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Dubai Dreams
INSIDE the Kingdom of Bling
by Raymond Barrett

Paperback, 240 pp.
Price: £12.99
ISBN: 9781857885279
 

INSIDE The Kingdom of Bling

Dubai has become the watchword for all things new, glittering and very bling - a billionaire’s dreamworld and a haven for international expatriates promising a fantasy land of tax-free fun, sun and sin.  

In less than a generation, this small city-state on the Arabian Gulf has been transformed from a sleepy smuggler’s cove to a global financial and entertainment hub, home to a number of world records, including the world’s tallest building, the largest man-made island and the biggest shopping mall. But what is life really like for the people who live and work in the city of Dubai, beyond the towering skyscrapers, luxury resorts and opulent mansions?

Rather than just desert Sheikhs and designer-clad Emiratis, Raymond Barrett also encounters a dizzy melange of expatriates - Iranians, Ethiopians, Indians, Afghans, British and Chinese - all living their own version of the Dubai Dream. Behind the hyperbole and marketing spin, what are the real stories the city has to tell?

From seven-star hotels to immigrant labour camps, from Sunni mosques to Hindu temples and from the courthouse to a back-alley speakeasy, Barrett draws a fascinating picture of the brave new world emerging from these desert sands. He reveals the hidden side of this playboy paradise and considers whether Dubai is a doomed Plastic Arabia or an authentic 21st-century success story. 

"Raymond Barrett's portrait of the rhinestone emirate is beautifully observed, packed with surprises, epigrams and sage analysis. Dubai, as much a state of mind as city-state, has long been crying out for such a psychogeography as this." Tim Mackintosh-Smith, author of Yemen: Travels in a Dictionary Land and visiting lecturer at the Royal Geographic Society and Harvard's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies.

Raymond Barrett has lived in the Middle East for nearly a decade and writes regularly on the region for Ireland's Sunday Business Post. He has also written for newspapers across the Middle East and in the United States.

Contents: The Kingdom of Bling / Dubai Dreams / Genuine Fake / Maktoum Inc. / Hail Britannia / The Best City in India / Bringing the Mountain / From a Doodle to a Theme Park / Looking for a Lost Arabia / City of Gold / Shine on You Crazy Diamond / East of Eden / Dirty Linen / Secret Dubai Diary / First Among Equals / She Sells Sanctuary / Last Orders / Cameos

Edited Extract from the Prologue of Dubai Dreams (c) Raymond Barrett 2009
“Dubai is now a superlative city. Within its municipal borders you can find constructions with global ambitions: the tallest building in the world, the largest shopping mall, the most luxurious hotel.  In less than a generation, a once diminutive port town has transformed itself into an instantly recognizable brand, synonymous with wealth and luxury.

But a dream can’t last forever.  The Dubai Dream was built not on oil but on a tsunami of borrowed money, and this in turn fuelled a property bubble of epic proportions which finally popped with a resonance that left the city reeling.  Though the high-reaching skylines of Shanghai and Mumbai also exclaim WELCOME TO THE FUTURE, these were a result and a reflection of economic virility. Dubai, on the other hand, used construction as a means to growth,  a model of development that has since been called into question.

I experienced a Dubai that did not fit the one-dimensional portraits painted by the braying jackals of gloom or the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil publicity reps ...
The questions I sought to answer were not readily quantifiable, resonating deeper than property prices.  What was it really like to live in a city that used exclamation marks to punctuate every aspect of itself? Was there any substance to the claims of prosperity, dynamism and success? Where were the intersections of experience that would ultimately lead to a deeper true understanding of place? And who were the people who fleshed out the stories that gave life to the dream, behind the brilliance the bluster and the bling?”

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