Page 215 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

212 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

was to meet the cost of the construction of that section of the coastal highway
which was to run through the Saudi corridor west of the Sabkhat Matti.
While Zayid, whether in his capacity as president of the U A E or in his role as
ruler of Abu Dhabi, seems to have placed his trust in a policy of conciliation to

secure the survival of the federation, Rashid at Dubai does not seem to care
whether it lives or dies. Saqr ibn Muhammad of Ras al-Khaimah feels much
the same way. Rashid, as already observed, does not trouble to conceal his
exasperation with what he regards as the incompetence of the federal govern­
ment at Abu Dhabi and the uselessness as well as the meddling propensities of

the federal bureaucracy. He believes that Dubai could without much difficulty
survive the collapse of the federation and make its own way as an independent
shaikhdom. He has not bothered to cultivate close relations with any of the
larger Arab states, nor does he waste his time in proclaiming his sympathy with
the more popular pan-Arab causes. He sees little cause for alarm in any
intentions Saudi Arabia may harbour towards the U A E, and until the fall of the

shah he believed that, in the event of the federation’s disintegration, he could
confidently look to Tehran for help in preserving the independence and
prosperity of Dubai. He may not feel so sanguine today.
Dubai, like Bahrain, is a modern replica of the city states that flourished
along the shores of the Gulf in the middle ages - Siraf and Qais, Rishahr and

Hormuz, Bahrain itself. They grew and prospered in the absence of any
adjacent power strong enough to subdue them, while at the same time they
depended upon the relative stability of the lands surrounding them to maintain
their prosperity. Things are very different in the Gulf today. Just as Siraf and
Qais, Rishahr and Hormuz were swept away by the tide of great events - the
Qarmatian revolt, the fall of the Abbasid caliphate, the Mongol invasions, the
rise of the Safavids and the appearance of the Portuguese - so, too, may Dubai

and Bahrain be overtaken by calamities outside their power to avert. It is hard
to escape the feeling that they, along with all the other little rich oil shaikhdoms
along the Arabian shore, repose in the still eye of a steadily gathering storm.

Anyone who looks at all closely at the internal condition of the Arabian states of
the Gulf today cannot fail to be struck by the uneasiness which lies beneath the
atmosphere of carnival. Too much has happened too quickly - material afflu­
ence, the influx of foreigners, the impact of the outside world - for anything to
have been digested thoroughly. It has been a most peculiar, even singular,
transformation, in the sense that it has within the space of a single generation -

and in some instances half that time - bridged the entire gap between a
primitive, subsistence economy and the millenarian condition, where wealth is
created without effort on the part of those who are its principal beneficiaries.
The frenzy of activity which now grips the Gulf is not that associated in norma
human experience with the stages of agricultural, industrial or technological
revolution^ leading to the creation of an increasingly complex economy which