Page 198 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Sorcerers’ Apprentices 195

than Baluchi and Pathan labourers) who work as clerks, artisans and shop­
keepers; and above them again are the ‘northern’ Arabs, predominantly Pales­
tinians, Egyptians and Lebanese, who earn their living as government clerks,

teachers, doctors, skilled tradesmen and businessmen. Only a handful of the
several thousand Europeans working in the three shaikhdoms are employed by
local firms or governments. The great majority are employees of overseas firms
who remain for only a specified period of service.
As was only to have been expected, the great inflow of immigrants into Abu
Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, together with the riches derived from oil produc­

tion and the scale of material consumption which these have permitted, has
altered these shaikhdoms out of all recognition, rendering them less distinctly
Arabian in character and aspect and more manifestly Levantine. They are, in
effect, now city states, and their tribal inhabitants have, to a large extent,

become urbanized. (The condition of the other member shaikhdoms of the
U A E has not altered so dramatically: for instance, 64 per cent of the population
of Fujairah and 40 per cent of that of Ras al-Khaimah are still engaged in
agriculture. In Dubai, in contrast, the figure is 2 per cent.) Again, as might
have been expected, the rapid inflow of Uitlanders has generated racial, religi­

ous and cultural tensions, along with a marked degree of economic dissatisfac­
tion, occasioned by the pronounced disparities in effort and reward between the
immigrant community and the indigenous inhabitants, and within the immi­
grant community itself. To keep their subjects contented, the rulers of Abu

Dhabi and Dubai, like those of Kuwait and Qatar before them, have disbursed
a considerable portion of their oil revenues in the form of social services,
factitious employment and straight grants of cash. The native Arab tribesmen
are given free or subsidized housing, free education, free medical treatment,
and free electricity and water. Jobs are created for them, generally in one
department of government or another or by reserving to them a monopoly of

particular occupations, such as motor vehicle haulage. Since the tribesmen are
nearly all illiterate and devoid of the skills needed for any job above that of
watchman or driver, a system of dual appointments has grown up - of

foreigners with the required skills and of natives without them. This is particu­
larly true both of the local governments and of the federal government of the
UAE, which alone employs over 28,000 people, more or less uselessly.
With minor and trifling exceptions, these various benefits are confined to the
indigenous inhabitants of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The Uitlanders, who do all
the work that the native tribesmen cannot or will not do for themselves, are
denied them. Some of the Uitlanders, however, feel no sense of deprivation,

since they have profited exceedingly from the careless outpouring of money
rom the state coffers, especially in Abu Dhabi. Merchants, contractors,
entrepreneurs, influence pedlars, consultants and the like all have managed to
line their pockets to the full. Of those in paid employment, the northern Arabs

m government service, whether professional men or administrative