The Illusion In The Sand―The Real United Arab Emirates
How the Emirati Annihilate Foreign Business Partners With a― Scorched-Earth Policy
By: Christopher Roman
The United Arab Emirates went from 13 cars registered in 1968 to a sovereign wealth fund with combined assets of $1.4 trillion in just 54 years. Everything from indoor snow skiing to the longest automated rail network in the world.
If you are thinking: WOW―what a place!
You need to hold your horses because what can’t be missed, these Arabs are not building particle accelerators that are on the cutting edge of physics. And no, they’re not building research facilities to be on the pioneering edge of health and science, (And) they are definitely not inviting academics to newly constructed universities focusing on human progress.
When thinking about the people in Dubai, you can never forget: The Emirati’s only concern in life is―Wasta.
Or, how Emiratis are perceived within their local tribe.
To the Emiratis, foreigners are an easy way to get funds from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. For the most part, these locals only use foreigners to bring organization and structure to their business projects. In many cases, locals will partner with foreigners for large and small real estate projects, alike.
Then when the time is right, they will ―pounce― and annihilate their foreign partners with a scorched-earth policy.
And if we are being honest about Emirati society, they are kept barely literate within the Dubai establishment. This being the case, they need to have foreign help for large business projects. This is because very few Emiratis hold (real) accounting or business degrees and need westerners to develop their economy.
Looking from the outside-in, UAE universities are more like business vocational schools where nepotism remains supreme and the locals are taught how to ‘Six ways from Sunday’ steal from their foreign business partners.
A system in which, Emiratis are taught to allow their investment partners to do all the real work. Once the work is done, file a claim in the UAE courts– and take legal claim of the project and bank accounts. Then, have the investor thrown in jail over a false claim of a crime. Never forgetting, the UAE legal system is a ‘Banana Republic’ that will back the Emiratis wholesale.
What is important to remember, within the UAE there are forty (or so) tribes and about 4 prominent families. Families like the Al Maktoum’s. When these tribes are not busy fighting among themselves and fucking each other over. They are busy flying to casinos like Barrière Montreux―blowing all their money within a couple of days (whilst) drinking themselves into a stupor and dining on Lac Léman.
Can you imagine taking off on (what I emphasize as) a ―small― jet from Genève Swizerland back to Dubai? In a cramped aircraft with a bunch of stinky hungover Emirati popping pills and smoking themselves to death? All of them formulating one bizarre excuse after another as to what they will tell their wives. The myth is that men run the Arab world. This mythology will die as soon as the jet touches the ground. Anyway― (laughs).