.7bn sukuk, or Islamic bond, while its subsidiary DP World was also negotiating a large loan.

One thing is for certain: the role of this inquiry commission, should my suggestion ever be taken seriously, will not be easy. There may also be resistance to the questioning of executives and related parties. Ultimately, human beings are prone to making mistakes, but there must be a clear, transparent and systematic process put in place that needs to be followed to the letter for Dubai to emerge as a stronger city, as we all hope it will.

Finally, the findings of this commission should be a warning to any GRE that is embarking on a major spending spree, thereby strengthening the financial foundations of the country.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday, 24th January 2010

When ‘thanks, but no thanks’ can be good for business

2010-01-17T10:17:00.002+04:00

Say the words “corporate governance” and people immediately think of the business world. In fact, many of the problems that ail the UAE have their roots in a lack of good business practice. That fancy-sounding phrase simply means a set of rules that are designed to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

There is plenty to be done to meet international standards. For instance, it is still possible, legal and acceptable for ministers serve on the boards of businesses and banks. In some even more odd cases, some individuals sit on the boards of two competing corporations.

The federal and local governments may own shares in both these companies and see no issue with having the same official representing their interest in both, but that may not be the case with regular investors. This negatively affects the reputation of the UAE. In Oman, for instance, ministers are not permitted to serve on public company boards, let alone chair two competing company boards, and individuals cannot serve on the boards of more than five listed companies.

There are also instances where regulators find themselves overseeing their own institutions. At least one member of the UAE Central Bank board of directors sits on the board of a retail bank. In some emirates the head of an airline or an airport, and of the civil aviation authority that regulates the first two, is one and the same person. Some ministers also sit on the boards of organisations that relate directly to their ministry. I wonder, in such cases, if there is a transgression, does the person punish himself?

Frankly, I have all but given up on the possibility of a serious corporate governance law, so I have decided to appeal directly to the concerned parties. Let’s see how this works. As an Emirati, whether in government or not, if you find yourself involved in two organisations that are in direct competition with each other, or where there is a potential conflict of interest, please go to your superior and recommend that they identify someone else for either of the positions.

Tell them the interest of this country demands that even a perceived lapse in governance be addressed, and that so-called Chinese Walls should be introduced to make sure that no one benefits from any position he or she occupies. Don’t put yourself in a position where someone might one day question your integrity. After all, it is in the nation’s interest to aspire to the best practices of corporate governance, even if they are not yet the law of the land.

Also, if you are given two or more positions that seem to be piling up on each other, just say “no thanks”. Keep in mind that with good governance it is as much what you have not done for the organisation that counts as what you have done.

This habit of overlapping responsibilities started in the 1970s, when the UAE was a fledgling nation and talented and qualified nationals were in short supply. Now, however, with the leaps and bounds that this country has taken in higher education, we cannot claim to have the same challenge of identifying qualified people.

The consequences of poor governance in the business world also affect the overall reputation of the UAE. While I am proud that my country is fighting crime and punishing those who have taken advantage of their positions, I would also like it to lay the groundwork for adopting best practices from around the world to ensure that potential conflicts of interest are averted before they develop into headline-grabbing scandals.

I was always taught that greed and avarice are immoral and un-Emirati. Unfortunately, we have recently seen cases where some people – nationals as well as expatriates – in leading positions have used their authority to serve their own interests. The lack of good-governance legislation has had a serious negative effect on the lives of all residents of this country. Until the federal government seriously takes a look at nationwide reforms to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest, each of us must do our part in eliminating such breaches.

So if you find yourself in such a position, do the right thing; quit one of the posts, move on and let someone else take over.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 17th January 2010

Arab world will feel the pain of division in forsaken Sudan

2010-01-10T12:32:00.002+04:00

Take a good long look at the map of the Arab world today; the chances are that it’s going to change drastically pretty soon. The news in 12 months’ time will be the most significant transformation among the 22 Arab nations since Palestine was wiped off the map in 1948. But unlike Palestine, Sudan will probably be split via the ballot box in January 2011. Although the expected schism in Sudan is short on symbolism – there is no Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth or Jericho – it is no less of a tragedy for Arabs to endure.

Sudan is unlike other Arab countries in many ways. Geographically, at 2.5 million square kilometres in area, it is the largest Arab or African country. It borders nine states including Ethiopia, the source of the vital Blue Nile River, which converges with the White Nile in Sudan and provides drinking water to a third of the Arab world’s population on its way to the Mediterranean.

This potential breadbasket of the Arab world has been ignored by most in the region. The very few exceptions include the UAE, which is considered the second largest investor in Sudan after China. In 2008 UAE investment there reached US$7 billion (Dh25 billion) in sectors as varied as real estate, telecommunications and agriculture. Other Arab countries that have invested in Sudan’s agricultural sector include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Libya, but these remain individual efforts and not collective initiatives.

The reality is that the Arab world has largely forsaken the Sudan, as political differences and personal grudges held against the kleptocratic regime there has blinded us to the bigger picture.

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of a historic peace treaty signed in Nairobi between the ruling Muslim majority in the north and rebels from the Christian minority in the south, which brought an end to a two-decade bloody conflict that cost the lives of more than 1.5 million people. The cornerstone of the agreement was the referendum due to be held next January, when the autonomous South will vote to either stay part of the country or split into an independent state.

In the five years since the agreement, what has the Arab world done to strengthen the unity of the country? Very little in fact. It is typical for regional governments to pay lip service to “vital matters”; just read the final communiqués from the Arab League summits. There is no substance to what is said or promised or agreed. The decisions are simply words on paper.

In Sudan’s case it is no differenct. In the final communique of the 2005 Arab League summit, a few weeks after the historic peace treaty, Arab countries vaguely promised to “support the peace, development and unity in Sudan” but offered no concrete action.

What is required is a major investment in the southern part of the country if it is to remain within the Arab world. Job opportunities for southern Sudan’s eight million people must be provided along with investments in infrastructure to strengthen the unity of the country. A rail track and motorway network linking the North and the South should have been commissioned within months of the 2005 treaty and could have been finished by today. Vocational and Arabic-language training centres should have been set up in the South and visa permits given to young people to work in richer Arab nations such as the Pan-African champion Libya and the countries of the GCC.

While the South was preparing for the referendum, the North was busy with a tragic conflict in the western region of Darfur, which has resulted in genocide charges filed by the International Criminal Court against the president Omar al Bashir in 2008.

Because of the neglect of the Arab world and the policies of the central government in Khartoum, it is most probable that the South will vote to separate from the North. This would result in the country losing control of most of its proven oil reserves.

What can be done today to stop the country’s split? Mr al Bashir should, first, refrain from running in April in the country’s first multiparty elections in 24 years. His National Congress Party should introduce a clean slate of candidates who are not tainted with corruption and genocide charges.

International observers should be brought in to make sure that the election process is free and fair. The Arab League has one last chance to move beyond lip service and save 640,000 square kilometres of territory by introducing a pan-Arab, multibillion dollar fund to invest in the South. The money should be placed this spring in a non-member country’s account to be readily available for projects in the South based on the expertise of neutral world agencies.

But of course, this won’t happen. Mr al Bashir will run in the elections, and the southern candidates will lose and feel disenfranchised. The Arab states will only pay more lip service to unity at their annual summit in March and Sudan will be split in two, for now. You can bet on it.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 10th January 2010

A 70 per cent pay rise that’s a 100 per cent bad idea

2010-01-03T10:14:00.002+04:00

Those who are on the receiving end will certainly have welcomed the announcement that federal government employees are to receive a 70 per cent pay increase in their basic salaries. This increase does not apply to non-national government employees – but that is not why I think it’s not such a great idea.

The fact is that the Government has already been facing challenges in encouraging UAE nationals to join the private sector. They have just increased these challenges by more than two thirds.

According to official statistics provided by the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, and other reports, the number of Emiratis in the private sector ranges from 0.3 per cent to 1 per cent, with a high estimate of 40,000 nationals in a sector that employs four million. Additionally, the National Human Resources Development and Recruitment Authority (Tanmia) estimates that 13 per cent of nationals, or 40,000, are unemployed – which is the highest level in the UAE’s 38-year history.

Asian workers constitute 88 per cent of the workforce, while Arab and other nationalities make up 10 per cent in this country of six million inhabitants. The International Association of Money Transfer Networks places the UAE as the world’s third-largest source of remittances, because of its large expatriate population.

The responsibility for the low national employment figures in the private sector does not rest solely on the shoulders of those expatriates. Many Emirati nationals also bear a large part of the responsibility; and it may be that federal and local government policies are unintentionally impeding nationals from entering the private sector.

The federal and local government goals should be to encourage more people to look not only to the large private sector for employment, but also to become entrepreneurs by taking advantage of government initiatives such as the Sheikh Khalifa Fund and the Sheikh Mohammed Establishment for Small and Medium Size Enterprises in Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively.

It’s going to be a tough challenge, though, as there are numerous advantages to working in the public sector, such as the considerably shorter working hours and the ridiculously large number of holidays. In addition, jobs in the government sector are generally considered to be secure; managers do not have as much scope to dismiss under-performing subordinates as do their counterparts in the private sector.

Then there are the emotional “expert” views that make this already difficult situation even worse. In an ill-advised move last February, the Ministry of Labour approved a suggestion by Tanmia that makes it almost impossible to sack Emiratis in the private sector. This shortsighted move discourages the private sector from hiring nationals in the first place, and reinforces stereotypes about Emiratis in the workforce.

Ideally the Government should invest in vocational training for nationals according to the requirements of the job market. Also, rather than going about widening the pay and salary gap between the generous public sector and the more market-force driven rationale in the private sector, the Government should start levelling the playing field for nationals in the public and private sector. This can be done by a combination of subsidising the salaries of nationals who join the private sector and reducing the public sector perks.

Recently, an Arab friend of mine who works for one of the big four consultancy firms was seeking to employ 20 nationals, and asked me to come up with some suggestions. Apparently they had been trying to reach that figure for quite some time but their efforts had not met with any success.

“The problem is that we are ready to invest a great deal in hiring nationals,” my friend said, “but as soon as they learn of our gradual, performance-based pay system, they opt for the more lucrative and less time-consuming government jobs.”

He told me that when he first joined the company in Canada his salary was quite low, but because he persevered he was able to make it to the high position of partner in the firm, which allows him to share in its global profit. Even though his salary was low at the beginning, in the long term he is making much more than his government sector peers.

It is high time the Government finally realised that levelling the playing field for national job seekers would be beneficial for all sides. The Government would be less of a nanny state concerned with securing jobs for its nationals, allowing them instead to find their own way. The foreign investor would benefit from having local market expertise, and UAE nationals would be trained in valuable skills. The 70 per cent hike in salaries has just made it that much more difficult for the private sector to hire nationals.

*This article first appeared in The National on Sunday 3rd January 2010

Gulf sisters get short end of business stick

2009-12-31T10:02:00.003+04:00

In some Gulf countries women aren’t allowed to work in specific government jobs or hold senior ranks in public office. In other, more liberal, countries they have become chief executive officers of privately owned businesses and a force to be reckoned with. However, one area where the rights of girls in the business world can be compromised is with regards to inheritance in family businesses.

In the past decade or so many of the Gulf family businesses founders have passed away, and some companies have adapted better than others to the change. Some firms have even prepared for it in advance knowing that the patriarch was in ill health. In too few times did the patriarch lay foundations for his departure and even less have stepped down in their life time to “manage the shift”. In the worst-case scenario, brothers, some of whom can be from different mothers can be bogged down for years on end in court trying to sort out inheritance maters. In other times the male siblings are close and a smooth transition to the second generation of ownership is seen.

However, one side that is almost never highlighted is the issue of female inheritance. While it is very rare for girls to be left out of the inheritance equation altogether, and do receive a share in the vast majority of amicable settlements, sometimes they are not given a choice to inherit equity in the family business and are expected to be settle for an equivalent amount in cash. In other cases a woman’s shares are valued at a specific amount and she is given an asset such as a building or villas of equivalent value and compensated for the difference in value.

It is not uncommon for women to work in the family business, with the exception of those who are self-employed, engaged in other work, or choose to be housewives. Sadly, in some cases, even if woman is qualified she may not be allowed to work in a family business while her less qualified brothers are given that opportunity. The logic behind this seems to be that should a girl inherit shares in a company and legally becomes a shareholder, if she is married to someone from outside 'the family' then the shares would go down to the offspring of that couple, who are not seen to be from the 'original' family business.

This may go back to a question of what defines a family. Are one’s nephews from a bother closer to one's nephews from a sister? Does a woman still have 'loyalty' to her family if she is married? These assumptions may seem trivial but they do play a part in the minds of family businesses across the Gulf. In fact, in the next five to ten years it is expected that $500 billion in inheritance will be passed from one generation to the next as the founders pass on. This large amount of money will certainly be a cause to either bring people together or set them apart. And in some cases, the women won’t have a say.

But what can be done to safeguard the inheritance rights of women in the Gulf?

To avoid a situation where the potential male dominance in a family business negatively affects the daughter’s equity, a father can write the shares in his daughters' names during his lifetime. He must make sure that it is done in accordance with the law and have the papers authenticated by the courts. Preferably, the father can employ a lawyer to make sure that his daughter’s rights are safeguarded in case of his departure.

As in the case of young boys, a guardian can be assigned to protect a young girl's inheritance until she has reached adulthood. This guardian will have the right to sign on her behalf but must not be given the right to sell her shares or use them as collateral or sign this authority away to someone else. The father can also create a trust that is based offshore or in one of the more advanced financial free zones in the Gulf such as Dubai, Bahrain or Qatar. Unfortunately, not all Gulf States recognise trusts yet, while some assets can only be owned by a locally registered firm or even in an individual’s name.

The truth is that the mentality of not allowing females to own family business shares is not exclusive to the Gulf. Other regions in the developing world and some in the developed world, also find ways to discriminate against female inheritance. This should not be seen as a matter of gender rights; it is, in reality, a basic human right.

*This article first appeared in Gulf Business magazine, December 2009 issue

Microfinance is the need of the hour

2009-12-29T10:00:00.003+04:00

Last month I was part of a team that travelled to Washington, D.C. and met with officials from the US administration. I learnt that President Barack Obama is holding an 'entrepreneurship in Muslim communities summit' next March in the US capital about an emerging phenomenon known as social entrepreneurship. A social entrepreneur is, according to Wikipedia, a person who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organise, create, and manage a venture to make social change. I had never heard of this concept prior to that visit, or so I thought. It turns out that the founder of one of the most popular forms of social entrepreneurship is the Nobel Laureate Mohammed Younis who developed the practice of microfinance in 1976.

Microfinance allows low income individuals who were previously outside the traditional banking and finance sectors radar screens, to have access not only to small amounts of funding but also to insurance, transfer and savings. These funds can be as low as a few score dollars and are usually requested by individuals who do not want charity but need funding to start a business and get a head start in life. By the time Mr Younis won the Nobel Prize for peace in 2006, Grameen bank had almost seven million borrowers - 97% of whom were women.

Younis’s work has lifted microfinance in to the limelight the world over. Similar concepts are now used in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But I wondered if such an idea could work in the oil rich Gulf States.

First, it may be unfair to place all the Gulf States in the same basket with regards to the need for microfinance. After all there are glaring differences between a demographically rich county like Saudi Arabia and a small but extremely wealthy state like Qatar. Although Saudi Arabia is much wealthier than Qatar overall, the latter enjoys the second highest GDP income per capita in the world and its citizens may not be in dire need for three and four-dollar digit loads.

The Gulf States can be roughly split into two groups, on one had are the three wealthier states in terms of GDP income per capita: Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

On the other hand are the three relatively less wealthy states in terns of GDP per capita: Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. These states have a significant lower income portion of the population that might benefit from this growing industry.

In fact, microfinance is very much alive and kicking in the Gulf today. In 2007 the Gulf’s first dedicated microfinance firm was established when Abdul Latif Jameel Group’s subsidiary, Bab Riq Jameel teamed up with Mr Younis’ Grameen Foundation to create Grameen-Jameel. This institution’s mandate was wider than its home base of Saudi Arabia and extended to North Africa, the Levant and Yemen. By April 2009, Grameen-Jameel reported that it had already brokered more than US$44 million through a Guarantee Fund in micro financing transactions in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Tunisia.

Egypt, the most populated Arab country, saw the establishment by the Egyptian Gulf Bank of a US$8 million (EGP 46 million) microfinance firm that is envisioned to provide about EGP 400 million credit facilities by offering loans from EGP 4,000 to EGP 35,000 via its planned 300 country wide network.

The truth is in order for this industry to flourish in the Gulf and the Arab world, the regional economic regulators must reform their laws to make it possible for small businesses to be established from homes and bring down licensing costs. It will not make sense to encourage micro financing that involves extending a few hundred or thousand dollars to aspiring youth and then burden them with a series of debilitating fees, charges and hidden costs.

According to the United Nations Development Program, the Arab world needs to create 50 million new jobs by 2020 to accommodate its young and growing population. The government sector, which is a major employer in the region, will not be able to accommodate all the new job market entrants and it is time for the regional governments including those in the Gulf to think outside the box. Even wealthier states like Kuwait and Qatar can chip in and create microfinance funds for other Arab states citizens. The private sector in the region can also start extending loans either directly or by creating microfinance websites and portals.

Creative, widespread and pragmatic entrepreneurship is the only way for Arab countries to be able to provide work for tens of millions of young Arabs. Microfinance must be utilised as part of a spectrum of tools including economic reform and severe start up cost reduction. Only then will the region be able to provide jobs to our youth.

*This article first appeared in Moneyworks magazine, December 2009 issue

Saving the planet is a task for us all, not just our leaders

2009-12-27T14:47:00.002+04:00

The failure of the environmental summit in Copenhagen was disappointing after so many hopes were pinned on its success. There were the usual scenes, with emotion-driven protesters outside the conference venue calling for tougher action than either western or eastern governments were willing to take.

For one country’s representative, however, it was a unique predicament. The Minister of Environment, Dr Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad, faced a rather peculiar situation. The UAE is also a country in which there exists a huge divide between the environmental aspirations of the people and of their the government, and where the latter’s policies do not reflect the former’s wishes. It is a predicament that many countries face, except that in the UAE it is the other way round.

In this country of seven sheikhdoms, both federal and local governments have been, and remain, many leagues ahead of people’s aspirations with regards to protecting the environment (despite some ill-advised water projects). Sadly, though, the UAE remains one of the world’s largest polluters per capita; which means that the average UAE resident (you and I) pollutes more than most other countries’ inhabitants. The National highlighted this catastrophe recently when it reported that air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, is responsible for an estimated 850 deaths a year in the UAE, according to a study commissioned by the Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that UAE nationals are solely to blame. In a country where expatriates constitute a vast majority it is not fair to exclude one segment or the other in society from this collective responsibility; we are all in this together.

About a decade or so ago I visited the Gulf island of Sir Bu Nair. I recall gathering recruits from our camp to help me to collect all the rubbish that was lying on the beach. The same used to happen on our visits to the desert. It was no longer fun for me to go there, as the most horrific sight was that of beer cans and plastic bags that used to be dumped in the desert for the unsuspecting camel or donkey to choke to death on. Thankfully there is much more awareness today, but we still have a long way to go.

One can get a feel for what’s at stake here by visiting the Arabian Wildlife Centre in Sharjah to learn how indigenous plant and wildlife in the UAE and the Arabian Peninsula has been affected by our “improved” lifestyle – which is threatening to destroy this delicate balance. I find this quite paradoxical, since the founder of the country, the late Sheikh Zayed, dedicated his life to the protection of the environment and oversaw the planting of 140 million trees in what was once a barren land.

But all is not lost. On environmental protection, the steps taken in Copenhagen by the UAE, one of the world’s principal suppliers of oil, are to be commended. As Muath al Wari, a young Emirati researcher who assisted in the UN Development Programme and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Foundation’s Arab Knowledge Report 2009, points out: “Here is a country that stands to lose financially should we seriously move to a low-carbon future but is nonetheless demanding serious action. It was remarkable.”

Abu Dhabi has already committed to generating at least 7 per cent of the emirate’s power capacity from renewable energy sources by 2020. This is in addition to the world-leading $22 billion Masdar City initiative and the $1 million Zayed International Prize for Environment, as well as countless other initiatives.

Here’s what I suggest. The UAE Government has set its eyes on turning back the clock with regard to environmental pollution, and if it is to do so successfully then it must employ a carrot and stick approach: rewarding those organisations and individuals who make progress on environmental issues and penalising those who don’t – by not renewing their trade licences, for instance.

Obviously the details need to be hammered out but there are practical steps that can be employed immediately throughout the country; for example, setting a deadline for replacing all light bulbs in the UAE with energy saving bulbs, and mandatory recycling of plastic and paper. We can rely on Emirati environmental champions such as Razan al Mubarak, who runs the Emirates Wildlife Society and World Wide Fund for Nature programmes in this country.

The protection of the environment can also translate into good business; think of the tourism appeal of protected areas such as Sir Bani Yas island in Abu Dhabi and Al Maha resort in Dubai, where indigenous plants and animals thrive.

Muath al Wari and others like him believe in a sustainable partnership approach between the private and public sectors. “While the Government is investing billions in combating climate change,” he says “people need to show that this commitment to the environment runs deep in our society.”

The divide between the Government’s efforts and the people’s actions is, quite literally, unhealthy. One side is wrong – and it’s up to us to make a difference.

*This article first appeared in The National, Sunday 27th December 2009

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi Arab artists wish list

2009-12-27T00:26:00.003+04:00

Some of you may know that I am working on a new museum of contemporary and modern Arab art in Sharjah, UAE to house my collection. I hope it would be open by March 2010. So far I have been able to acquire over 200 pieces of Arab art from across the region including Louay Kayyali and Fateh Moudarres (both from Syria), Chafic Aboud (Lebanon), Sulaiman Mansour (Palestine), Abdallah Al Muharraqi (Bahrain), Abdul Qader Al Rayyes (UAE) and Adam Henein (Egypt) amongst many others. Below is a list of Arab artists that I am keen on having represented as well in the museum so any help is welcomed. The painting above is by Mahmoud Hammad, a Syrian artist who lived from 1923-1988. This work is the latest acquisition for the museum collection.

Ghada Amer (Egypt)
Ahmed Al Soudani (Iraq)
Madiha Omar (Iraq)
Mohammed Melehi (Morocco)
Suad Al Attar (Iraq)
Abdallah Ben Anteur (Algeria)
Hussen Madi (Lebanon)
Abbas Youssef (Bahrain)
Salam Khedr (Iraq)
Mohammed Abla (Egypt)
Mohammad Rawas (Lebanon)
Marwan Rechmaoui (Lebanon)
Paul Guirgossian (Lebanon)
George Sabbagh (Egypt)
Ismael Shammout (Palestine)
Essa Sagr (Kuwait)
Khazaal Al Gaffass (Kuwait)
Sharif Waked (Palestine)
Aamer Al Obaidi (Iraq)
Ahmad Al Moalla (Syria)
Balqis Fakhro (Bahrain)
Ahmad Baqer (Bahrain)
Hassan Glaoui (Morocco)
Aamer Al Obaidi (Iraq)
Mamdooh Kashlan (Syria)
Elias Zayat (Syria)
Yousef Abdelaki (Syria)
Ahmed Durak al Sibai (Syria)
Abdul Tajer Arnaoot (Syria)
Michel Kirsheh (Syria)
Ibrahim Al Awadhi (UAE)
Ahmed Sherif (UAE)
Fahad Al Jaber (UAE)
Safia Mohammed Khalfan (UAE)
Abdallah Bou Lahya (UAE)
Ali Al Jabri (Jordan)
Ibrahim Bou Asaad (Bahrain)
Abdul Latif Al Smoudi (Syria)
Salah Al Mur (Sudan)
Ahmad Nashat Al Zo'bi (Syria)
Kathem Khalil (Syria)
Kathem Haidar (Iraq)
Hassan Musa (Sudan)
Samia Halaby (Palestine)
Abdul Rahman Al Ma'aini (UAE)