Dubai #1: Ignored

Dubai. The UAE. The posterchild of how a country can continue to be rich, even when the oil runs out. The story behind that is interesting, as I learnt as I read this (brief) history of Dubai by Tomas Pueyo.

(Note: Through this blog, Dubai means the entire emirate by the same name, not just the one city named Dubai).

 

The founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, feared this:

“My grandfather rode a camel; my father rode a camel. I ride a Mercedes. My son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson will ride a Land Rover. But his son will ride a camel.”

Al Maktoum wanted to avoid that last line. And boy, has he succeeded:

“Today, Dubai is not only a bustling city. It’s one of the most dynamic city-states on Earth.”

 

From ancient times, Dubai lay on/close to the trade routes (Mesopotamia to Persia and China; Mesopotamia to India and South East Asia). But that never helped! Dubai, after all, was just a desert, so nobody stopped there, nothing got traded in Dubai. Even at the peak of Muslim power.

 

Then the “Age of Discovery” happened with the Europeans. The new trade routes started in Europe, rounded Africa onto India and South East Asia. The entire Persian Gulf (including Dubai) got bypassed. 


The only economic activity worth a mention from that period was the pearl industry. Why? The Persian Gulf had the right conditions for pearls. (1) Shallow, so lots of sunlight reaches the bottom, thus more plankton, more food for oysters. (2) Lot of sunlight, so warm, suiting the oysters. (3) Practically no rainfall, so no rivers, hence no mud and silt getting dumped into the waters. (4)  Shallow again, making it possible for divers to collect pearls fairly easily.

 

In the 1930’s, Japan found a way to cultivate pearls, and the industry in the Persian Gulf got wiped out. Dubai and the neighbourhood went back to being fishing villages till as recently as the 1950’s…

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