City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism (51 page)
Read City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism Online
Authors: Jim Krane
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I DIDN’T LABOR
in a mountain retreat to write this book. I burned a lot of gasoline and wore out a pair of shoes and a lot of welcomes. I became a fixture on the Dubai conference circuit. I bought many rounds of drinks, cups of coffee, and lunches. And I managed to buttonhole people with far better things to do than talk to me.But I wouldn’t have been able to pull it together without the generous support of the Dubai School of Government and its dean, Tarik Yousef, to whom I am indebted for extending blind support to my project.
Also at DSG, I’m grateful for the help of Sahar Jawad for her superb English translations of hours of Sharjah Radio broadcasts; to Huda Sajwani, Paul Dyer, and Fadi Salem for factual help; and to my best car-pool buddy, Christine Assaad, who so often did the driving.
I’d also like to thank historian and archaeologist Peter Hellyer in Abu Dhabi for graciously correcting my historical inaccuracies and putting up with my diatribes defending them; and Christopher Davidson at the University of Durham, whose two excellent books paved the way for mine, and who responded with patience to my incessant e-mails. David Butter at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London patiently corrected several factual errors and offered numerous improvements.
Other expert voices who honed my portrayals include the political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla—whose prescient insights I’ve relied on
for four years—as well as scholars Anisa al-Sharif and Valerie Marcel; ambassador extraordinaire Anthony Harris; the ever-gracious Nabil al-Yousuf at The Executive Office; Chip Cummins at the
Wall Street Journal
, Simeon Kerr at the
Financial Times
, and Bill Spindle and Jim Calderwood at
The National
.Charley Kestenbaum’s patient insights into U.S. policy were particularly helpful. Liza Darnton’s comments on my manuscript were a sunbeam in the dark. Aisha Ahli and Hamda bin Demaithan opened doors to some warm and fascinating people. Peyman Pejman ushered me into the wonderful Emirates collection at Zayed University’s library. My old traveling pal Kamran Jebreili took some great photos for this book, while unveiling the intricate political shadings of Iranian expatriates. I’d also like to thank Ibrahim Alabed at the National Media Council; Brian Kerrigan at
The National;
and friends Mike Charlton and John Hollingsworth for supplying pictures for this book.I also owe big thank-yous to my agent, Alice Martell, in New York and to my subagent, Sara Menguc, in London for going far beyond the call in so many ways. And to my editor, Michael Flamini, whose enthusiasm spurred me on.
Finally, I’ve got to give serious thanks to my mom, Noël Werle, and my wife, Chloe, for their nitpicky—er, meticulous—proofreading.
NOTES
1.
Frauke Heard-Bey,
From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition
, 3rd ed. (Dubai: Motivate, 2005), 1, 24. Recent archaeology finds reviewed by Peter Hellyer at the National Media Council in Abu Dhabi could point to a temporary population surge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
2.
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 18
.
3.
Peter Hellyer notes that Dubai had a thriving settlement in the Iron Age (1300–300
BC).
An archaeology site in the present-day Jumeirah neighborhood reveals a village in the early Islamic period.
4.
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 20–21
.
5.
An expedition in 1992 led by Dr. Juris Zarins, professor of anthropology at Southwest Missouri State University, discovered what it claimed were the remains of the ancient city of Ubar in Oman. The city, as described in the Quran and elsewhere, sank into the earth. The expedition found the city was built atop an underground limestone cavern that collapsed as wells drained the water it held, toward the end of the Roman period.
6.
Bertram Thomas,
Arabia Felix
(London, 1932), 137; cited in Heard-Bey, 426.
7.
Ibrahim Al-Abed and Peter Hellyer, eds.,
United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective
(London: Trident, 1997), 57. Al-Dur lies in what is now the emirate of Umm Al-Quwain.
8.
Peter Hellyer, Abu Dhabi-based archaelogist and historial, e-mail interview, 2008.
9.
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 128
.
10.
Al-Abed and Hellyer,
United Arab Emirates
, 79.
11.
Ibid., 82–83.
12.
Wilfred Thesiger,
Arabian Sands
(Dubai: Motivate, 2004; orig. 1959), 49.
13.
Hendrik van der Meulen, “The Role of Tribal and Kinship Ties in the Politics of the United Arab Emirates” (PhD diss., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 1997), 164–65. The Zaab hometown, Jazeerat Al-Hamra, now lies abandoned, a ghost town.
14.
Donald Hawley,
The Trucial States
(New York: Twayne, 1971), 70–71.
15.
Ibid., 69–70.
16.
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates, 282
.
17.
Geoffrey King, “Delmephialmas and Sircorcor: Gasparo Balbi, Dalma, Julfar and a Problem of Transliteration,”
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy
Vol. 17, issue 2 (pub. 2006), 249.
18.
Aquil A. Kazim, “Historic Oman to the United Arab Emirates, from
AD
600 to 1995: An Analysis of the Making, Remaking and Unmaking of a Socio-Discursive Formation in the Arabian Gulf” (PhD diss., American University, 1996), 405.
19.
Graeme Wilson,
Rashid’s Legacy
(Dubai: Media Prima, 2006), 24–25.
20.
The UAE’s minister of foreign trade and most prominent woman, Sheikha Lubna al-Qassimi, is a member of the Qawasim clan.
21.
Van der Meulen, “The Role of Tribal and Kinship Ties,” 203.
22.
Charles Belgrave,
The Pirate Coast
(London: G. Bell and Sons, 1966); cited by Christopher M. Davidson,
The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005), 26.
23.
Davidson, The United Arab Emirates, 28–29
.
24.
Ibid., 28.
25.
Ibid., 30.
26.
James Calderwood and Jim Krane, “US Wraps Up Massive Persian Gulf Exercises,”
Army Times
, via the Associated Press, March 29, 2007;
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/ap_gulf_manuevers_070328
. The United States has close to 40,000 troops in the Gulf, including 25,000 in Kuwait, 6,500 in Qatar, 3,000 in Bahrain, 1,300 in the United Arab Emirates, and a few
hundred in Oman and Saudi Arabia, according to figures from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
27.
Anthony Harris, author interview, May 21, 2008. Sheikh Saqr, who took power in 1948, is the world’s second longest serving ruler, after the Thai king Bhumipol. Sheikh Saqr in 2008 remained the ruler of Ras Al-Khaimah mostly in name. Day-to-day running of the emirate is handled by his son Sheikh Saud, the deputy ruler.
28.
The map hangs on the wall in the map room at the Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum House, a museum on the Dubai creek that once served as the ruler’s residence. Description from author’s visit, April 26, 2008.
29.
The Maktoum family claims Liwa as its ancestral home, but historians, including Peter Hellyer, disagree, citing tribal surveys that show the family and its Bani Yas tribe living along the coastal plain. When the members of the tribe fled to Dubai, the Maktoums may have instead sailed there in dhows.
30.
Heard-Bey,
From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates
, 13. In 1906 a diver from Liwa surfaced with a pearl so monstrous that a dispute over its ownership broke out, prompting the British to intervene. The diver tried to establish a claim on the pearl by dint of his tribal home, and he revealed to the English the hitherto unknown villages of the Liwa Oasis.
31.
Robert Hughes Thomas, ed.,
Arabian Gulf Intelligence
(London: Oleander, 1985).
32.
The Maktoums of Dubai restrict themselves to a small pool of original men’s names, recycling them over and over, especially Maktoum, Hasher, Hamdan, Rashid, Said, Mohammed, Ahmed, and a few others. It makes for frequent misidentification.
1.
Wilson, Rashid’s Legacy, 35
.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Davidson, The United Arab Emirates, 13
.
4.
Ibid.; Wilson,
Rashid’s Legacy
, 36.
5.
Description from exhibit at Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum’s House, which is in Dubai’s Shindaga, April 26, 2008.
6.
Julia Wheeler, and Paul Thuysbaert,
Telling Tales: An Oral History of Dubai
(Dubai: Explorer, 2005), 44.
7.
Dhow ports up and down the lower Gulf coast are also thought to be the chief
Iranian sources of everything from bootleg cigarettes to dual-use computer technology banned for export under the U.S. embargo.
8.
Given 300,000 Iranians and fewer than 100,000 Emiratis.
9.
Jim Krane, “Iranian Beachgoers Defy Conservatives on Party Island,” Associated Press, October 2, 2006.
10.
“UAE Open for Iran Business,”
Iran Daily
, February 16, 2008,
http://www.irandaily.com/1386/3064/html/focus.htm
, (accessed April 20, 2008).
11.
Jean-François Seznec (Georgetown University professor), author interview, April 1, 2008, Abu Dhabi.
12.
Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry figures cited in
Iran Daily
article show Dubai’s non-oil exports to Iran totaling $9.8 billion in 2007, a 33.4 percent increase on $7.3 billion in exports in 2006.
13.
Anthony Harris (former British ambassador to UAE), author interview, May 21, 2008.