With its dazzling development, Dubai has become in a few years the center of attention for analysts and scientists. Its population grew from 58,971 in 1968 when the city organized the first census, to 370,800 20 years later, and finally to 2.2 million now . The city is also specialized in accumulating Guinness Records and for its extravagant architectural forms. In 2010 was built the Burj Khalifa (Khalifa tower), the tallest building in the world more than 800 m. But we can see the city branding through other achievements like those artificial islands, imitating the form of a palm or of the world.
We can find a large variety of analyses about Dubai, from Friedman saying "Dubai is where we should want the Arab world to go" as an example of progress through, to Mike Davis telling us that Dubai is no model at all. It's more like an horror show, and extravagant form of hyper-capitalism. In Dubai "all the arduous stages of commercial evolution as being telescoped or short-circuited to embrace the perfect synthesis of shopping, entertainment and architectural spectacle, on the most pharaonic scale."
[...] These take such an extended that the CEO of industry said never going to the Middle East, but I always enjoying a few days at Dubai"[7] Dubai has a long tradition of commercial development. Since the first Iranian wave of immigration in 1902, Dubai has become a key place for import export. The Emirate concentrates the most important community of Indian merchants after Oman, which certain families, holding hundreds of millions of dollars.[8] More recently, a lot of businessmen from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Mali, or Afghanistan came to stock up, and then to selling the merchandise to West Africa of former-URSS. [...]
[...] Dubai doesn't even recognize them as immigrant workers, since that will mean that they have a permanent contract. They are considered as temporary workers, and they should come back to their country when their contract is done. Of course, in fact, mostly remains in the long term, and eventually become illegal. It appears to be more a way of controlling those populations for Dubai. A lot of organizations, like the WTC, the ILO or Human Right watch, denounce this situation: wages systematically retained the first months, as a caution to prevent workers from changing of employer, no payback for expenses realized for professional purposes, like travels or visa. [...]
[...] Each emirate has a great part of autonomy, and Dubai used this autonomy to develop itself.[3] Thus, the consolidation of the state is true for Dubai itself, as an autonomous sheikdom, and as a city state, and being an autonomous city-state, like Singapore or Hong Kong has a lot of advantages. Dubai decreed an aggressive commercial policy: very low tax, almost no regulation of work, free zones in which certain laws of the country are suspended. But the state's control over society for business sake can also be understood by the structure of administration. [...]
[...] More generally, a series of global events integrate Dubai more thoroughly into the world economy. In 1973 OPEC embargo initiated an economic boom for the city. Two years later, the civil war in Lebanon destroyed banking system, high finance and to tourism in this country, for the benefit of Dubai. The Soviet Union begins its engagement in Afghanistan and the same year Iraq and Iran went to war. Among all these destabilizing events, Dubai became an island of stability for trade. [...]
[...] Generally, they stay in Dubai a few years, attracted by higher wages than in their countries of origin, and then, return to their homeland with their savings. Finally, people from India represent the large majority of the low qualified immigrant workers. With the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis they account for more than 65% of the population, up to 75% with others Asian immigrants. They built the towers, serve as domestics, and operate the ports As their access to citizenship is strictly restricted, the foreign families remain foreign over generations. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
