Page 422 - UAE Truncal States

The Formation of the Federation
of the drive to federal unity. Thus each step in itself was only a
compromise; the net result of many such steps was that over the
years regional autonomy was drastically reduced and federal
authority increased. That this was possible, even in the sensitive field
of the prestigious armed forces and with the prevailing controversies
over how best to guarantee the national security, bears witness to the
fact that all the seven Rulers continue to subscribe to the basic
objective of maintaining the federal State.
There is therefore little reason to see as the root of the Federation’s
domestic crises and disputes a mood of secession or an urge to slip
away from under the hand of the central government. This would
be regarded as an unconstructive and negative approach. The
federation’s crises are in all their various degrees of severity
constructive and positive in nature. The most frequent criticism by
individual Emirates’ governments of the Federation itself is that the
federation is not in all aspects as they themselves would like it to be,
and that they still do not benefit from it as much as they had hoped.
A reason for concern must be that in spite of this fundamentally
positive attitude most Emirates’ governments frequently tend to be
selfish. The typical initial reaction to any new situation is often to
determine first what is best for the individual Emirate, and not what
is best for the whole Stale. Thus, for example, the spirit in which
border disputes within the UAE are pursued is more detrimental to
the well-being of the whole Slate than the actual dispute itself.162
Possibly a more serious weakness still is the reluctance or the
inability of the seven Rulers to play collectively a more active and
imaginative role as the most important constitutional body, the
Supreme Council. This aspect will be considered again below.

Foreign crises
Except for military occupation of part of a federal State by another
State, the break-up of a federation is ultimately caused by lack of
internal cohesion. Outside events and pressures may highlight
internal weaknesses, and the inability to withstand such pressures
may even precipitate the disintegration of that federation. Thus
developments abroad have had some effects on the UAE’s internal
cohesion, but they could not in themselves have precipitated a
constitutional crisis.
Within weeks of the formation of the Federation the new
government’s original declared intention of total non-alignment, and
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