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While waiting for the tube, I see a poster of a gym chain advertising a promotion. Places? “City of London. High Street Kensington. Dubai” What a shame to choose a setting so spoiled by bad taste and clueless foreigners. Still, City and Dubai branches should be first rate.
Soon, I entered Doha, and once again the Euro-Gulf nexus was inescapable. The Emir of Qatar has just returned from a visit to Britain, where his hosts are wrangling over trade deals. Switzerland-headquartered FIFA has awarded the right to host the World Cup to Saudi Arabia. In skyscraper-less Muscat, where roads that might make sense elsewhere on the Gulf meander freely behind the Corniche, three restaurants in my hotel are patrons of Mayfair brands.
What a shame that the word “Eurabia” has been taken. And with such crutches. (It’s a right-wing term for a supposed plot to Islamize Europe.) Because we need a word for this relationship. The Arabian Peninsula has what Europe lacks: space, natural resources and the resulting budget surplus to invest in things. Europe, for its part, has “soft” assets that the Gulf states must acquire, accommodate or emulate in order to carve out a post-oil role in the world. This is not the deep external connection of the Gulf. In the United Arab Emirates, 38 percent and a quarter in Qatar are Indians. But if I understand the term correctly, it can be very symbiotic.
It is true, the US has military presence in all six Gulf Cooperation Council states. This includes a Saudi footprint that Osama bin Laden did not enjoy. But everyday communication? America is about a 15 hour flight away. Soft assets are either harder to buy or less desirable. Its citizens have little fiscal incentive to live in tax havens because Uncle Sam charges them at least some of the difference.
In the year In the 1970s, when OPEC profits exploded through London, Anthony Burgess wrote a dystopia in which the grand hotels were “Al-Claridge’s” and “Al-Dorchester”. What a mental shock it must have been for even secular Europeans to see – we don’t have to quibble around – non-white people with more money than them. Even so, they can go down to the Gulf as they have no place to live. Half a century later, their grandchildren will call that copium. Indeed, their grandchildren may literally live there for economic opportunities. (Al-Dorado?) As a banker friend of mine explained, because time zones allow you to sleep late, trade European markets, then eat late, it’s the young people who do Gulf Time, not the burnouts my age. .
But for how long? It is the improbability of this experiment, between a universal culture of rights and monarchical absolutism, between a largely secular continent and a peninsula inhabited by ancient faiths, that is unlike anything else I can think of. Communication can be important and unbreakable. In the year It won’t take much for some GCC turmoil to seem imminent in 2017 – Europe’s exposure to the Gulf is as bad as ever for Russia’s transparency. If Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City is found to have committed financial chicanery, a chunk of Premier League history will be ruined. Because the sport is “fair,” I feel like people aren’t ready for the backlash.
And it is parochial to think that the relationship can only break down at one end. It’s the Gulf side that has to make the most embarrassing cultural adjustment. The Europeans The seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca is sometimes overlooked by zealots who associate 1979 with Iran and Margaret Thatcher, who think the House of Saud is soft on Western customs. Governments in the region will certainly not forget.
How liberal a place can be without tripping over the cultural wire takes each state or emirate (and answers differently). Everyone is very nice to “Mister Janan” in the Doha hotel. But the metal scanners that must be passed at each re-entry to the building stand to remember the stocks here. I wonder if Europe and the Gulf will throw more into their relationship because of doubts that it can last?
Email Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com
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