Dubai-based author recalls when Sheikh Mohammed dealt with hijacking crisis at age of 23

It does not matter if you have travelled the world. Chances are, if you live in Dubai, the world will come to you. This creation of a modern metropolis that looks back on its past with pride and gazes at the future with confidence is a result of astute leadership — that of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai and Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE.

Dubai’s journey to becoming a global metropolis is reflective of Sheikh Mohammed’s own evolution as a leader, something biographer Graeme Wilson documents in his book, To Be The First, which will be launched at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature early next year. From responding to the crisis that was Cyclone Bhola by sending emergency aid to managing a hijacking crisis when he was all of 23, Sheikh Mohammed’s life is as inspiring as it is engaging.

Ahead of the launch, we speak to Wilson, who has penned authorised biographies on UAE’s Founding Father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, as well as the Heads of State of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Oman, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

Tell us about your formative years. What did your childhood look like?

A normal middle-class background in the north of England. Very normal. I wanted to be a professional speedway rider, but two things stopped me. An absolute lack of talent and no sense of balance on a motorcycle, then a sudden passion for words. My mother owned a bookshop and it was there that I gained an interest in books from an early age. Most of all, I loved to read biographies of political titans. Then, I found I enjoyed writing myself. As a 13-year-old, I was freelancing, penning articles for The Northern Echo and other regional newspapers. The thrill of seeing my byline printed on an article was intoxicating. From 15, I freelanced for various national newspapers, including The Daily Mail and The Racing Post.

At which point did you find yourself drawn towards writing biographies?

I will always love the instant kick that writing for newspapers provides, seeing an article printed the following day. I still miss that. Books take a long time to research, write and publish, so they are less of an instant kick. But it was reading Richard Holmes’ Footsteps in 1987, aged 17, that made me fall in love with biographies and want to write that quality. Holmes profiled a series of 19th century literary heroes — Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley and Gérard de Nerval. Footsteps was about them, but also a biography of a biographer. It was fascinating.

What are your initial memories of being in the UAE?

I arrived in Dubai on holiday in 1990, aged 20. It took me three days to resolve that I was not going back to England. Dubai had a can-do atmosphere. And I was lucky enough to get a job as a reporter with Khaleej Times. So, I arrived 34 years ago and I am still here. I remember fondly the one lane road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The Lodge was where we socialised. The Rugby 7s. Dubai Country Club. Attempting (but failing miserably) to learn Arabic so many times. When I joined Khaleej Times, it offered me the opportunity to pursue stories that allowed me to explore the country. I met the Founding Father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, which was extraordinary. In 1992, I met Sheikh Mohammed for the first time. He had a gravitas and an ambition that I found unique. I have met dozens of world leaders in my career, as a writer, documentary maker and speechwriter, and there are only several where I came away thinking ‘wow’. Margaret Thatcher was one. Bill Clinton was another. Sheikh Mohammed is definitely one of those.

It was in 1990, the year I arrived, that Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum died. He fascinated me, a genius about who so little was really known. Several years on, I approached the late Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum to ask if I could write a book on Sheikh Rashid. Father of Dubai was my first biography. I loved the process of writing it.

How challenging is it to write biographies of public figures when so much about them is already in the public domain?

It is challenging. But in a good way. I have been lucky to write and ghost-write biographies and autobiographies for more than a dozen world leaders. In each case, we have pushed the envelope by interviewing more people and visiting more archives than anyone else, in order to add context and uncover elements that are new and fresh. And to add colour and verve. That is the challenge. To learn more. For example — and this is my bugbear — there is a tendency for researchers to slavishly head for the National Archives in London, to access British records. They are, undoubtedly, a wonderful resource, but hundreds of researchers have been through the same files thousands of times. There is nothing new. It is just lazy to rely on that single, tired source. We will go to university, corporate and private archives. It may take three days of work in one archive to come up with a single letter, or just one document that relates to my subject. But that fresh new piece of information can have a cascade effect and open up a whole new avenue of research, a new aspect to the life of a subject that no-one really knows. That’s my adrenaline. A discovery like that.

Let me give you an example. I spent a week in an archive in Cambridge and, buried in a huge file of random documents, found a 1965 memo written by former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson referencing Sheikh Rashid supporting multiple promising cancer research programmes in the mid-1960s. This led me to delve elsewhere and a broader story emerged, of a man who was passionate about pushing the envelope on the science of cancer research. It is a compelling, unknown aspect about a leader we thought we knew. Sheikh Rashid passed away nearly three-and-a-half decades ago and yet we are still learning about him. There are so many aspects of that remarkable character that we still don’t know.

What got you interested in writing a book about Sheikh Mohammed?

Father of Dubai was published in 1999. I began seeking permission to produce Sheikh Mohammed’s biography from then. You can say this new book is the culmination of a 24-year effort. He is just the most extraordinary character. I was honoured to meet and interact with him occasionally over the years. And, throughout my career, while working on other projects in dozens of archives in 25+ nations, I have always hunted documents on him, on Dubai, and on the UAE. Learning more, my fascination only grew. We have seen Dubai and the UAE grow, representing a very public testimonial to the energy that drives him. And, while he is a massive statesman and a titan of development, someone who had reinvented the way world leaders look at socio-economic development, there remained so little of his life and personality that we really knew. I wanted to be the writer given that honour and responsibility. I knew I could do this justice.

What kind of interactions did you have with him for the book, if any?

During the book, none. I met with dozens who have shared Sheikh Mohammed’s journey, including family, friends, those who have worked with him, and for him, more than a dozen world leaders, those who shaped his formative years and others who have encountered him across his long journey. Their observations were illuminating to how the rest of the world views Sheikh Mohammed. For example, I interviewed a South African diplomat who was a former aide to Nelson Mandela. He was a huge fan of everything Sheikh Mohammed achieved. He recalled that when developing world leaders met Mandela and voiced frustration at the slow pace of change in their own countries, Mandela would advise them to study what Sheikh Mohammed had achieved in Dubai.

What has been your favourite anecdote in the book?

That is a very difficult question to answer. I love so many of the new elements we have uncovered. I think the most powerful takes us back to 1970. Cyclone Bhola is still the deadliest tropical cyclone on record. It struck the Bay of Bengal on November 12, 1970. It impacted East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), with winds reaching 185km/h and a storm surge causing widespread devastation. The cyclone caused an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 deaths, primarily due to flooding and collapsed infrastructure. Millions were left homeless. In those days, the United Nations and the international community did not have the mandate they do today in handling natural disasters. Nations and regions were largely left to their own devices in the face of adversity. Responding to Cyclone Bhola, however, Sheikh Mohammed had transporter aircraft filled with emergency aid in the air within 72 hours of the disaster. Over the ensuring weeks, Dubai leased boats and had those steaming towards the disaster zone filled with aid. What he was doing, was pioneering a template for disaster relief that we see today. I have interviewed a former President of Bangladesh, and regional leaders in the then affected region. They spoke of the seminal impact of that effort.

And it is something he has done for so many nations and regions over the last half century, even before the more contemporary impacts of the Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiatives.

What is the one thing about Sheikh Mohammed that will come as a surprise to readers?

What I think is extraordinary is that he remains so grounded. I interviewed a man whose family Sheikh Mohammed had boarded with when he was studying in Cambridge in the mid-1960s. He described Saturday nights at home with Sheikh Mohammed watching Match of the Day, a famous football show on the BBC. One minister told me a story about when she had the flu and he took time to offer her a traditional herbal remedy, a recipe that he had learned from his mother, Sheikha Latifa bint Hamdan Al Nahyan. Throughout the book, while we illustrate the stories around the soaring achievements of Sheikh Mohammed’s life and career, these are punctuated with insights into his personal narratives... the day he bought his first thoroughbred… how he reacted to the Baku Metro disaster… the origins of Brand Dubai…

Then there is his unbelievable precociousness. Thrown into military training at Mons Officer Cadet School in his teens, becoming the youngest Minister of Defence in the world in 1971, and, at just 23 spending days and nights in the Control Tower at Dubai Airport dealing with a hijacking crisis, the lives of so many innocent people in his hands. Think back. What were you doing at 23? I was frivolously enjoying life in Dubai. He was negotiating with terrorists during a skyjacking.