Dubai: chimera Sheikhdom's future promises excess, sin, sadistic violence-(takes your breath away)

SFGATE.COM ^ | JULY 24, 2005 | MIKE DAVIS

[CHARLITE]

As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Colosseum are clearly visible.

In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The palms are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chockablock with full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas.

As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible one-half mile high, the equivalent of the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself.

At the airport, the hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Capt. Nemo in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel's famed underwater fireworks, a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." The structure has a multilevel fail-safe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft.

[CHARLITE]

Unbelievable! Definitely worth reading the whole piece. It gets much more "detailed."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/24/ING6RDRP0H1.DTL&type=printable

[CHARLITE]

Unusual article about the good, the bad and ......the very ugly, in Dubai.

Char

[Siobhan]

Yet the future that he is building in Dubai -- to the applause of billionaires and transnational corporations everywhere -- looks like nothing so much as a nightmare of the past: Walt Disney meets Albert Speer on the shores of Araby.

[claudiustg]

So why aren't the Islamists blowing the crap out of this little piece of decadence?

[ttsmi]

Dawood Ibrahim's daughter was married in Dubai yesterday. Dawood is the mafia don from Bombay who is charged with the infamous Bombay blasts - he now lives a life of luxury in Karachi under the protection of Pakistan's ISI. He has also been declared as a terrorist by the US.

[CHARLITE]

"So why aren't the Islamists blowing the crap out of this little piece of decadence?"

BINGO! That was exactly what I thought when I finished reading this. If these terrorists are "fighting for the purity of Islam," then how would they describe this spectacle of "sinful excess" in Dubai? If "corruption" is a product of "western capitalism," then what is this, in Dubai?

Did Christians from Tennessee build this?

Thanks for your excellent remarks!

Char :)

[denydenydeny]

I get the very distinct feeling that the author is not as upset about Dubai's human trafficking and child slavery--which in any case happens all over the Muslim world, often with full religious sanction--but about the Evil Capitalism on display there.

Dubai is the kind of place that Mohamed Atta, like the author, hated. This is one of the points where the beliefs of Islamic head-choppers and granola-eating hippies coincide exactly: They hate flashy developed cities, and they both want to impose their mutual vision of dusty mud-huts for all on the world.

On the other hand, I get a very strong feeling that Sheikh Mo, whatever else might be said about him, will never fly planes into buildings.

[durasell]

Disneyland for adults. Hipster actors and hedge fund guys are snapping up the condos. Eventually they'll discover it's just a re-make of L.A.

[RichInOC]

You don't s**t where you eat. That's why.

[CHARLITE]

"I get a very strong feeling that Sheikh Mo, whatever else might be said about him, will never fly planes into buildings."

Fabulous comment, deny! Very astute. You see, the good Sheik is a thoroughly modern, up-to-date, 21st century Muslim. He gets the picture. So do his pals, the "royals" in Saudi Arabia. Now, if they can just convince their mud-hut, cave-dwelling killer types to move on up through 14 centuries in a hurry, we might get a handle on the war on terror.

Thanks for your comments, denydenydeny!!!

Char :)

[durasell]

Don't be so quick on that "they're just like us" thing. The idea of "peasantry" and royal privilege is very much ingrained, despite the fancy suits and nice cars.

[hineybona]

The last thing the good Sheiks want to do is convince their mud hut populace to move up. Keep them stupid and poor and they will follow them like sheep.The last thing they want is an informed and modern populace.

[CHARLITE]

It is so frustrating to see this huge dichotomy between the ultra-dazzlingly rich Muslims (sheiks, dictators and potentates) and the wretchedly poor.........while the big shots blame the poverty of their "peasant class" on America! Talk about getting us fighting mad!!

Char

[hineybona]

yep..failed societies ruled by BIG money mongers. They want their people poor ..More for them ..

[denydenydeny]

Thanks for the kind words. I expanded the post into a larger blog entry.

[TXnMA]

In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The palms are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chockablock with full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas.

This article really needs pictures...