Global Arab Network | Dubai should be judged on its merits

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Dubai should be judged on its merits

Global Arab Network - - Adam Turner

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 00:22

For years, many of us who work in the press in the Arab world looked with envy at our peers in the British media. They had the luxury to investigate and report on subjects we were forced to ignore.

Some of us are still struggling in the local environment and writing to 'get the story out' without angering anyone, rather than taking risks.

We tell our young journalists that we should not jeopardise our news organisation or even get it closed down just because we want to act like British reporters do.

But things have changed dramatically in the past few years. The media in the Arab world is increasingly vocal and can report quite freely provided they employ the 'necessary' tricks (such as omitting the names of suspected criminals and underperforming schools or hospitals - often we tend to use initials) on issues that were considered off limits a few years ago.

We now report on corruption in politics and government, the dubious labour practices of influential employers and can question decisions that we suspect could harm the public interest.

One of the most robust presses in this part of the world can in fact be found in Dubai, the second largest of seven emirates that make up the Gulf state of the UAE.

The amazing growth the emirate has witnessed in the past decade led to evolution and competition in the media, the likes of which has never been seen before.

Reporters now go out in the field with the latest gadgets - small video cameras and Blackberry mobile phones - and the story is online in minutes.

They rarely wait for a more cautious editor, like myself, to tell them that we cannot run this or that. Once the story is online, no one can stop the flow of information. Dubai not only understands this but also appreciates it.

Its success story was made possible by opening up to the new and the modern - not just gadgets and expensive towers, but more importantly ideas and concepts.

We live in a conservative neighbourhood in the Gulf. But we managed to build a city that is multicultural, open-minded, tolerant and as modern as you can get.

And that is not because of the luxuries we import from around the world. It is mainly because we believe that the peaceful co-existence of different cultures and minds can do wonders.

But there is a price to pay - occasionally we must suffer columnists like Rod Liddle (admittedly, I would love to meet him).

The Times columnist spent a few days - or perhaps a few hours, he didn't say - in Dubai and then wrote a 4,400 word essay about the emirate (The Sunday Times, July 12, 2009, "Sordid reality behind Dubai's gilded façade").

This vitriolic, racist rant was more worthy of a third-grade tabloid. It was not the professional journalism one expects from an institution like The Times.

He mixed personal anecdotes with facts, so that by the time you finished reading his article, you were confused as to which was which.

Dubai has been the subject of a number of such articles over the past few months, mainly in British newspapers. They tend to portray a city that has fallen apart as a result of the global economic crisis. One article described Dubai as 'a ghost city'.

But none of the other articles was as comical as the one written by Liddle. He narrated the story of Dubai, a city that has attracted thousands of reputed multinational companies and investors, through the eyes of prostitutes, a few disgruntled expatriates and quoted an alleged angry message posted by an Emirati "recently" on a blog.

Of course, since Liddle kept his source anonymous, we have no way of knowing which blog he was quoting, and cannot identify the person who posted this possibly fake message.

Dubai is not perfect. We would like it to be, but as a modern city it has some of the same shortcomings as other major cities around the world. It has a rich class and a large poor class.

It has glamorous night life enjoyed by the well heeled and also agonising daily work performed under the sweltering heat by the less fortunate.

But the emirate, driven by a national vision, has managed to spread its wealth around and has helped millions of needy people in Asia and Africa through continuous humanitarian efforts in education and health care, such as Dubai Cares and Noor Dubai.

The most striking and abhorrent part of Liddle's article is the racist tone of its author when referring to Emiratis. He describes them as "utterly useless, corrupt and indolent".

According to Liddle, even the prostitutes don't want their "business" and a poor hardworking taxi driver would not pick them up - something never heard of here, even by journalists, who would love to get their hands on such a story.

The Dubai described in this bizarre article is very different from the one we know. Liddle tells only part of the story in his highly emotive language.

If he had met with the thousands of hardworking British, South African, Indian and Pakistani expatriates who contribute to and are enjoying the fantastic development of Dubai and other UAE cities he would have got the 'real' story of this cosmopolitan city.

I am sure there is a motive behind running such a one-sided piece, but I don't really want to know. Had I read his article on a blog or even the website of a tabloid newspaper, I would not have taken it seriously. Unfortunately, it was a centrepiece in a prestigious publication I respect.

Global Arab Network

Mohammed Almezel, Deputy Managing Editor of GulfNews, © Al Nisr Publishing.

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