Dubai and the UAE are not what Americans think they are

When people hear that we spent three months in the UAE, their reaction usually is something like, “You lucky dog! That place looks fabulous!”

It's true. Some of the buildings that are going up there truly are amazing, and they are building islands with fancy hotels and homes on them, but you know, “Looks can be deceiving.”

I'll tell a story I heard over there the first month we were there. We went to an art show in our emirate, Ras al Khaimah, and I met an American ex-pat who had lived there for a decade or so. I asked her how she liked it, and she said, “Do you remember the movie, 'The Fly?'” I said I did. Then she said, “Well, remember when Jeff Goldblum had the two transporters, and he put a nice, thick steak into one, and pushed the button. The steak then appeared in the second transporter, and it looked the same. It looked like the same steak, seemed like the same steak, but when you cut into it, it was horrible. That's what the UAE is like. I call it 'The Fly Syndrome.' It may look good on the surface, but when you cut into it, it's horrible.”

I'd say that about sums up the UAE. Like most other places, visiting the place and living there are two different things.

The dirty little secret is that Dubai and the UAE are third world countries with money – at least for now. But they have third world ideas about how life is to be lived, and it doesn't include such things as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the due process of law.

I walked into the Dubai World Cup media center in March, and when I opened the souvenir magazine, I almost laughed. There, on the first page was something called, “Ruler's Message,” with a photo of the unsmiling Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

So the place is “ruled” by people whose only claim to legitimacy is the fact that a couple of generations ago, their great grandfathers were the toughest guys in the tribe, so now they get to decide how people get treated, and how the money gets spent. Basically, it seems, other people don't get treated very well, and the money gets blown on whatever crazy idea the ruler comes up with.

The stories of how the people who actually work in the UAE – 90% of whom are not local – are rife with horror tales. The guys doing the construction work make 50 cents an hour ... if they get paid at all. Their passports are taken from them when they enter the country so that they can't go home again. They live 10 in a room in un-air conditioned places. The temperatures get to be 130 degrees or so in the summer.

Filipina women who come to work as maids often find themselves trapped, unable to leave their employers, worked 12-14 hours a day, often unpaid, and, according to an ex-pat friend who had been there for a decade and a half, subject to sexual assault by the males in the family.

People in America complain – rightly – that there are too many lawyers and too many lawsuits in America. But try living in a place where the law is what the sheikh says it is. If an Emirati runs into you going 140 miles per hour, you are the one who may end up in jail. If you get laid off from work, your bank account can be frozen, even if you've never bounced a check. If you have a contract whose other side is a company owned by the ruling family, good luck enforcing that thing. They can cut you loose without a second thought and without any compensation.

You see, you don't really understand the UAE until you realize that the place is set up to benefit the ruling families. And, evidently, you don't get to be the ruler by being Mr. Nice Guy.

Right now, the UAE is hurting, though they don't want that to get out to the world. Oil revenues aren't what they were, multinational corporations are cutting back, not expanding to new places like Dubai, and the UAE seems to be banking on becoming a high-priced tourist destination. Every emirate seems to be building an island with fancy resorts on it. One problem ... people are being laid off in the UAE, and they are leaving in droves, so the residences are sitting there empty while the building keeps going on.

There are several big problems with the idea of the UAE as a tourist destination. For one thing, the weather is good about three months a year, maybe four at the most. After that, it's pretty much over 100 degrees every day and humid. Going outside is like sticking your head in an oven.

For another thing, what do you do when you get there? After you see the buildings and go to the shopping malls – where there are no bargains – then what do you do? This place is Las Vegas without gambling, Disney World without the rides. There's no history to see, and you won't get to mingle with the locals since they consider themselves above people who have to work for a living, so what actually do they think will draw the tourists?

True story: There are a lot of septic tanks in the UAE, and drivers are hired to go and pump them out. Then they are supposed to take the sewage to a treatment plant in the desert. The only problem is that they are paid by the load, and the lines to get into the place are long, so the longer they sit waiting, the less money they make. Some came up with a solution. They started dumping their loads into storm sewers in Dubai. Which went right into the ocean, next to the Royal Yacht Club. They tried to cover that up, but people notice when raw sewage washes up on the beaches.

Would I go back to Dubai? No. There's really nothing to see there. The people don't make anything, so there are no local crafts to buy. There is no history, so that's out. The weather is lousy most of the time, unless you like living in a sauna. And the buildings seem phony. They built a shopping center with an Egyptian theme, but the stores are the same you'd find in any big American city. Yes, they do have a ski slope in one of them. You skiers want to pay more for a couple of hours on man-made snow than a lift ticket to Deer Valley, Vail or Aspen? Probably not.

The UAE is a facade. They want to seem to be just like the West, but a place that still has rulers with unlimited powers can hardly be called an enlightened place to live. Sure, there are people who have lived there a long time. We met some. But they all were aware of the thin ice they all were treading. The UAE? It's “The Fly Syndrome.” That sums it up pretty well.