Everyone’s got an opinion about the city. But few in the west know the multicultural, unusual Dubai that I’ve seen up close
D
ubai is on everyone’s lips. One side of social media salivates over its curated opulence. The other sneers at a city that has become a byword for excess. Barely a week goes by without the British press telling the story of somebody moving to Dubai for lower taxes or, conversely, that the “Dubai dream is dead”.
The city-state benefits from this discourse-fuelled soft power. It strikes both the haves and have-notes. Dubai fever is democratic. The city is an El Dorado of the east for remittance-sending strivers, sun-seeking expats and scammers. For many, it represents an unsettling post-western horizon. A version of the future that is already here. Rows of supercars overlooking glittering marinas. Toothy-grinned influencers, crypto bros and aspiring entrepreneurs crowding the same clubs. Labubus dangling from designer handbags. We’re enamoured of this cliche of Dubai, a historyless slab of a place, where the right price can buy you anything and anyone. But behind this binary view is another way of looking at Dubai – a place that is much more interesting and unusual than is often understood.
