{"id":28274,"date":"2013-05-06T16:23:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T12:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=28274"},"modified":"2013-05-06T16:23:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T12:23:43","slug":"the-uae-and-big-culture-what-role-for-expats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/the-uae-and-big-culture-what-role-for-expats\/","title":{"rendered":"The UAE and ‘Big Culture’: What Role For Expats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"abu<\/a><\/p>\n

A week ago, I was at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair:<\/i><\/p>\n

As before, it was held inside the city\u2019s large, overly air-conditioned national exhibition center<\/a>. (Photographs here<\/a>.) While my teeth chattered, I attended talks; I went to children\u2019s-book readings and eavesdropped on professional events; I interviewed authors, publishers, and editors; when possible, I glanced through the stands and talked to booksellers.<\/p>\n

The cultural lineup was as impressive as ever. A number of authors of global standing were at this year\u2019s fair: Algerian Rachid Boudjedra, Icelandic Sj\u00f3n, Lebanese-Canadian Rawi Hage, Ukranian Andrey Kurkov, Syrian Nihad Sirees, and more. There were also academics and thinkers of global importance, such as science writer Jim al-Khalil and scholar Ella Shohat; there were regional authors with powerful populist charm, notably Ahlam Mosteghanemi and Ibrahim Eissa. The professional events were diverse and often thoughtful.<\/p>\n

This was my second time at the Abu Dhabi fair. It\u2019s comparable in size, expense, and ambition to the other big UAE book fair, held in Sharjah each fall, but Abu Dhabi\u2019s got a more international feel. Before attending this year\u2019s fair, I wrote over at the Kenyon Review<\/i><\/a> that the \u201cAbu Dhabi Book Fair is a big, extravagant, exotic plant brought to the city as a joint venture between Abu Dhabi\u2019s cultural authority and the Frankfurt Book Fair. It came into flower suddenly and dazzlingly in 2007, bloomed more brightly in each successive year, and now is fully managed by the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Cultural Authority. The fair could adapt, set down roots, and become a local plant, one that is a leader regionally and globally.\u201d (Or, I added, it could slash away at the open discussions and free speech that allow book fairs to live and breathe.)<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve returned from the fair, I\u2019ve been reflecting on how difficult it is to say what \u201clocalization\u201d and \u201croots\u201d mean in a country that\u2019s 90-percent non-Emirati. This 90 percent \u2014 of Pakistanis, Egyptians, French, Malaysians, Indians, Filipinos, Syrians, Lebanese, others \u2014 may contribute vibrantly to the country\u2019s development. Yet they cannot, as things currently stand, be considered locals.<\/p>\n

Most observers have problematized the UAE\u2019s ethnic breakdown, and indeed the nation\u2019s rulers are trying to change this \u201cpopulation problem.\u201d According to a 2011 report in the Gulf News<\/i><\/a>, the government\u2019s strategy is to make Emiratis the majority (or at least around 40 percent) by 2021. However, even if this can really be achieved, the \u201cforeigners\u201d will continue to make up a large part of the country\u2019s workers, lovers, and readers.<\/p>\n

More and more, Emiratis are moving into meaningful positions in the country. Certainly, some Emiratization projects have benefited the country\u2019s literary world. In the last few years, these schemes have encouraged more Emirati authors, illustrators, and publishers. The \u201cMade in UAE<\/a>\u201d workshops, in partnership with Goethe-Institut, have brought new energy into the local children\u2019s-book scene. But this Emiratization has been for creative and managerial work: It\u2019s doubtful that the jobs of those who assembled the fair \u2014 those who were laying carpet and erecting last-minute displays at\u00a02 a.m. the night before launch\u00a0\u2013 will be Emiratized any time soon.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpopulation problem\u201d seems to be linked to one of the fair\u2019s main stumbling blocks: attendance. Although the cultural events were well-conceived, major writers sometimes had just a handful of listeners, and many of these were their friends or colleagues. A few Egyptians jokingly suggested that this could be solved Gamal Abdel-Nasser-style, by busing laborers to the talks. The idea is absurd, but it nonetheless points to a question: Whose book fair is it?<\/p>\n

On Friday, when the fair started late, I \u2014 along with a number of other journalists \u2014 was bused out to hear about the city\u2019s Saadiyat project<\/a>. This includes the Abu Dhabi Louvre (set to open in 2015), the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim (set to open in 2017), and the Zayed National Museum (in partnership with the British Museum, set to open in 2016). There was a great deal of sizzle and flash in the presentation, but I never really understood: Whose museums are they? Will the museum-goers be a generic global crowd of artists and art-tourists? Or will these museums be a meaningful part of \u201clocal\u201d life?<\/p>\n

In a op-ed published recently on CNN<\/a>, commentator Parag Khanna writes that, for long-term sustainability, \u201cUAE will have to transform itself from post-modern feudalism to an innovative stakeholdership model in which foreigners are accorded long-term residency rights, and both citizens and foreigners have meaningful rights as well as responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, meaningful rights and responsibilities are a good idea for everyone. But how do these semi-permanent foreigner-stakeholders \u2014 whether 90 percent of the country or 70 or 50 \u2014 participate in, and relate to, Big Culture?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: My visit to the Abu Dhabi Book Fair caused me to muse on the issues of ‘localisation’ and the role that expats play in such a heavily skewed population <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":28276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,154,173,482,5,187],"tags":[202,16797,17196,16573,17197,17195,11224,162,11220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28280,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28274\/revisions\/28280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}