Repression in the United Arab Emirates

That's a title of an article in The Nation.

New York University and the Sorbonne come in for special criticism:

Reached by e-mail, Michel Fichant, a professor emeritus at the Sorbonne and a board member of its Abu Dhabi branch, responded that the institution was “concerned not at all by some arrests” that recently took place. He stressed that Professor bin Ghaith had merely been invited to present at some conferences, but was not an employee. The response from NYU was equally dismissive: “The school itself does not take public stands on issues and policies that fall outside of its core mission of operating a world-class university.”

According to NYU sociology Professor Andrew Ross, who has been an outspoken critic of the university’s involvement in the autocratic city-state, NYU president John Sexton recently told a group of concerned faculty members that he had reason to believe those arrested were a genuine threat to national security, something that Professor Lockman finds “particularly shocking.”

“He suggested that these people were genuinely subversive and deserving of arrest, although human rights organizations, of course, have a different take,” said Lockman. “This kind of toadying to the crown prince and his ilk shows the hollowness of NYU’s role in this place.”

Ross and his colleagues at the New York chapter of the American Association of University Professors sent a letter addressed to Dean Sexton and Vice-Chancellor Al Bloom, warning that “Silence on this serious issue will set a precedent that could also have ominous consequences for the speech protections of NYUAD faculty.” At the Sorbonne, the student union AGEPS (Association Générale des Etudiants de Paris Sorbonne) presented a motion that was adopted by the Conseil des Etudes et de la Vie Universitaire (CEVU), an academic advisory body, denouncing the Sorbonne’s lack of response and calling on it to defend the values of the French Republic. Neither action has resulted in any change in either university’s stance.

Unfortunately, those working on behalf of the detainees have few other options. Local avenues appear closed, and international pressure is all that remains.

“Their Achilles’ heel is the soft-power partnerships and ventures set up with international partners: NYU, the Sorbonne, the Louvre, the Guggenheim,” said Dr. [Christopher] Davidson. “If these institutions were to collectively say, ‘We’re not going to do business with a country that takes political prisoners,’ it’s a no-brainer. But their complicity is a form of violence.”

h/t to Davidson who tweets,

@dr_davidsonChristopher Davidson

...rag-tag UAE opposition. NYU & Sorbonne disgrace themslvs further, with former's president agreeing that detainees were threat to security

14 minutes ago via web Favorite Retweet Reply

Added at 5:22 PM ET:

@NasserIbnHamadNasser H Al-Khalifa

Repression in the United Arab Emirates | The Nation http://bit.ly/liLgWR Very interesting worth reading Article

1 hour ago via TweetMeme Favorite Retweet Reply

Davidson's strongly worded critique

In Foreign Policy, Christopher Davidson says the UAE is verging on a police state, and that the recent detentions of UAE citizens is only evidence of a core problem. I agree the recent detentions are both unnecessary and reactionary, but I'm withholding endorsement of his larger argument. But the argument deserves a hearing, and I hope UAE citizens are not barred access.

The title and subtitle:

Making of a Police State

Over the last few years, the UAE has become increasingly oppressive. The recent crackdowns show how bad it really is.

The tough language:

Previously a collection of federated, tribe-based, traditional monarchies, led by the well-liked Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan until his death in 2004, the UAE has since been morphing into a sophisticated police state led by Zayed's two principal sons from their Abu Dhabi power base -- the UAE's oil-rich, wealthiest emirate. Unlike their father, who had to consult with other tribal elders and powerful merchants across the entire country, the new rulers now govern with zero accountability over an increasingly urbanized and Abu Dhabi-dependent population, the movements and communications of which are now carefully monitored and censored.

Where's the evidence for that claim? For me it's unproven.

But the UAE's role in putting down dissent in Bahrain, plus detentions of its own citizens are enough for me to agree with Davidson that

...questions should have already been asked by those world-leading institutions -- many of which are based in democratic states -- that cooperate closely with the current regime, in return for generous wealth transfers and other benefits. Perhaps now their question mark will be a bit bigger. The UAE's rulers draw massive legitimacy from these external links...

Read it all.

Davidson on the UAE democracy crackdown

Christopher Davidson in Current Intelligence:

Three UAE nationals have been arrested in the past 72 hours, their current whereabouts still unknown. As pro-reform individuals, their detention seems to be a testimony to the failing ‘liberal autocracy’ experiment in the United Arab Emirates. The international community should take immediate note.

With a tribal leader legacy, and credited with founding the UAE federation and harnessing its oil wealth for economic development, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan was generally well liked by his people. He had no real need to implement meaningful political reform during his lengthy reign. Instead the plan seemed to be to hold back this particular card so that his succeeding sons would be able to offer reform as their particular ‘gift’ to the people. However, since Zayed’s death in 2004 no such reform has taken place.
...
... The removal of all three UAE nationals from their homes is alarming and requires thorough investigation. If the media reports on Dr. Ghaith’s arrest are accurate then the Sorbonne, along with New York University and all other western universities establishing campuses in the country should probably begin reviewing their ties with the UAE government.

Read it all.

Some tweeters to follow:

@dr_davidson (Christopher Davidson)

@localnewsuae

S&P downgrades Dubai credit ratings

Financial Times

Standard & Poor’s lowered its ratings on a series of big government-linked companies in Dubai on Tuesday, owing to the emirate’s deteriorating economic outlook.

The credit rating agency also put four Dubai-based banks on review for downgrade, predicting that a contracting economy and wilting property market will weigh on the emirate’s financial institutions.

Dubai’s half-decade of rapid growth and extravagant construction projects has been abruptly reversed by the credit crunch, exposing an $80bn pool of largely short-term debt.
...
The rating agency expects Dubai’s economy to contract between 2 per cent and 4 per cent this year.
...
The agency said it expected the “interventionist” federal government to shore up systemically important banks and government-linked entities, adding some support to long-term ratings. Dubai has been extended a $10bn lifeline by the federal government.

There have been complaints about excessive negativity. Abdulkhaleq Abdullah in an op-ed in the Gulf News,

The financial crisis is global, so why single out Dubai which is still doing relatively better than other global financial and commercial centres?

The answer to this question was the underlying theme ably addressed by Dr [Christopher] Davidson in his interesting book about this trendsetting city.

Despite the numerous factual and historical errors, the book is a scholarly work and comes across as being generally fair and sympathetic to Dubai.

But Dr Davidson's sudden public change of heart is rather surprising. A presumable lover turning into a sharp critic and orchestrating a character assassination campaign of the former muse in the media raises serious questions about not only motivation and credibility but also consistency and authenticity.

Dr Davidson, with his vast and first-hand knowledge, knows that Dubai is not a real estate bubble and is not going to sink. He is also in a position to refute all the silly headlines about tensions between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the two pillars of the UAE.

How he opted to reinforce the convoluted image of a furious Abu Dhabi taking over and reining in the maverick Dubai defies reasoning.

Weren't the banks the one "private" sector that was emiratized?

Now that massive fraud has been uncovered Christopher Davidson wonders, "Where are the locals?" The suspects all appear to be expats.

What will Abu Dhabi ask in return?

The Economist, under the headline "The Outstretched Palm":

Dubai is suffering from a slump in the trading, lending, holidaying and profiteering that buoyed this remarkable emirate for so long.

On February 22nd Dubai was hoisted out of its financial trouble by its oil-rich neighbour, Abu Dhabi. The central bank for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) bought $10 billion-worth of Dubai’s five-year bonds. The bail-out confirmed everyone’s assumption that Abu Dhabi would not let the second-biggest member of the UAE fail. But its benefactor waited long enough to plant a seed of doubt in people’s minds. In recent weeks, the spreads on credit-default swaps for securities issued by Dubai’s government and several of its biggest corporations have widened alarmingly, if a little hysterically.
...
But what will Abu Dhabi ask in return? On the face of it, not much. Tristan Cooper, of Moody’s, a rating agency, had expected Abu Dhabi to be “a bit more fussy” about how the funds were used. It might, say, have taken equity stakes in Dubai’s freewheeling corporations or sought some control over their managers.

But Mr [Christopher] Davidson thinks the unstated price of Abu Dhabi’s support will be stiff indeed. “It is the end of the second emirate’s economic autonomy, which it has fiercely protected,” he says. Why else did Abu Dhabi put Dubai through “months of pain and humiliation”, if it did not see some long-term gain from chastening its neighbour and strengthening the UAE federation, Mr Davidson asks. Dubai will now have to be more accommodating of its neighbour’s wishes, he says. It will, for example, have to forgo its independent foreign policy, which had seen it become Iran’s outlet to the world, even as Abu Dhabi kept a careful distance.

That's one side of it. The other is that Dubai had Iran to go to as a lender of last resort -- Abu Dhabi didn't want Dubai to cross that bridge.

That raises the question, what is Abu Dhabi getting in return? Once the financial crisis passes what is to prevent Dubai from reasserting its independence?

Interesting, too, that the article doesn't say anything about Dubai's domestic policy or economic model. The fact is that Abu Dhabi has been busy playing catch up to Dubai in terms of hotels, higher education, technology, museums.

Thanks to a faithful reader for the pointer to the Economist article.

Lacking bailout Dubai heads into Icelandic territory

Wall Street Journal (subscription req.):

Abu Dhabi's decision last week to pump $4.4 billion into its own banks while offering no support to lenders in Dubai or other emirates in the Gulf federation may simply be brinkmanship amongst the sheikhs. But the possibility Abu Dhabi will refuse to come to Dubai's aid -- once seen as almost unthinkable -- can no longer be ruled out.

That raises the prospect of a deeper debt crisis in Dubai. And even a fragmentation of the 37 year-old federation if Abu Dhabi refuses to pump billions of dollars into the economies of poorer emirates like Dubai to prevent either a corporate default or severe downturn. The cost of insuring Dubai debt has rocketed to around 10 percentage points for five-year debt -- higher even than Iceland.
...
Abu Dhabi is driving a hard bargain. Its demands are thought to include the surrender of Dubai's autonomy and the loss of control over crown jewels such as Emirates Airline and Nakheel, builder of the emirate's Palm-shaped islands. That may be too much for Dubai's ruling Maktoum family to stomach -- partly because the rulers of the two sheikhdoms are cousins. But also, because Dubai contends it was a principle of the 1971 agreement to form the federation that Abu Dhabi would use its oil wealth to support the other emirates.

Financial Times:

The cost of insuring Dubai’s sovereign debt has become almost as expensive as insuring troubled Iceland, illustrating the depth of investor concern about a default by the emirate.

The spread on Dubai’s benchmark five-year credit default swaps last week broke the 1,000 basis points barrier, similar to the spread of Icelandic bonds.
...
nvestors have been spooked by Abu Dhabi’s decision this month to inject funds into its own banks, without similar support for financial institutions in other emirates. Analysts had previously hoped that the capital of the United Arab Emirates would step in to prevent a default in Dubai, the UAE’s commercial hub.

“The market’s thought process is moving from Dubai being implicitly guaranteed by Abu Dhabi to questioning the relationship between Dubai and Abu Dhabi,” said Dino Kronfol, managing director at Algebra Capital in Dubai.

Birth of a nation, 41 years ago:

Roughly half way along the highway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, there is an interchange at a place called Semeih. ... It was here, 41 years ago tomorrow, that the two fathers of the UAE federation, Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai, met on February 18 1968, to lay the foundations of the state of today.

The author, Peter Hellyer, makes no mention of his disagreements with Christopher Davidson about the meeting place.

As to a bailout, Secret Dubai thinks Dubai did get one from Abu Dhabi after craftily courting Iran and Saudi Arabia for aid. It's a strategy that I and others have suggested. Abu Dhabi doesn't want its fellow emirate to be beholden to either of those.

How the economic pressures could change the political dynamics

NYT:

Some analysts say the crisis is likely to have long-lasting effects on the seven-member emirates federation, where Dubai has long played rebellious younger brother to oil-rich and more conservative Abu Dhabi. Dubai officials, swallowing their pride, have made clear that they would be open to a bailout, but so far Abu Dhabi has offered assistance only to its own banks.

“Why is Abu Dhabi allowing its neighbor to have its international reputation trashed, when it could bail out Dubai’s banks and restore confidence?” said Christopher M. Davidson, who predicted the current crisis in “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success,” a book published last year. “Perhaps the plan is to centralize the U.A.E.” under Abu Dhabi’s control, he mused, in a move that would sharply curtail Dubai’s independence and perhaps change its signature freewheeling style.

Iran relishes Dubai's "paper sand"

PRESS TV, Iran:

The current financial crisis which has resulted in scarce credit and slumping oil prices has forced international financiers to dump assets in Dubai city, Bloomberg reported.

"Dubai is more precarious than it has ever been,” said Christopher Davidson, a professor of Middle Eastern affairs at Durham University.

"If the property industry collapses in Dubai, it will be finished. Dubai's relative autonomy will come to an abrupt end," added Davidson, the author of "Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success.

He added that Dubai's push into luxury property developments was a mere diversification on "paper sand".

On Saturday The New York Times reviewed of his book, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. An extract from the review:

Mr. Davidson further contends that unstable neighbors threaten Dubai’s success, but here he may have matters reversed. When Egypt and Iran stifle their entrepreneurs, many of them find a wide berth in Dubai. When Saudi Arabia imposes cultural restrictions on its population, Dubai offers a place to drink and let loose. When India and Pakistan have trouble creating jobs for their large populations, Dubai absorbs labor migrants. When Iraq or Lebanon descends into war, Dubai profits from rebuilding them.

In short, until a vast arc of countries from East Africa to Southeast Asia changes substantially, Dubai will remain poised to benefit by providing a relatively open, secure, low-tax, business-friendly alternative.

I've read Davidson's book and the reviewer is on to something here. Indeed, all these points about the advantages Dubai gets from its neighbors are made by Davidson. With respect to Iran, these advantages trace back many years, and Davidson covers this history well. And while the subtitle, "the vulnerability of success", sounds prescient Davidson did not see the vulnerabilities in the sense of the present problem a leveraged system in an environment of a systemic breakdown in willingness to lend.

The NYT review sees a silver lining in the financial crisis:

It was also written before the credit crisis and global contraction, and he makes no mention of Dubai’s economic vulnerabilities. In fact, the world’s searing financial debacle could turn out to be salutary for an overleveraged Dubai, reining in local inflation as well as an insane real estate market.

Whatever the short-term pain, the U.A.E. is awash in liquidity, and Dubai’s hefty investments in infrastructure appear likely to persist and to yield future dividends. Above all, accumulated expertise should enable Dubai to continue aggressive pursuit of global market share across its service industries. That growing prowess abroad, no less than pathologies at home, is a central story about Dubai that has been missed amid the glitz.

Of course in the quote at the beginning of this post, Davidson could still be right in his recent comments quoted in Bloomberg that "If the property industry collapses in Dubai, it will be finished. Dubai's relative autonomy [i.e., from Abu Dhabi] will come to an abrupt end." For example, there's the rumor that Abu Dhabi wants an interest in Emirates Air "as the price of a multi-billion pound cash injection" to Dubai. The UAE stock markets have been closed for the holidays. Will an announcement come after the markets reopen?

Lyrics | Harold Arlen lyrics - It's Only A Paper Moon lyrics

Christopher Davidson interview

From here:

Christopher Davidson, a professor at Durham University in the U.K., talks with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about his book, ``Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success'' and the ban on the book in Dubai, the history of the emirate and possible impact of the global financial crisis on Dubai's economy.

Follow link to reach a link to the 26 minute audio interview.

I remain agnostic about whether the book was banned -- that appears to me unproved -- but Davidson does say the book still is not on the shelves in late October although he anticipates that it will be in time.

From the interview it's clear why Davidson is being relied upon by the press for good insight into the UAE. He's a sharp observer and gets to point quickly.

Opps

Financial Times gets a letter:

Sir, Roula Khalaf, in her review of Christopher Davidson’s The Vulnerability of Success, cites the author as pointing out that a road linking Abu Dhabi and Dubai was not built until the mid-1990s (“Glitzy Dubai has a darker side”, October 20).

I drove a Pontiac Firebird from Amman in Jordan to Dubai via Abu Dhabi 20 years earlier, in 1976. There was a reasonable road all the way, with the exception of a stretch between the Qatar and Abu Dhabi borders which was unpaved desert. But the excellent dual carriageway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai was by far the best paved road of the whole journey.

It is surprising that Mr Davidson, as a “rare expert on the UAE”, and your Middle East editor should both make such a simple and checkable factual error.

R.C.F. Martin,
Tonbridge, Kent, UK

Having read it, I can attest there is much more in Davidson's book although much would be difficult to confirm since it relies on personal interviews and correspondence with unnamed sources. Nor is there any general discussion of these sources and interviews.

The nature of the road linking Abu Dhabi and Dubai keeps coming up in criticism of the book. Davidson got that wrong, and it is a fairly straightforward fact to check. Abu Dhabi and Dubai were more developed and more connected than that misstatement of fact would suggest. Still, I can only say one has to read the book in its entirety and make a personal assessment of its credibility. Whether I would cite it as a reference on facts that I could not otherwise corroborate is another matter.

UAE's National Media Council

Christopher Davidson and Peter Hellyer join in some point, counterpoint.

Davidson's next book on the UAE is Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond. That will make three overlapping books. The other two are Dubai: Vulnerability of Success (Columbia University Press, 2008) and The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Lynne Rienner Press, 2005).

Dubai's debts and the perception of federal bailout support

FT (October 12th):

Dubai’s debt has soared to about 100 per cent of gross domestic product and continues to grow, leaving it vulnerable to an economic slowdown, according to Moody’s.

In a report obtained by the Financial Times, the ratings agency says Dubai would lack the financial muscle to cover its debt in the event of a systemic shock, such as a real estate collapse or an adverse geopolitical event, making it reliant on Abu Dhabi to bail it out.

“Moody’s will therefore be increasingly factoring the potential for federal support ... given that Dubai is likely to require federal support in the event of a larger-scale systemic bail-out,” the report says.
...
Dubai’s leadership also says the emirate has thrived through previous world crises and has no plans to slow down the city’s breakneck speed of development.

Moody’s does not rate Dubai’s government, but six government-related bodies have received A1 to A3 ratings on the perception of federal support.
...
The United Arab Emirates authorities, Moody’s notes, have a record of supporting failing banks in crises over the past three decades.

Officials in Abu Dhabi, whose assets dwarf Dubai’s public-record liabilities of $47bn (€35bn, £28bn) say they can be relied on to bail out struggling Dubai institutions....

Perhaps Abu Dhabi's interests are reinforced by experience with the outside influence the alternative might bring. In his book, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, Christopher M. Davidson discusses the episode in Sharjah in the 1980s (p. 254):

[A]lthough by the late 1980s Sheik Zayed had stepped in and taken care of Sheik Sultan's debts, this was not enough to prevent the collapse of Sharjah's four commercials banks in 1989 after the Sharjah government defaulted on loans of over $500 million. Most worryingly, the UAE Central Bank was unable to intervene and the door was left open for a Saudi consortium to step in and provide a rescue package. Significantly, for Sharjah, this financial assistance came at a considerable price, as Saudi Arabia gained much greater influence in the emirate....

Where does the truth lie on Davidson's book?

Christopher Davidson claims his book was banned in the UAE.

I'd like to know what his reaction is to these statements:

The National Media Council denied last night that it had banned a study of Dubai written by a former professor at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed University and said approval for publication in the UAE had been granted.

There were claims in the British press that Dr Christopher Davidson’s book, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, had been banned due to its content.

But yesterday, the NMC confirmed it had already been approved for countrywide distribution, said Peter Hellyer, the council’s information adviser.
...
Mr Hellyer said that while there had never been a ban, the study contained “a plethora of errors”.

“There is a statement that there was no tarmac highway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai until the mid-1990s, and no all-weather road between Dubai and Fujairah until 2006,” Mr Hellyer said. “These are clearly completely wrong and it makes one doubt the quality and depth of his research.”

He also took issue, he said, with a section regarding the discovery of Dubai’s oil fields.

Mr Davidson “writes that in the mid-1960s, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed, the Ruler of Dubai, created a company to operate Dubai’s on-shore oil fields,” Mr Hellyer said. “The only on-shore oil fields were not discovered until 1982.”

When I arrived in the UAE I drove the modern roads between Dubai and Fujairah. That's an odd error to make, really.

But the real questions are (1) does the book contain a "plethora" of errors, and simply a typical number of errors, and (2) what is the evidence that the book was banned?

Until I hear more, I'll go with the National Media Council's account. That said, it is worth noting that the UAE is not as open as some other societies. It has made the choice of having a National Media Council that reviews books, and can ban them from distribution. My guess is a strong majority of UAE citizens have no problem with that choice.

Thanks to samurai sam for the link.

I've ordered the book, and will evaluate it.

Addendum: Our second commenter (whose location was rather easy to determine) writes "guardian story here, more detail?!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/15/uae.denies.banned.book "

Here's some of what is in that Guardian article:

UAE booksellers, Davidson and his publisher Hurst said they had previously been told the book, published in May in the UK, was banned.

"We sent copies of the book out to the main bookshops in June," said the Hurst managing director, Michael Dwyer. "They said they had been contacted by ... [the National Media Council] telling them not to order it, that it was banned, and that if they had any copies to return them."

A query to the NMC from Mirna Mneimneh, a wholesale English non-fiction buyer in the region, met with a similar response.

"We sent a copy to the authorities," she said, "and they informed us that it has been banned."

But the UAE's National Media Council (NMC) denied it had ruled against the book, saying that no decision was made until yesterday.

"I think the distributor's agent probably got the wrong end of the stick because he was told it hadn't yet been approved, and he mistakenly took that to mean that the book was being banned," said information adviser Peter Hellyer. "He should, of course, have told the bookshops that no decision had yet been taken."

Hellyer said the NMC decided yesterday not to ban the book. "Whether or not it is distributed and sold is now entirely a matter for the distributor and the bookshops," he added.
...
Davidson welcomed the decision but queried the NMC's identification of errors, fearing that "they will produce a 200-plus list of errata which may be open to interpretation, that will greatly undermine me."

I will be surprised if the NMC produce an errata sheet. And, if it does, the audience for whom the book is intended will be able to do its own parsing and interpreting of the scholarship.

Addendum 2: See Peter Hellyer's comment. He says work on an errata sheet is going forward, and provides some examples.

Mr. Davidson is back, and praising Sharjah

The Financial Times is praising the virtues of Sharjah:

Abu Dhabi may be building a local Louvre and Guggenheim, but Sharjah has 18 museums already. They include the Sharjah Art Museum, billed as the largest gallery in the Middle East, and the Museum of Islamic Civilisation, a spectacular collection of more than 5,000 artefacts, trinkets, manuscripts and coins from across the Muslim world, housed in a restored souk on the waterfront. The Sharjah Biennial (pictured above) is the largest art event in the Arab world.

“Dubai and Abu Dhabi only have a few museums, but we have lots,” says a local woman working at the art museum, which is displaying a collection of lithographs and paintings of Middle East scenes by David Roberts, the 19th-century Scottish painter.

In addition to the many museums and galleries, visitors to Sharjah can ramble through the carefully restored and maintained parts of the old city, replete with souks and built according to the traditional rules of Arabic architecture.

“I’m quite a fan of Sharjah – it’s massively underrated,” says a British expatriate based in nearby Dubai. “It has a lot to offer culturally, and when you go to Sharjah you actually feel like you’re in the Middle East for once.”

Sharjah’s dedication to its museums and heritage has led to its being nominated Unesco’s cultural capital of the Arab world.

And who should appear in the FT report as a witness for Sharjah but Christopher Davidson (whose book has been banned by the UAE; addendum: Not banned?):

In spite of its austere reputation, Sharjah has a thriving university life. Colleges teach everything from design and international relations to architecture, business studies and engineering.

“Sharjah really was the first to try and carve out this niche of being the educational and cultural capital of the UAE,” says Mr Davidson.

Tellingly, Sheikh Sultan, ruler of Sharjah, is the chairman of the board of trustees at the American University and pays for its utilities and maintenance of the campus. [He also paid for the infrastructure and buildings although maintenance of the building interiors is paid by AUS.]

Most observers attribute Sharjah’s focus on arts, culture and education to Sheikh Sultan, who was briefly the UAE’s minister of education in the 1970s.

While many Gulf rulers are educated abroad, Sheikh Sultan went one step further and took a PhD in history at England’s Exeter University in 1985.

His doctorate thesis was a “very well-written” revisionist account of the history of 19th-century Gulf piracy, according to Mr Davidson.

What about the stories of Wahabi influence?

In 2001 it passed a law (“decency and public conduct rules and objectives”) that outlaws immodest dress and the consorting of unmarried couples. The sale, consumption or even possession of alcohol is also banned in Sharjah.

This was a departure from the situation in the 1980s, when Sharjah was a regional tourism hub, for Soviet visitors in particular, according to Christopher Davidson, a Middle East expert at Durham University in England.

Some say the move to stricter observance is a result of strings attached to money thought to have been lent by Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s. The loans were either to pay for the museum and university construction or to bail out failing banks.

Sharjah has thus earned a prudish and austere image among many foreigners.

But the severity of Islamic law there may be overstated. Women walk the streets alone and with companions. Those who wear western clothing are nearly as prevalent as those in traditional Muslim abayas.

Apart from the lack of alcohol, there is little difference between Sharjah and the rest of the UAE, says Peter Heath, chancellor of the American University of Sharjah. “We wouldn’t have a co-ed university if Sharjah really was ‘Wahabi-strict’.”

The American University is the keystone in another notable feature of Sharjah – the education sector.

Sharjah still attracts un-prudish holidaymakers from Russia and former Soviet states. I assume they travel down to neighboring Ajman for a drink. [By the way, Ajman had a 10 page advertising spread in this Sunday's NYT Magazine.] And they sun at hotel pools. I one was at a business luncheon overlooking one such pool and got an eyeful of something I'd only seen at topless Barcelona beaches -- and never elsewhere in the UAE. Admittedly, it was a wardrobe malfunction.

There is one exception to the sale of alcohol in Sharjah. The Sharjah Wanderers Sports Club was grandfathered when the emirate went dry in the 80s. As far as a ban on consumption or possession I question whether it is enforced. Muslims and non-Muslims routinely buy alcohol at the quasi-official hole-in-the-wall in Ajman and bring it back into Sharjah without a hassle (although you do hear stories of exceptions). The point is do be prudent and respectful, don't be stupid.

Suffice it to say, Sharjah should not ever be confused with Saudi Arabia.

Coming out of the shadow of Dubai

The Times:

Abu Dhabi’s rulers realise that it will take more than one-off projects to secure their future. They know that it must be based on trade, financial services and tourism – and that there is a place for such a global centre to develop between the European and Asian time zones. THE fly in the ointment is that they have a rival, Dubai, a fellow member of the United Arab Emirates which is only 90 minutes away up the desert highway.

“The UAE is supposed to be one federal state but, crucially, when it was created in 1971 each of the emirates retained the right to keep its natural resources and therefore its own economic path,” explained Christopher Davidson, a Middle East expert at Durham University. “Now we are beginning to see different emirates drift away from each other more and more.”

For Dubai, the need to diversify is more pressing. It has less than 1% of the oil reserves of Abu Dhabi and the wells are projected to run dry in 20 years. This has led to the ruling Maktoum family sanctioning a development programme in Dubai the likes of which the world has never seen before. New islands have been built alongside the world’s deepest man-made port. The world’s biggest airport – bigger than Cardiff in area – and the 1km-high Al Burj tower are under construction. This is not to mention the 500 hotels being built. In total an estimated £500 billion has been spent on new infrastructure.

Abu Dhabi looks with slight disdain at Dubai’s rapid expansion. “It’s a well known joke that they built the city first and then thought about designing it,” said Martin Freeman, a British management consultant who has worked in Abu Dhabi for three years. “Abu Dhabi is a more considered place. Here they are designing the city and then building.”

Oh dear, there's that Christopher Davidson dude, again.

An appreciation for an alternative political model is banned

Addendum: Not banned?

There's no better way to get people interested in reading a book than for the government to ban it.

Christopher Davidson, author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, said the ban was an own goal by a country that is at pains to present itself as an open society with aspirations for its higher education sector.

Dr Davidson, a lecturer at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs, has previously worked in the UAE at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. He has also acted as a consultant to the Dubai Government.

His book details the emirate's economic success and the problems it faces as oil reserves dwindle and its need for foreign investment pushes it towards socioeconomic reforms that could clash with the ideological, religious and cultural legitimacy of its monarchy.

It also analyses Dubai's awkward relationship with its federal partners in the UAE and its attractiveness as a free port to international criminal gangs and terrorists.

Dr Davidson said: "This is an academic book published by Columbia University Press, so it went through a rigorous peer-review process.

"Crucially, it is independent research, written by someone whose salary is not paid in the UAE, so there's none of the self-censorship that often prevents people who live there discussing anything beyond the bland and banal about the ruling families."
...
Dr Davidson said: "It makes it difficult for foreign academics to come to a country and try to do research when there is freedom on anything except the domestic matters of the country and the government. It's a mentality that is self-defeating for these countries, which are trying to become knowledge economies."
...
Dr Davidson added: "Ironically, the book is neither a neoconservative essay on the need for Western democratic implants, nor is it particularly supportive of the current format of domestic opposition - although it does highlight their existence, which is something of a first. If anything, the overall flavour of the study is one of appreciation for an alternative political model rooted in history, culture and the principles of consultation."

This is a book I'll be ordering online and reading.

Thanks to samuraisam for the pointer to this story; you can read UAE community blog reaction to the book ban here.

Addendum: The intrepid nzm has located a solid review of the book.

More: Davidson was quoted (and the book mentioned) by The National on August 16 of this year in a story concerning fraud allegations at Nakheel:

But the challenge to the efforts underway [by Dubai authorities to root out corruption] will be in the follow-through. Though Mr Shahin’s arrest was disclosed in April, a trial has yet to begin. Authorities have given little information about their investigation into the corporate world. Christopher Davidson, a professor at Britain’s Durham University and author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, said that “the weakness with this is it is a mystery how the authorities are operating”.

“Are there informants? The story never really comes out,” said Prof Davidson.

Cause and effect?