Happy Days are Here Again

Why? Because Mohamed AR Galadari says so!
Oh lordy, lord. This is simply too good to pass up, mainly because the man is clearly deranged, probably from spending too long exploring the deepest recesses of his rectum. Well, here's Marwan to poke him in the eye with a no.2 HB pencil and not offer him any cotton wool.
Let's get stuck in, shall we?

DUBAI now inspires awe. And Dubai charms all. This is not the Dubai that we saw some 30 years ago and not even the Dubai that we had moved around some 10 years ago.

Whose awe? What monument to human creation has Dubai produced? The Burj Al Arab? Product of foreign engineeers and planners? Anything in science? Sport? Heaven forbid, the Arts.
And for sure it's got charm. Like a lounge lizard with a gold medallion and a slicked back hairdo. You'd love to turn your daughter over to that guy.
Btw, MARG (or Marge, you don't mind if I call you that, do you? Always did love the Simpsons) This sure isn't the Dubai we saw 10 years ago. 10 years ago we could move around. Thank you, lousy traffic conditions!

And, today’s Dubai will not be tomorrow’s Dubai. When dreams turn into reality, and they do, Dubai will one day shape itself to be the centre of the world, as the slogan goes.

I bloody well hope todays Dubai isn't tomorrows. Or, to quote the angel Gabriel from Constantine, '...we're fucked.' Incidentally, I've mentioned this before, but I've had a recurring dream of being Batman. However, it is with great sadness that Marwan must report he has not become a wealthy playboy, with a shadowy tortured crimefighting existence. Nor will he be much cop at Bataranging around the city with his advanced vertigo. Still, dreams become reality! Because Marge Said So.
And Oh Marge! How you love to play the prophet! Surely Dubai will be the center of the world, when that 9.5 earthquake hits Iran and tears the Persian Gulf apart. Maybe Dubai will simply rise on a bed of rock, broadband connections intact, above the geological cataclysm, till it comes to rest a mile in the sky. Naturally, the Indians must live below in the wastelands. We'll give them an elevator so they can come shopping occasionally and clean our loos.

Dear readers

I'm sorry, Marge, but FUCK YOU very much, I'm not your dear anything. The day you earn the right to condescendingly leer me on my morning paper is the day I tie a noose around my genitals and attempt to use them as the base for a bungee cord.

, we are already living in the midst of many of the world’s ‘first’, ‘largest’ and ‘tallest’ monuments built by the sheer strength of an inner dynamism that drives the growth of this city. More are in the making. And, Dubai is already claiming to possess the world’s best standards of living — better than the West and better than the best.

You should open a 24 hour Burger King, Marge, because you're rustling up some fine Double Whoppers there. Dubai's ozymandian monuments to itself are nothing more than empty phallic addenda, literal castles in the sky that perform no useful function except to titillate the architects who built them and blind the motorists who drive past with their shiny reflective exteriors. They aren't built by your 'dynamism', they're the result of the systematic exploitation of a poor, defenceless underclass, a dark faceless mass of slaves who toil unendingly to make your shiny baubles. The 'growth' of your city is driven by exploitation, corruption, collusion and profiteering off the rising cost of a rapidly diminishing natural resource.

By the way, it must truly take Titanic-sized testicles to claim Dubai has one of the best standards of living in the world. Tell that the middle class whose bellies have been ripped out by the impossible inflation. Tell that to the teaboys and office workers who are forced to sleep on roofs, because their building doesn't receive running electricity. Tell that to the foreign women who are forced into prostitution on the alleyways and corners of Dubai. Tell that to the thousands of children who have been born and raised in Dubai but have no more right to citizenship than a stray alley cat rummaging in the bins. Tell it to the thousands who have died in secret for infractions that wouldn't lift an eyebrow in the 'barbaric' West. Tell it to the untold numbers of foetuses aborted in your supposedly 'Muslim' country so that your unable-to-keep-it-in-their-pants natives could keep their flimsy veil of honour.
Let me sum it up very easy for your shot-glass sized cerebrum: In the West, I can say what I want. As McDonald's won't say about Dubai, "I'm lovin it."

We have the best roads, best residential areas, best civic and tourism infrastructure, and the best hotels and shopping malls. Above all, we have the best of the best systems of administration. So much so, Dubai is now planning to market its “systems and governance” to the outside world.

Wow, I actually agree with you there, Marge. You have the best roads. Roads so good that the public treats it like a racetrack, taking my beautiful automobile hobby and tainting it with their crass attempts to emulate the very real skill of driving. Great 'civic and tourism infrastructure'. It's so good that they've eradicated racism from the face of the earth! By pretending it doesn't exist. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil-or-I'll-cut-your-fucking-throat-out is their mantra. And let's have a hear, hear for your shopping malls, all of which are beautifully standardised with precisely the same shops and stores in each bloody one, leaving absolutely no room for creativity! Because obviously, when I go shopping, what I want is another fucking McDonald's Every 20m!
Lord help us if Dubai is planning to sell its ideas worldwide. That's great, I can now be deported from Paris for adultery! Or get a meaningless slap on the wrist fine for repeatedly raping my Javanese houseboy!

We may have a grievance or two. Who doesn’t? Yet, who is not fascinated by this growth that benefits us all in so many ways? And who isn’t thankful to all those who have made this progress possible the hundreds of thousands of hands that worked in unison, guided as they were with proper planning, direction and above all, an excellent and exemplary leadership. Dubai, in many ways, has made the impossible possible.

Talk about understatement. Grievance or two? Take a look at your own Letters page, Marge! They're filled with people who can't stop talking about how WELL and FAIRLY Dubai is treating them! We also get lovely couplets every day from folks whose rent hasn't gone up every six months, praising their landlords to high heaven!
Boy oh boy, am I thankful. Thankful for the planning and direction that sees Dubai attempting a rail system a century after the rest of the world has, while creating a road network only equalled by treacherous Peruvian single lane tracks in its caring for users. Dubai sure has made the impossible possible - look how many Ferraris there are! They've succesfully made the world's premier automobile look like the most mundane piece of steel since the Corolla. Don't forget other parts of the impossible - making the Palm so cramped with houses that we can soon expect lawsuits for unintended voyeurs.

Dubai’s greatness is also that it has not built castles in the air. It has built them on solid ground, all the more reason why our progress is sustainable and why there is hope for the future. That’s why we have proved sceptics wrong. By all indications, Dubai today is unstoppable.

We get it already, Dubai is unstoppable. Unstoppably sliding into a feudal system of serfery and 'divine' rule. They haven't built castles in the air; just ludicrous ones on the ground that are a monument to the nadir of human taste and wastefulness. The sceptics are silenced because everytime there is a failure, the voice that pronounces it is silenced by a bullet.

Dubai is currently stepping into a renewed, more energetic phase of development, with works apace for the world’s largest airport, the region’s first rail network and the world’s tallest building complex, not to mention the new world class residential areas that are springing up in exotic locales.

More profit for contractors and crane renters! The world's largest airport in the most unstable region on planet Earth. The first rail network, to first serve the richest and already most accessible parts of the city, rather than the existing areas buckling under traffic. The world's tallest building complex, to house even more tastless millionaires with their trophy wives and expat brats. Which, by the way, no local worth his salt would live in because they only live in houses (aka mansions) which they build themselves. On money provided by the gubment. Which they never pay back.
Pray tell, where are these exotic locales? Last time I checked, this country is sitting on a giant sand depot. You bulldozed the coral reefs to make way for another Palm (because one simply wasn't enough). You covered every inch of available beach with property so that it now looks more like a tourist trap than the prostitute-infested Pattaya Beach. Incidentally, Dubai will also Love-You-Long-Time, more than anyone else.

Dubai as a city already stands tall among the cities around the world. When its name is mentioned, it is mentioned with pride.

Let's take a straw p0ll. Whenever I'd mention it to anyone in Australia, I'd be met with blank stares. "Dubai? Where's that?" I think maybe one person - out of literally thousands of people I've met in four years - has heard of it, and only of the Burj Al Arab. Much as I hate to admit it, at least that's something unique. The rest of Dubai is nothing more than crowded copies of architecture from all around the World. New York has culture, history. It's been written and filmed for as long as the medium. Ditto for London, LA and Paris. If Dubai is so famous, how come no one wants to feature it in popular culture? Answer: because it has no soul, no spark of originality. It is Everyplace, Everycity. All brochures describe it as a "tax haven, cheap shopping", etc. You know what other city is described like that? Bangkok.

As the premier English language newspaper in the region, Khaleej Times would like to give a standing ovation to the pace that Dubai, our city, has set for its progress. As you all know, in the past three decades, Khaleej Times has had a unique and privileged role to play in this growth, as it recorded events for posterity and acted as a link between those who pushed the engines of this growth and the various segments of the society that worked hand — in — hand to turn the city’s dreams into realities. In the process, we helped develop a cosmopolitan character to the city.

Cosmopolitan character? *Snort*. They've turned a half decent, at-least-respected paper into a tabloid rag, bottom of the barrel in every journalistic standard with an oblivious, ludicrous father figure who treats his business like his own private fiefdom. It's not a link from people to power - it's a organ of the state, a town crier to report the prononcements of His Majesty. Except that they've lost that too, to the newly established King's Paper.

This is time for celebration. Khaleej Times, your favourite daily, wants to say a big Thank You to the city that made a big difference in all our lives and urge all its readers to join it in a month — long patriotic campaign, styled, “I Love My Dubai”, starting today, to demonstrate all our love and respect for this beautiful city. Dubai deserves it.

Phew! Finally, we reach the end. This city sure has made 'a big difference in all our lives' - I've never felt lower, like my quality of life is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel.
You know, KT, if people really felt like saying "I Love Dubai", don't you think they would have said it? Do they really need to wave banners and wear forced grins, while you stand behind with a shark prod? Here's a clue: the ONLY people in Dubai who think it's great, who think that there's no other place like, are either born here (and so have no choice in the matter) are the ones who stand a top. And that island haven is shrinking every day.

PS: This was originally a lot more caustic and witty. The more I thought about it, though, the less amusing it became.