The Life & Times of Dubai

Today's a day that Dubai-ites cherish - the fourth accession to the throne of their beloved Vice President and the Ruler of Dubai - His Highness Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Matoum, who has just spent what can only be positively described as the most difficult year in his four-year dream run, as solid as one of the Godolphin Horses he is so fond of racing to victory at Endurance events around the world! It's not been an easy year, thanks mostly to Dubai's financial dbacle - being a city that is so much more at the mercy of international influences, Dubai has always been a confluence of so many different societies and cultures. The tributes for Shaikh Mohammed have come thick and fast - not many obviously from the international press that has had a field day of dragging Dubai over the coals for its being nothing more than a "hubris in the sand" or a "bubble that has finally burst" - for most Dubai-ites like me though, it has always been a story of marvels that went alongside all the tears - yes, we have unemployment, we certainly have labour camps, we have embezzlement, we have crimes and arson - but seriously, Dubai has managed to keep a lid on its problems and try to achieve great things regardless. A testimony is the fabulous Burj Dubai - History Rising - as it has been often described - many would question the necessity for a US $ 1.5 billion edifice that has been five years in the making at a time of financial crisis and deepening debt. But Dubai's leaders and people have always aimed big - it is the need to strive and achieve that has brought so many people to this city of dreams - and it is the leader's vaulting ambition to be the best now, that has triggered so many of those man-made marvels. Why not - has always been his attitude, and this alone, if nothing, promises that everything will be all right - despite, or indeed because of Dubai's detractors! So yes, we do need a Burj Dubai, if only to prove to the world that we may be down, but are certainly not out....let's toast the world's tallest, biggest, strongest and largest - and hope that the new decade is kinder to a city that has, when all is said and one, given so many people the opportunity to hold their heads high and declare proudly that they matter.