Dreaming like Dubai

Thankfully, we found our way to Zabeel Palace. Although we were greeted by courteous men in flowing thobes at the imposing entrance of the palace, there was little visible security. Checking our names against the guest list, the white robed men just waved us in. No frisking or scanning, as you would expect at the residence of a Middle Eastern ruler. But then Dubai is like no other city in the Middle East. And His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is like no other Middle Eastern leader. He has never played by the book — often charting his own trajectory and going where no one has ventured before.

The UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai is easily the most admired and written about leader in the Middle East. Not for nothing he was voted the ‘coolest youth icon’ in the Arab world by young people in a recent opinion poll. In fact, most people know Dubai today with reference to Shaikh Mohammed, not the other way round. I remember on a trip to Srinagar in Indian Kashmir some years ago, when I introduced myself the then director-general of J&K Tourism M Ashraf exclaimed: “Ah Shaikh Mohammed! I am an old admirer of his. I wish I could bring back the tourists to Kashmir the way his Dubai does.”

When I had first landed in Dubai six years ago, I found the general adulation for Shaikh Mohammed among the Emiratis and expatriates a tad disconcerting. For someone who came from a vibrant democracy like India, I dismissed it as little more than the ubiquitous personality cult that is the bane of so many Middle East and Third World countries. It was as if the whole of Dubai was a large fan club of Shaikh Mohammed. And remember he was only the Crown Prince then. Whenever Emiratis and expats broke into another instant paean to the Dubai Ruler, I would roll my eyes in exasperation.

However, watching him work like a driven missionary over the past few years, pursuing his dreams with a zeal and boldness that is unparalleled in our times, it didn’t take me long to join Shaikh Mohammed’s ever expanding fan club. Anyone who has ever passed through Dubai or has had any familiarity with the dream that this city is would know that this gushing adoration for one of the most remarkable visionaries of our time is justified.

Watching Shaikh Mohammed —the CEO of Dubai Inc —up close, during the Ramadan majlis at Zabeel Palace this past week, I wondered what is it that drives him. What is it that makes the Dubai leader so utterly different from his counterparts in other Muslim and developing countries. He stood there like a rock shaking hands with a firmness and dignity that matched the boldness of his vision.

Here’s someone who knows what he is doing and is already thinking about his next appointment. Or his next multibillion dollar acquisition or project in some corner of the globe or the other! Like my friend and colleague Mark Townsend points out, he has a presence that is uniquely awe-inspiring. There was no hubbub when he walked into the large cavernous traditional Arabian tent that could accommodate nearly 500 guests and from where you could watch all his dream projects on Shaikh Zayed Road. But as soon as the Dubai leader walked in, the guests, a selective gathering of UAE and international media, started milling around him like planets around the Sun. Young Arab journalists were drawn to him as if he were a magnet. Many others like us followed him around the tent, hoping for an opportunity to speak with him or at least get a picture with him. But keeping in step with him is not always easy.

And even when I got to meet him, I couldn’t muster the courage to tell him how hopelessly besotted I was with him or why I thought he is a shining example to the rest of the Muslim world. But then isn’t he used to this breathless admiration? Also, by now he must know why he inspires such a huge fan following around the world. What this lone individual has managed to achieve in a span of 10-15 years, many countries with all their infrastructure and resources have not been able to in a century or so.

Today Dubai is the fastest growing city on the planet — a bustling trade, services, tourism and financial hub for the Middle East, Asia, and increasingly for the US and Europe too. Its economy is expanding at a breathless pace of 16 per cent a year — double the size of China, currently the world’s fastest growing economy.

Global business leaders and multinational players from Microsoft to Apple to Goldman Sachs are flocking in. At least, 80 per cent of Fortune 500 companies now operate from Dubai. Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City are home to some of the biggest names in the media and IT. Not only Dubai now hosts media conglomerates like Reuters, CNN, MBC and Alarabiya, several Indian, Pakistani and European television channels and publications are based in Dubai. Dubai currently attracts some six million tourists a year. And they are set to grow to incredible proportions — 16 millions by 2010 —given the pace of the emirate’s progress and what it has lined up in the months and years to come. The World Economic Forum ranks the UAE as the most competitive economy in the Arab world.

When Dubai is taken into account on its own, it gets even better. A report by the prestigious Swiss IMD International Business School, puts Dubai ahead of the leaders of developed world like Japan, Britain and Germany in terms of government efficiency and economic competitiveness. All of us have grown so used to the cool and matter-of-fact efficiency of Dubai and UAE that we now take it for granted. Only when you leave the country does the significance of this flawlessly working administrative machinery dawn on you. But the most remarkable phenomenon of this place is the sheer pace of its growth and development.

Old timers here tell me how there was nothing on Shaikh Zayed Road after the Trade Center Roundabout until some years ago. My old colleagues at Khaleej Times recall how our offices stood in total isolation from downtown Dubai on a desolate stretch of land without any of the current landmarks. But why go so way back in time? What I’ve seen over the past few years is itself mind-blowing. It’s as if this amazing city has a mind of its own that drives it on, to constantly change its shape, mutating into something new every moment. Today, a quarter of the world’s available construction cranes are operating in Dubai, working 24/7, day after day and night after night on trillions of dollars worth of projects.

By now, we are all used to the grind. The tallest, biggest and boldest manifestation of every thing human imagination can conjure up is now in Dubai. Who, for instance, could have thought of ice skiing in the middle of Arabian desert? Dubai did. And Shaikh Mohammed keeps telling us what we see today is just 10 per cent of his original vision. Dubai is not only growing at a lightening pace but it’s also inspiring imitation across the Middle East and the world. And imitation, as they say, is the best form of flattery. There was a time when Dubai’s ambitious development plans were derided by some of its big neighbours as sand castles. Today, however, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and from Tunisia to Morocco, everyone is racing to do a Dubai.

The world — the West, rather —woke up to the Dubai phenomenon only last year when DP World quietly took over the reins of the US ports — and all major ports around the world. However, Dubai has been investing big time in India, Pakistan, North Africa and elsewhere long before the neocons sat up and took note of it.

And now Shaikh Mohammed is turning his attention to other long neglected areas. In May, he unveiled a $10-billion fund to promote education in the Arab world turning it into a ‘knowledge-based society.’ And this new initiative that he has launched this Ramadan —Dubai Cares —again is a bold attempt to tackle one of the most critical problems facing our world. Goes without saying all this is the living and thriving legacy of one man and his ostensibly impossible vision. Shaikh Mohammed has been to Dubai what the late Shaikh Zayed was to UAE or Lee Kuan Yew has been to Singapore. What a critical difference one leader can make to his country and people. He can make or break a nation.

Shaikh Mohammed has always dreamed big. But then there are so many of us who dream big. What makes the Dubai leader different from the rest of us is his capacity to believe in himself and in his dreams and work to realise them. That is what makes him a visionary nonpareil. If only there were more like him in the Muslim world!

Aijaz Zaka Syed is a senior editor and columnist of Khaleej Times. Write to him at aijazsyed@khaleejtimes.com