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Search titles only. Search Advanced searchβ¦. Everywhere Threads This forum This thread. Search Advancedβ¦. New posts. Search forums. Dubai - a lovely place. Thread starter Spoony Start date Apr 14, JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
Spoony The People's President. Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world β a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.
But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never β and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.
Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing β at last β into history. An Adult Disneyland Karen Andrews can't speak. Every time she starts to tell her story, she puts her head down and crumples.
