Feb 13, 02:32 pm
The Dubai Factory: Export / Import
George gave a lecture at the ‘Islands and Ghettoes’ seminar by Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberger, Germany, 4 June 2008
The Dubai Factory: Export / Import
Export: Nouvelles Orientales
Despite the current generic icons of Dubai’s urbanism, the mental map of the city is about Islamic imagery. Dubai manifests the contemporary interpretation of Orientalism, sensual, spectacular, artificial, subliminal and above all contemporary and global. As the Oriental manifests itself in a single image of sweeping generalization and as a stereotype, shaping of the city refers to the ageographic of symbols of power than of utility. Furthermore as the model of the Islamic city was shaped by Westerners might show an “indigenous” space, this imagery is now a major export, attracting million of tourist seeking the authenticity of the Arabesque. At the same time the city is now the major player in exporting Arab architecture is neighboring Arab states.
The contemporary expo of Orientalism in the west is now driven by Dubai Master Developers, promoting a western lifestyle in the oriental settings, representing Gulf culture as haute couture in exclusive towers of wealth or gardens in exotic islands. Welcome to nowhere.
Dubai is now manufacturing images and fantasies for the west. This iconography has now a new factory. Produced, reproduced and consumed by the international travelers of the new global culture. International architectural firms, mostly based in the United States and Western Europe, have found an expanding and profitable market in the former colonies. Their transnational practices place their designs within the more general framework of globalization and post-modernist architecture, but in some cases these categories overlap with the reality of late colonialism in ways that throw a strong light on the continued dominance of the Western canon.
Architecture serves emergent economies to express the fascination for symbols of economic development, national progress in a context of inflationary globalization and international economic competition. In the first half of the 1990s several countries in Asia invested much effort and ingenuity in the construction of skyscrapers, which not only challenged the legendary supremacy of the American high-rise, but were also meant to represent these countries’ new role on the international stage. Middle East and Gulf states have been slow to take on the construction of high-rises, despite abundance of land and investment. This is not the case anymore. Dubai serge into the global market of finance and fantasy is now expressed in the construction of hundred of high-rise buildings. International architectural firms have found an expanding and profitable market.
Urbanism in the Arab world has an interesting precedent. The Muslim Middle Ages was marked by the formation and development of new art style, which found its reflection both in the art as well as in architecture and city planning. Cities became basic generators of new art styles, and the urban culture of this period obtains a role of system forming factor. It was a period of self-identification of urban mentality and formation of new aesthetic of Muslim Urbanism. Grunebaum wrote: “From its birth Islam, by its spirit and main centers, had urban character”. This tradition is carried on. Urbanizing large areas and introducing a new aesthetic and “art” is very much inherent in the creation or the contemporary Arab city.
The discourse and visual imagery of Orientalism is laced with notions of power and superiority, formulated initially to facilitate a colonizing mission on the part of the West and perpetuated through a wide variety of discourses and policies. The language is critical to the construction. The feminine and weak Orient awaits the dominance of the West; it is a defenseless and unintelligent whole that exists for, and in terms of, its Western counterpart.
Import: Laborers Facory
Beyond the misinterpretation of Dubai by the West and as the search for a local authenticity and legitimacy is quickly lost there is a new orientalism and reality emerging. That of the millions of expatriates and immigrant workers that flood the industrial quarters for the city seeking the new world opportunity.
Beyond the iconic pandemonium for global imagery projections for dominance, Dubai’s contemporary geopolitical statistics of the city are striking. This is a city that represents the emerging Middle Eastern metropolis of the 21st century. The city aims to become the capital of the world by 2050. All indications show that it will be. And it will not be another New York.
According to 2006 World Bank statistics the financial transactions of South Asian expatriates in the GCC reached $32 billion. Indian workers constitute 42.5 per cent of the population in the UAE. At the same time the number of UAE nationals fell to 15.4 per cent as compared to 21.9 per cent in a population of 4.1 million by the end of 2005. The study also pointed out that 46.2 per cent of the expatriates had residency for more than four years which meant that there was a high percentage of expatriate workers who came back to the GCC countries even after their contracts expired. An estimated 300,000 irregular migrant workers are in the country.
The study affirmed that cooperation between labour-exporting and importing countries had become a necessity in order to find solutions to the problems that the workers face, including malpractices by labour agencies in the country of origin.
The Indian Consulate in Dubai handles an estimated 75,000 passport applications per month.
Foreigners constitute 95 percent of the workforce in the UAE. The migrant worker, who on average receives the equivalent of US$175 a month for his labor on a construction site. This stands in stark contrast to the average per capita income in the UAE of $2,106 a month.
Dubai’s population has hit 1,321,453 in 2007 according to the latest census conducted on population, residential units and establishments in the emirate.
Dubai’s employment rate highest in the world. The employment rate in the emirate of Dubai has reached 97.4%.
He said the total population of Dubai has reached 1,370,714 and out of them 78% are males and 22% females. The population of Dubai increases by 25,000 per month. This is particularly big given the total population of just over 1.3 million.
While taxi drivers and hotel workers get a salary of just 1,750 dirhams a month (about US$600)—construction workers fare even worse. Unskilled labourers typically get only 600 dirhams (about US$200). These workers typically remit 75-80 percent of their wages back to their families. But the fall in the value of the dollar to which the dirham is linked has meant that the value of their remittances has fallen by 25-30 percent. At the same time prices—everything has to be imported—have risen by at least 9-10 percent.
Recruitment agencies openly flout the law prohibiting them from charging workers for visa fees ($55), visa insurance fees ($273) and airline tickets, which employers should pay. Those workers that can do so borrow the money, which can take two years to pay back, from friends and family. Others are forced to take loans from the recruitment agencies at exorbitant rates of interest. It is not unknown for the agencies to deduct money from workers’ salaries to cover expenses such as visa renewal, work permit card or health card costs that the employers should pay.
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