What Does Dubai Have to Celebrate?

The United Arab Emirates celebrates its National Day today, though Dubai’s financial woes continue to dominate the headlines. As one British Sunday newspaper put it graphically, the World — the over-the-top real estate development on reclaimed land off Dubai’s coast, shaped like a map of the world — is slowly sinking back into the sea, as all work on it has stopped. So does the UAE’s glitziest emirate really have anything to celebrate? I remember several years ago officials in Abu Dhabi — the UAE’s capital and most oil-rich emirate — frowning at tne excesses of their brash little brother along the coast, so one shouldn’t be surprised if there is a little schadenfreude in the air there. And some of the Western media — having lauded Dubai to the skies, thanks to free press trips and a bit of Posh and Becks’ stardust — are now metaphorically trashing the place. Of course, the reality is somewhere in the middle. Dubai did over-extend itself and some of its most materialist edifices are too vulgar for words, but it is nonetheless one of the most significant multicultural cities in the world and displays a degreee of tolerance to other cultures and other faiths which even some countries in Europe would do well to emulate.

World AIDS Day

Like many people today, I’ll be wearing my red ribbon, to mark World AIDS Day. It was interesting to see the Daily Mail’s take on the event this morning: they asked whether wearing the ribbon for 1 December had become as obligatory as wearing a poppy for 11 November, because all the contestants on The X Factor were wearing one (reportedly because Simon Cowell insisted). Ah well, at least sometimes our celebrity-obsessed culture can have benefits. But what is impressive is that all round the world, AIDS awareness is growing and free treatment or at least testing is increasingly available. The rates of HIV infection are slowing, but they are still disturbing, especially in those countries where AIDS is likely to be fatal because of the lack of access to antiretrovirals. There are indeed some good things to celebrate, such as President Obama’s lifting of the US travel ban on HIV+ visitors. But there is no room for complacency. There is still huge prejudice against people living with HIV-AIDS and according to recent surveys in Britain, many teenagers are very blasé about the dangers of unsafe sex. So today, please wear your red ribbon with pride, not because Simon Cowell has told us to, but because the world is actively confronting one of the most serious health challenges of our age, even if much more remains to be done.