It made me very nostalgic to find the piece, because I distinctly remember reading it this time last year when I was back in Tennessee looking for a job in Dubai, and being struck by how much it echoed my own beliefs about why I want to be here. 7 months out, I'm proud to say that for as much as I sometimes rant about this place, the article's argument about why Dubai is important - and why it shouldn't be written off for its glitz and excess - still rings true.
I don't agree with everything Karabell says - for example, his claim that "In Dubai, no one cares what you believe or to which God you pray; the only criterion for success and social acceptance is the almighty dollar" is a joke given how heavily Muslims, especially local Muslims, are favored in society here. But my time in Dubai - and its sharp contrast with my travels elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds - has led me to believe that despite everything Dubai is doing wrong, there's one very big thing it's doing right.
If you don't read the whole article, at least ponder these paragraphs:
Christian-Palestinian businessmen do deals with Indian Muslims, who team up to build condos that are then sold to Malaysian millionaires or Kuwaiti sheikhs. Global investment banks facilitate contracts between the royal Maktoum family and the very American Boston Properties (led by Mortimer Zuckerman) to buy and sell prime real estate in Manhattan. And not only does Donald Trump get his name into the action, but the government of Dubai is also a major holder of Kerzner International, one of the world's premier gambling and resort companies that happens to be majority-controlled by a South African Jewish family.
That said, however, Dubai is very much an Arab city-state. It prides itself on becoming -- along with neighboring Abu Dhabi -- a Muslim model for tolerance, affluence and global success. That it manages to do so should belie prejudices in the West that the Arab world is incapable of participating in the global system until it unburdens itself of the doctrinal rigidity of some forms of Islam.
Seeing Dubai as an economic model for other parts of the Arab world is admittedly a challenge: Like Singapore, it has the virtues of a small ruling class, a tiny population and not much territory, and that is not something Egypt or Syria could emulate. But as a cultural model, or an attitude, it does offer an alternate vision of the future, one with its own excesses and vices for sure, but still free of the divisiveness and religious conflict that has become the assumed status quo in other parts of the Middle East.
Dubai should not be written off as little more than an Arab Las Vegas. It deeply challenges the assumption that Muslims, Christians and Jews cannot find common ground and work together to construct a shared future. Dubai is proof, not perfect, but real, that they can.
Something to think about the next time you roll your eyes at those palm tree-shaped islands. ;)