UAE, always united, always ahead

Here is the United Arab Emirates today celebrating its 42nd year of unity. Continuing to prove to the world its founders’ vision, that a union does not only bring power, it reinforces harmony. 42 years later the UAE’s political experiment has become one to be emulated. The 2nd of December is not just a day celebrating the passing of time, for the people of UAE it is a celebration of monumental achievements taking place year after year. A young nation it may be, only by years, certainly not by accomplishments.

The UAE’s visionary founder, the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, foresaw a boundless future for this nation. He was a man of the people and a firm believer in the betterment of all nations. This we continue to witness today through charitable work the UAE has done all over the world since its inception.

History has proven that a true leader never dies if he secures a future for his nation through a coming generation who shall carry the torch further.

Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Ruler of the UAE, continues paving the path laid by our founders. Along with his brothers the Rulers of the Emirates they have formed a leadership entity that has empowered the people of UAE to seek new heights in whatever they choose to do, all the while reminding them that coming to the aid of nations in need is not only the government’s prerogative but that of the people as well.

The unity has flourished, propelled by inspiring leadership and bound stronger by the belief of the people in its effectiveness and importance. It has indeed created harmony because this union has extended its arms beyond its seven Emirates. The UAE today is not only home for the people of the Emirates but is also home to some 200 different nationalities. People from different countries and faiths have come to live in unison under the UAE’s skies. The UAE’s embrace of different cultures has made it the country it is today. This openness made way for the intermingling of ideas and the creation of a diverse society fuelling the UAE’s movement forward.

It is heartwarming to witness the residents of the UAE who hail from different countries across the globe celebrate its achievements, realising that they too are a part of them. 

Just a few days before the UAE’s National Day the people of UAE celebrated an unprecedented feat in the Middle East, Dubai winning the Expo 2020 hosting bid. UAE nationals were ecstatic and so were its residents, we saw images of hundreds of people waving the UAE flag high and congratulating themselves on the win. The coming together in support of the Dubai Expo 2020 bid has shown us the true harmony that the UAE leadership has spread across its land.

In 42 years the unique Emirati political model and its leadership’s humane qualities have set the UAE apart from nations around the world. It has turned the world’s eyes towards the Emirates and as the world watches on it will continue to move forward.

One has to believe that had the late Sheikh Zayed been among us today he would have been proud of what his nation has achieved and that his vision never faltered. For this humble writer, this belief is motivation enough to keep driving this nation forward, always united, always ahead.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 2nd Dec.,2013  http://bit.ly/19cKXoG

Arabic version of the article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1irttOZ 

                              

Cupcake and Abaya Nation

Emirati women have always been leaders in the pursuit of self-actualisation. With the birth of the Emirates they saw their dreams manifesting into realities at the hands of our father and the founder of our beloved country the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. It is because of his extraordinary efforts in encouraging women’s education throughout the Emirates that we are here today.

In the 1970s Emirati women sought knowledge with an insatiable thirst and had the courage to venture into worlds previously unknown to them. Nevertheless they ploughed their way through male dominated arenas and proved their abilities admirably. From being mothers in their homes they became teachers in our schools, filling positions that prior to their involvement saw only hired teachers from across the Middle East. Our pioneering Emirati women of the 70s were role models then and remain ones today.

By the 1980s, Emirati women constituted 6.2 percent of the UAE’s workforce. Today this figure has risen to well above 50 percent proving beyond any doubt that their long sought-after dream of financial independence had been achieved.

Today, in a bold yet welcomed step many Emirati women have decided to leave their jobs and seek private business ventures instead. Soon after, we began to see local businesses entirely owned and run by Emirati women. At first these business ventures came in the form of abaya stores. The abaya is the Emirati woman’s national dress and therefore understandably it became her first outlet for fashion expression.

It was indeed refreshing to see Emirati women designing their own national dress for who better to translate the experience of wearing abayas into fashion than the women that live in them on a daily basis. This move transformed a staple of UAE society into the ultimate fashion accessory, pushing its prices upwards from a few hundred dirhams in the 1990s well into the thousands today. This proved that abaya stores are great business models and profitable ventures. Soon every women stopped wanting to buy abayas and started making them. The country became littered with abaya stores and, in an odd twist on the theories of supply and demand, the more stores there were and the higher the prices got, the more people demanded them.

Once the national black cape market had been saturated our Emirati woman moved on to something a little bit sweeter, dessert making. In a decision reminiscent of the 1950s American woman’s pie baking ventures the cupcake craze was born in the UAE. Some opened up cupcake stores, others baked them from home and delivered them to designated locations. This also proved to be a venture too sweet to fail and with that the skies of the Emirates filled with the smell of freshly baked cupcakes.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with replicating business models that have proved successful, it seems that Emirati women have backed themselves into an icing slathered corner. If you ever had an opportunity to walk around university fairs that showcase students’ business models you might get the impression that ideas have stagnated and become sandwiched between food and fashion.

What happens to the remaining business sectors? Have they become barely visible through the rows of abayas and the ensuing sugar rush? Young Emirati women should realise that there lies great potential and room for profits in different business areas offering them not only ease of entry but also an opportunity to be female pioneers.

Innovation is a word we live by in the UAE. Always seeking new heights, always pushing forward, we must not lose this passion for excellence. Daring to be different has its risks but brings with it change and variety. Emirati women have proven that they are worthy competitors in the work place and must now aim to prove that in all private business sector too.


This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 17th April, 2011.

UAE’S SITUATION WITH BRANDED EDUCATION

Education has always been an essential building block in the construction of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE’s founding father, His Highness the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, made educating his people his main priority and even encouraged all women to empower themselves by seeking education. Thanks to his enduring efforts, today the nations’ literacy rate is in the 97^th percentile with women’s literacy rate exceeding that of the men’s.

With the rapid growth of the UAE’s economy the country has become one big melting pot in which many cultures and nationalities mix and brew. Private schools were founded to accommodate all nationalities residing in the UAE. Every type of school imaginable has been established and before we knew it the UAE has become infested with thousands of such institutions.

Education began its hypnotised stride towards the glittery world of business where profits rule with an iron fist. Schools became establishments with nothing but revenues in mind and where quality of education is no longer a requirement. The current education system in the UAE seems to be taking cue from the Starbucks model for success, mass franchising and churning out degrees/lattes by the dozen. It is quantity not quality that matters the most.

With the increase in schools and yearly graduates a demand for more universities and higher education became imminent. And so we were off once again spending billions of Dirhams and conducting laborious negotiations in efforts to convince this university or that to agree on opening a branch in the Emirates. All the while adhering to the universities’ culture and vision even if it contradicted ours. We are so keen on opening international universities within our boundaries even if it means we should bend our rules and skew our views.

These universities are of course well known and revered in the world of education hence the hefty price tags. And although money is never a deciding factor when it comes to UAE endeavours I am afraid that one cannot measure the price of such agreements by ones and zeroes. When we forgo negotiations on certain defining elements such as the type of subjects being taught at these universities and whether or not they go against the inherent character of this country then the issue becomes bigger yet.

When we allow for university students to live in mixed dormitories then we are attempting to ignore one of the most important aspects of our culture and taking a step unprecedented in the Arab world. For no other Arab country has adhered to such a stipulation no matter where the university they were seeking came from. With all due respect to these major universities but how do the sleeping arrangements of your students hinder your vision as an educational institution? I cannot see how that would act as an obstacle to the learning experience or the university’s social setting. Many students do not reside in dormitories while attending universities and come out with the same experience and receive your degrees just the same, don’t they?

If a university, no matter how famous and respectable, cannot and will not adhere or at least be sensitive to the country’s governing religion and culture then we can certainly do without it. It is not just a matter of slapping a famous name on the doors and distributing attractive brochures to fill seats with students from every part of the world. It is a matter of teaching and educating on more than just the subjects chosen by the university, but to also teach and educate students coming from far and wide about the United Arab Emirates’ heritage and values.

The idea of building an education system based on brand names is a flawed one. Besides, a university branch is almost always a second-rate version of the original, why settle for that?

The image I have of the UAE’s future education system does not comprise thousands of international schools and hundreds of franchised universities. It is a more specific and long term one. The idea is to simply pump these same billions first into the betterment and enrichment of our public schools, and second, to build a national university, just one to fully call our own.

In the past this idea would have been just a dream because human resources and expertise were not available, and therefore, they were solicited from abroad. But today and with our outstanding 97 per cent literacy rate this dream can surely manifest into a reality.

This is not to say that we do not have some brilliant universities that have paved the way in the right direction. In 1978, Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan established the first national university, UAE University in Al-Ain. This university was to be his biggest step towards realising his dream of bringing education to his nation and providing it with the skills necessary to one day become self-sufficient. A project such as His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qassimi’s Sharjah University City is one that shines like a beacon in both the Gulf and Arab education system as a whole. The American University of Dubai and Zayed University have also found their places among the UAE’s prominent universities.

Because of such dedicated work the realisation of this dream is possible. This single UAE-built university can be a privatised one, led by prominent local experts in the field. Professors handpicked from both the Arab world and abroad for their excellence and commitment. The courses tailored to be a reflection of both the modernity of the United Arab Emirates and its cherished traditions and taught in both the Arabic and English language. The university’s name is one that bears no affiliate, one that is solely ours.

In the Arab world some universities stand out when you think of such examples. Egypt’s Cairo University, established in 1908, is one that has people from around the globe enjoying its rich education system, not because it bears the name of some famous university bought for billions of dollars, but because more than a hundred years later its own name has become worth just as much.

Let us build education institutions not for today or tomorrow but for hundreds of years to come, not for image or show but for substance and generations to come. So that some day foreign countries will pay to franchise the UAE’s name and adhere to its stipulations in pursuit of our knowledge and great achievements.  

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 24th April, 2010

EMIRATI THE LOCAL EXPAT

On some days more than others we are subjected to incidents, reactions or even words that rub us the wrong way. The reasons are many but the ultimate feeling is one. A feeling of shock and utter disturbance that tends to whack you upside the head and knock you off balance. No matter who you are I am sure that you have been whacked once or twice in your lifetime. People reacting to you differently, hesitantly, judgmentally. Reacting because you are on foreign turf, because you are a minority, because you do not belong to the familiar.

The United Arab Emirates is a country that is proud of its multicultural residents, and UAE nationals are known for their ever-welcoming and embracing attitude towards this continuous stream of newcomers. Ironically, the same cannot be said about the attitudes of some of the UAE expatriates.

As a UAE national I speak from personal experience when I say that I have been subjected to endless stares and been the topic of many hushed conversations after stepping into a number of different outlets in the country. And while in other parts of the world expatriates go to great lengths to fit in among the locals, it works quite the other way round in the Emirates. Granted, we Emiratis are a minority in our own land, for numbers rarely tell a lie, but that is by no means a reason for us to be treated as such.

This outnumbering has left many areas and outlets untrodden by the native Emirati and to many of their dwellers such a sighting is a rarity, hence the rubbernecking. When this native discovers a shiny new place and curiously wonders in he is treated as a rare species, at times an unwelcomed one. Once he is noticed, the patrons will size him up and immediately feel restless, his national dress offending them and disturbing their peace. The native immediately feels the prying eyes follow him and senses the gapers’ shoulders tense up in defence. Once he is settled and it becomes obvious that his presence is not the end of their world as they know it, things start to go back to normal, the incident is over, or is it?

For the Emirati it doesn’t quite die out. The agitation lingers through the day. It raises a barrage of questions and brings about an onslaught of reasoning in an effort to make sense of this meaningless subjugation.

Unfortunately, this issue is not constrained to looks and whispers, it has reached as far as affecting establishment rules. Some restaurants in certain Emirates can actually ban Emiratis, wearing their national dress, from entering the vicinity. Now allow me to say that such a matter is just unspeakable. Can you imagine if in Scotland a Scottish man is not allowed into a place for wearing a kilt, a Japanese woman sent packing for wearing a kimono in Japan, or Indians not allowed entrance into a restaurant in India proudly wearing their saris or kurtas? It is just unthinkable, not to mention humiliating.

Laws must be issued prohibiting establishments from enforcing rules like these on the grounds that they are purely discriminatory to both the nationals and the country’s rich tradition. For how can you fight for your rights not to be discriminated against in other parts of the world when you allow for it at home?

Nobody wants to feel like a stranger in his own home, an alien in his world. Shamefully, it is an ever-increasing phenomenon in the UAE experienced by many nationals in every aspect of their lives, be it the workplace, a random eatery or even public parks.

It is truly a sad feeling that I’m left with whenever I am faced with these head-turning, neck-breaking incidents. Once the anger of being discriminated against has subsided it is sadness that I feel. Sadness because we welcome and embrace, we speak in every mother tongue except ours and make every dweller feel at home, yet with every piercing look the price becomes painfully obvious. 

We the natives are the aliens dressed in black and white. 

This article was published in The Gulf Today on 28 March, 2010

UAE'S SLICE OF THE PIE CHART

The new generation of the UAE nationals has to not only know but be proud of who they are or else they will be lost among the crowds.

Last week His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, approved a resolution for establishing the Federal Demographic Council of the United Arab Emirates.

The council strives to develop national demographic strategies all the while gathering information, conducting studies and establishing an official demographic database.

This is indeed a great step forward towards tackling and reducing the ever-growing difference in numbers between the UAE nationals and expatriates residing in the Emirates. The UAE nationals make up less than 20 per cent of the total demographic pie chart, while the remaining 80 per cent or so is made up of expatriates from all over the world, many of whom have never interacted with a UAE national. Although the figures are not completely accurate still they are staggering and when put on paper beckon for action.

With nationals being a minority in their own homeland a call must be made to address national identity. The new generation of the UAE nationals has to not only know but be proud of who they are or else they will be lost among the crowds. But what is our national identity?

Our national identity spurs first and foremost from our religion. Islam is the UAE’s religion and the law governing this land. Without solid knowledge of what it means to be a true Muslim the country loses its soul. The Arabic language is our mother tongue and our core identifier yet most of us rarely use it.

In France, Germany and Switzerland you can barely get by using the English language. These countries refuse to use it not out of arrogance but out of fear of losing their identities and yet in the UAE, English has virtually become our first language.

Our history as a country is one of great accomplishments. Ones that we should be proud of and never forget. Unfortunately many of our kids today do not know how the UAE came into being.

All schools must teach the history of the UAE, public as well as private, for if we are happily inviting foreigners to make the UAE their home it is only fair that they know how their chosen home was envisioned and resurrected.

The future generations of the Emiratis should know that the UAE is not just a flag. They must understand that this flag is one born out of seven separate flags. Emirati children should know that what has become easily accessible to them today would not have been possible without the struggles of their founding fathers.

It is true, our country is of a tender age but its years are undoubtedly filled with accomplishments that overwhelm us with pride. It is true, our numbers are small but our love for this land defies any demographical imbalance and tips the scales in our favour every time. The United Arab Emirates is a living and thriving proof that true Arab unity is alive, and well may it forever live united under this flag, the flag born out of seven separate flags.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 15th November, 2009.