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| Philip Game | profile | all galleries >> Photoblogs: stories from far and wide >> Pearl of Arabia, 1983-85 | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
My Arabian home for two years was a lavish apartment above the main street of Abu Dhabi, federal capital of the fabulously wealthy United Arab Emirates. Here I glimpsed the reality behind the popular stereotypes of the oil-rich Gulf Arab.
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Until the mid 1960's Abu Dhabi - labelled Home of the Gazelle by some Bedouin hunting party - was no more than a single mud fort and a cluster of palm thatch huts. Older residents who remembered quite vividly the days before petroleum.
The city bore the unmistakable stamp of one man: the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founding president of the UAE whose austere, bearded visage gazed down at us in every foyer.
British explorer Wilfred wrote admiringly in his classic "Arabian Sands" of his first encounters with Zayed in the 1950s, although later he would express his bitter disappointment at the loss of the traditional desert ways.
I revelled in views on three sides: to the teeming Indian shantytown behind, to Hamdan Street five floors below, reawakening from its torpor in the cool of dusk; and a glimpse of the glittering turquoise waters of the Gulf.
May 2010: the Capital Garden park remains unchanged, but the former open spaces these days are packed with parked cars. The Corniche skyline is unrecognisable.
Amongst Abu Dhabi’s expatriates the most cherished social ritual was the Hash House Harriers, that loose fraternity of once-a-week joggers. Non Anglo-Saxons couldn't always grasp the simple bliss of spilling beer over one another's heads to wash off the sweat. Away from home one weekend, we spilt back into the lobby of a provincial Hilton, blundering sweaty and breathless onto a red carpet awaiting the arrival of some sheikh at some tribal majlis or audience, confronted by his assembled honour guard of loyal retainers with their ancient rifles and bandoliers.
Nearby Sharjah has preserved much of its historic past, the traditional fishing boats bobbing at the quay near the palm barasti thatched market stalls, where Arabs still took cardamom-flavoured coffee poured from the distinctive beaked brass pot. The Bastakia quarter preserved its mud brick walled houses, their tall, eerie wind towers catching any hint of a breeze; an elderly pearl dealer was still open for business, so too the Indian apothecary.
Usually the Gulf Arabs remained aloof, a privileged minority in their own country, keeping us guessing as to their private lives inside those lavish villas and tinted limousine windows. Their real diversions were visible only from rare glimpses or sometimes from the accounts of western-born wives, forbidden most outings, rarely allowed to seek work, their passports withheld. Some adapted slowly to their new life, some were desperate to leave.
When Prince Hamad, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, was to be married the public festivities continued for weeks, including massed displays of rainbow-striped parachutists, Mercedes stunt driving and gifts of gold-plated Uzi machine guns. But never once was the bride identified, sighted or her existence even mentioned.
Outside town was the camel racetrack, so wide the far side was barely visible. The jockeys were young boys, the mounts bred and nurtured as carefully as any nag - sometimes with help from Australian veterinarians. A hundred metres from the viewing stand, set against the endless undulating dunes, in the full glare of the sun, another sign heralded the Private Place for Ladies.
One clue to local women's scope for self fulfilment came when my phone began to ring after hours. After a few suppressed giggles, the call would cut off - cloistered Arab women chasing vicarious thrills. Yet I have a press clipping which reports: "Jail, flogging for man who harassed housewife on phone"...
Undoubtedly Gulf women still suffer constraints unimaginable to their Western sisters. Even so, the story of one older woman, reported in the local press, was a salutary reminder of much tougher times. Hamda Al Hamili gave thanks that the days of hard labour are gone forever, toiling under the blazing sun to refill the water tanks of the pearling dhows, are gone forever. She did treasure fond memories too: of traditional dancing in the moonlight amidst the sand dunes; of the fierce code of honour which prevailed along the Pirate Coast.
Up the coastal highway from Abu Dhabi the older trading ports of the Pirate Coast offered a rich past to be discovered. Along Dubai's Creek, traditional dhows still loaded cargoes for Persian Gulf ports, Mombasa or Zanzibar down the East African coast or slipped gold into Indian waters.
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