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Foreword

By Sir Geoffrey Arthur, K.C.M.G., formerly Political Resident

When the United Arab Emirates was established as a state at the end
of 1971 it had few admirers in the West: it was incomplete, it looked
loose and ramshackle, and it was born—so said the facile commen­
tators of the day—under the ill star of British patronage. It has since
acquired a host of fair-weather friends, but I do not recollect that a
single special correspondent of a major Western newspaper—let
alone a politician or a statesman—took the trouble to attend the
ceremony of its formation.
Those who were present on that December day were perhaps more
optimistic than their distant critics, who could not forget the
collapse, a few years earlier, of the South Arabian Federation, and
who noticed the superficial similarities, but not the deeper dif­
ferences, between the Aden Protectorates and the Shaikhdoms of the
Trucial Coast. It was not the British who created the United Arab
Emirates: it was the Rulers themselves, and in particular the Rulers
of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, supported by a few trusted advisers of
unusual ability. The new state thus attracted the support, and not the
hostility, of the other Arab countries. It had no important internal
enemies.
As Dr Heard-Bey points out, it had two further advantages: it was
blessed with well-established natural leaders and endowed with
great wealth. It is perhaps fortunate that at the time of the formation
of the Federation, that wealth was not spread evenly among the
Emirates. It was concentrated, but the hands that held it were
exceptionally generous. The attractions of the Federation were
manifest to all.
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