Over the last two or three years, there has been a new sport invented by lazy British journalists known as Dubai bashing. The premise is quite simple, these boys and girls hop onto a jet like Emirates, for example, and pop into a hotel like any one of the Jumaireh International Hotels after been driven by one the Dubai Taxi company cars. They then do a day or two trip in an air conditioned car travelling ever so smoothly on the pristine roads of Dubai to find a good story to show where Dubai has gone wrong. Indeed, to these vultures, the idea that a start up town like Dubai could offer wonders in three decades whereas it took their town centuries seems to rub them the wrong way. Mind you, this doesn’t apply to all British journalists of whom I have nothing but the highest praise for their candor and integrity.

Take for example two such journalists—Johan Hari and A. A. Gill. Both of them wrote scathing reviews of what Dubai is all about... or at least what they thought Dubai should be and then went in search of proof to back up their biased view. The one who really did surprise me was Johan as I thought that he was a liberal fighting for justice. Suffice to say, they found all the ammunition that they were looking for. Yes Dubai is a city build on grandeur but then if I looked at all great cities, they too had such great aspirations. Take London for example. The whole royal pageant is nothing if not a waste of money and resources but it is something that makes London special. How about New York with its highly inefficient skyscrapers? They too serve no purpose other than to say here I am. Yet we love these cities because of their excesses. When all else fails, these lazy journalists who cry foul at the treatment of laborers here, and I am not about to defend what some companies do to their employees as I too find them despicable, should really look into their own backyards regarding treatment of employees before attacking others. In the hospitality industry, the number of mistreated back staff is notorious in places like London or Paris. How about the sweatshops that are supposed to be illegal in New York that still function in the fashion district? How come no one writes up about them? Oh! Wait! They do. Except no one cares that much about them. Here with Dubai, it is yet another reason to show the Arabs are exploitative and uncaring. The next time you are in the upper crust part of society in any of the capitals of the developed world, please pay a closer attention to the privileged and what they say about their own fellow compatriots from a lower economical class let alone those who have migrated to their hallowed shores.

No I don’t think Dubai is perfect but then again I don’t think any city is perfect. A city and its people are like a constantly changing work of art. It is city that buzzes with the lives of their people and what they wish to achieve. All cities have their flaws and that is what makes it unique and beautiful. A mannequin doll is a perfect formation of a human yet it is hollow, void of a soul. It has no flaws and thus because of this, people will look at it and quickly move on. What attracts us and fascinates us enough to stay engaged are the quirks and imperfections that only a human can offer us and not a perfect idolized version of a human.

Viva Dubai! Long may it thrive flaws and all.