Guests in their Own Homes

The following text from Dubai: Gilded Cage, by SYED ALI, is excerpted with permission from Orient BlackSwan. The book will be released in India in late December.

facing page: An indoor ski resort in Dubai. STEPHANIE KUYKENDAL / CORBIS
01 December, 2010

MY FRIEND WILBUR had come from New York City to visit me while I was doing research in Dubai. We went to dinner at a swank restaurant in the Madinat Jumeirah mall, a fake Arab souk complete with non-functional, traditional wind towers. We met up with Vishul, a thirty-something analyst who was born in India and raised in Dubai but had studied and worked in the US for almost ten years before returning. Wilbur asked Vishul where he was from, to which Vishul answered, ‘Delhi.’ ‘Delhi?’ I said, taken aback since we had known each other for a few months and this was the first I heard that he thought of himself as not from Dubai. Vishul clarified, ‘Well, Delhi, and I live in Dubai.’ Vishul’s answer – I’m from Delhi and live in Dubai – is telling in that it illustrates a basic dilemma of expatriate workers, especially those born and/or raised in Dubai, that they are legally and socially not ‘Dubaian’. They may live in Dubai, but, largely as a result of this exclusion, they usually do not consider themselves ‘of Dubai’.

Legally, as a distinct category, second-generation expatriates do not exist. Like any other expatriate, they are in Dubai on three-year, renewable residency visas; some even live and work illegally in Dubai on tourist visas. These expatriates acquire no additional rights or benefits from being born in Dubai. No matter how long they and their families have been in Dubai, there is little chance of attaining citizenship, and there is no such category as legal permanent residence. A child born in Dubai has the nationality and passport, by default, of their parents. In fact, the visa system is so strict that a child born to a national woman with an expatriate father is considered an expatriate, though a child born to a national father with an expatriate mother is a national. Dubai’s economic and social system rests upon this structural instability (or flexibility – I guess that is a matter of perspective), the fact that, no matter how long you have been in Dubai, you are treated like anyone else coming in today. You have no right to be there and you have no inalienable rights; you are there at the pleasure of the government, and they can revoke your privilege of staying there at any time.

To reinforce to expatriates how tenuous their status in Dubai is, the visa and work permit systems in Dubai, indeed in all the Gulf states, do not recognize the bonds of adult male children to their parents (women can stay on a parent’s or husband’s visa without having to get a labour permit binding them to their employer). What this means is that a boy who turns eighteen is no longer on his parent’s visa; he can be sponsored by a school, but otherwise needs to be working and on a labour permit. The legal and social limbo that second-generation expatriates in Dubai find themselves in is an unintended consequence of the ‘original sin’ of their expatriate fathers and mothers, who nearly all came for better working conditions and family living, only to raise children who do not belong in Dubai, who cannot claim to be of Dubai, and yet are socially foreigners in their countries of passport.

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The Possibility of Citizenship

TO FULLY UNDERSTAND the precarious situation of expatriates in Dubai, and the ways in which their identities and migratory behaviour are structured, we must discuss just how unlikely citizenship is, and the degrees to which people fear banishment and deportation. To stay in Dubai permanently, an expatriate must acquire citizenship. Citizenship in practice, though, is very difficult to acquire, even for Arab expatriates. In the past, the UAE was somewhat open to granting citizenship, mainly to Arabs (including Sudanese) and Iranians, though some Pakistanis and Indians have also received citizenship. From the time of independence in 1971 through 1997, about 50,000 people had been naturalized, roughly 8 per cent of the citizen population.1 In recent years it has been a de facto state policy in the UAE (and in the Gulf states generally) to reduce the granting of citizenship to expatriates.

Residents hoping to receive UAE citizenship arrive at one of the registration centres in Dubai. REUTERS / JUMANA EL HELOUEH

Citizenship, when granted, is qualified. Naturalized citizens do not automatically become nationals – they generally do not possess nationality cards that are given to Arab families, and thus are not eligible for government benefits such as free education, land grants, housing, direct cash payments and other welfare benefits, though they do acquire UAE passports. Naturalization is contingent, and can be revoked, as can UAE passports (as one Jordanian expatriate told me how her aunt’s was confiscated).The requirements to be considered for citizenship are often thought to include thirty years’ residence, being Muslim, Arab and an Arabic speaker, and having a clean police record, ‘proper’ academic qualifications and a ‘healthy’ bank balance – though it is at the government’s discretion to give citizenship after a screening process, at which point personal influence (wasta) comes into play.

While most expatriates I asked told me some version of the above, it is unclear whether this procedure is actually codified. Even government officials seem uncertain of the policy regarding naturalization. For example, in 2005 the director of the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD) announced that expatriates of any nationality living in Dubai for twenty years would be eligible to apply for passports, and, if granted, would be issued a document that would allow them to be treated as UAE nationals.3 The following day, the director retracted his statement, tersely saying about the issuance of passports, ‘such matters are beyond the purview of the DNRD’. One month later, the UAE Minister of Labour and Social Affairs proposed granting UAE citizenship to expatriates of ‘high calibre’ and ‘highly skilled professionals’ who could be key contributors to national development. The minister was quoted as saying, ‘Why don’t we avail [ourselves] of highly skilled professionals for our economy needs.We should attract them and even grant them nationality to benefit from their high qualifications.’  But in late 2007 the same minister ruled out any possibility of expatriates being awarded citizenship, no matter how long they have been in the UAE. Again, expatriates in the UAE are considered contractual workers, not immigrants. The minister’s adviser emphasized this point, saying, ‘That is the whole reason contractual labour laws are used, so workers fall under contractual law rather than immigration law.’

A worker sweeps a street in Old Dubai. Most migrant workers live without adequate rights and in difficult conditions in various labour camps across the city. GHAITH ABDUL AHAD / GETTY IMAGES

While I was in Dubai, I met only one person, Hasan, a businessman in his mid-thirties, who had acquired citizenship, though some of the Arab expatriates I interviewed had family or friends who had received citizenship. Hasan was naturalized in 2003, along with his entire Sunni Arab Iranian family. Like other expatriates, his life was shaped by the conditions of the three year visa, which changed when he became a citizen. He said, You know, I grew up here all this time knowing I was an expatriate. My dad never told us to prepare for citizenship, it just happened . . . I think what changed was subconscious: sense of security, a sense of living in this place and wanting to contribute to its long-term prosperity.

Hasan told me that, if he had not received citizenship, ‘I think I would’ve moved. In fact, I actually immigrated to Canada, but then I never stayed. I landed and came back.’

While there are no publicly available records, it is unlikely that many who are eligible to be considered for citizenship get it. For Hasan, wasta (influence) eventually led to the family acquiring citizenship. Even with wasta, it takes time – his father lobbied his connections for nearly ten years. Others though, while ‘qualified’, are not so fortunate. I interviewed two Arab expatriates in their mid-twenties whose fathers had both worked in government ministries for almost thirty years. These two, Zaid (a Syrian) and Hussein (an Egyptian), also work in government ministries, though at low-level positions as clerks (neither has a  university degree). Both their families have had their applications for citizenship under consideration for twenty years. They both held faint hope that they would acquire citizenship anytime soon, something they both desperately wanted.

The most commonly stated reasons given by government officials for denying citizenship, or even permanent residence, are the threats of cultural extinction and demographic imbalance posed by the possibility of absorbing so many expatriates into the pool of citizens. These twinned arguments have been repeatedly3advanced over the years as the main reasons to deny expatriates any kind of permanent residency. However, there are two major factors that are critical to the government’s stance on naturalization which are left unstated, but which are central to the managemen of expatriates in Dubai. First, the government’s legitimacy depends to a great degree on its ability to guarantee a high standard of living to nationals. Allowing expatriates to become naturalized might lead to the state having to spread its welfare largesse among a much larger pool of recipients. Secondly, the three-year visa system provides a simple and effective mechanism of social control over expatriates. The system as it stands requires all expatriates to have a sponsor, their employer, for their visas, and is a particularly effective threat that works well to keep all levels of expatriates in line.

For the vast majority of second-generation expatriates I interviewed, citizenship is a non-issue. They accept, however grudgingly, their second-class status in Dubai. They live their lives in a place where they are always in a liminal or in-between state, where their existence is defined by a permanent condition of legal and social precariousness. And these expatriates for the most part are comfortable with this.

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Fear of Banishment

AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL CONTROL, the three-year visa system works effectively through the possibility that the visa may be revoked. There are two main fears that all expatriates must at some level consider: being summarily deported, and not being allowed to remain in Dubai when they get older. The fear of not being able to stay in Dubai when they get old is a concern of second-generation expatriates, as there are few elderly expatriates in Dubai.

The one reality all expatriates must face is compulsory retirement at age sixty. When an expatriate reaches this age, he is no longer issued a three-year work permit and residency visa. He can apply for a shorter one- or two-year visa, but these are issued on a case-by-case basis, or he can stay if he owns a company. This restriction on the issuance of visas past the age of sixty necessarily affects how people see their relation to Dubai. John, a European-Canadian expatriate in his late twenties working in his father’s construction company, said simply, ‘In all honesty, no one expects to retire here; everyone expects to go where they’re from.’

While the possibility of not having their visas renewed past the age of sixty is not immediately pressing for the second-generation expatriates themselves, as the oldest person I interviewed was thirty-seven, it was pertinent for their parents. A few of the parents of people I interviewed had already gone back to their home countries, and a few more had migrated to Western countries permanently. Others were reaching the point where they had to decide in a short time where they wanted to go. Still others were able to postpone this decision indefinitely as they were investors in companies, and eligible to stay in Dubai on that basis, or had been granted special permission by the government to continue working on shorter-term visas.

Falconry is a part of traditional culture in the United Arab Emirates. PIERRE VAUTHEY / CORBIS SYGMA

The possibility they one day might be made to leave Dubai before they reach retirement age is one that most people I spoke with acknowledged, but, as a practical issue, surprisingly few were troubled. Manoj, an Indian entrepreneur in his midthirties, put it this way:

I don’t know what difference it’s going to make in your day to day life, you know? Even permanent residency can be . . . I mean this is not a democracy . . . what difference is that going to make?  While many people expressed nonchalant views similar to Manoj, others were more apprehensive about the possibility of deportation. For example, Prince, an Indian corporate headhunter in his early twenties, said he doesn’t live in Dubai, but, rather, is ‘squatting’. He said he always felt uneasy, simply because you don’t know what can happen tomorrow, simply because the nationals run this place, and what they say is law. You can’t live in a country knowing in some sort of subconscious level that you aren’t safe here. I don’t mean that you are going to be mugged in the street. It’s that you can’t make this your home.

The reality of deportation in Dubai is that it happens frequently enough that it shapes people’s behaviour – they are more cautious about staying out of trouble with the police, they make certain not to engage in behaviour that might look political, and they avoid criticism of the ruling family and nationals in general. But I was surp  rised to find during the course of my research how people took the possibility of deportation in their stride. This is largely because deportation is often not permanent. People routinely overstay visas, lose their jobs or fail to get ‘no objection certificates’ from their employers when changing jobs. All of these can lead to temporary deportations and bans, but, once they have left, they can reapply for a visa. John casually made the point that, ‘You can get banned for six months, but you can still come back on a visit visa. It’s normal for people who live out here. Especially from our generation.’ I asked him if he ever feared being deported, and he said, ‘No, we’ve never really been worried about it.’

A restaurant at Souk Madinat Jumeirah, with Burj al Arab in the background. ATLANTIDE PHOTOTRAVEL / CORBIS

Whether or not these expatriates feared deportation, they were quite cognizant that the laws are often applied in an ad hoc manner, not surprising given that the UAE is a kingdom, a young country, and has a still developing legal system. This works to create carefully managed attitudes towards impermanence in the minds of workers. They are always mindful of what they say; this is especially true for expatriates from developing countries.

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Relations With Nationals

I WENT TO AN IRANIAN RESTAURANT on the busy main street in Satwa at three in the morning with my friend Thomas, as we were unable to find anywhere to smoke sheesha at that hour. He ordered for us and had a long conversation with the waiter, who was a bit thrown that he was not a national, and was impressed with how he spoke Arabic with an Emirati accent. I was impressed that Thomas spoke Arabic at all as he was the only secondgeneration non-Arab expatriate I had met who had any competency with the Arabic language.

Thomas is an Indian Catholic in his early thirties, and has had experiences with nationals that were unique for any expatriate, especially an Indian, and are worth recounting in detail:

I assimilated into the [Emirati] Arab culture when I was twelve. My best friends were my Arab friends. For two years, I only hung out with Arabs. I wore Arab clothing, I would go to Arab functions, I would celebrate all the Arab holidays. I would spend weekends at my Arab friends’ houses, I would eat with their parents . . . I flew falcons in the desert, I went hunting – these are things that very few people outside the Arab community could or would have ever done . . . The reason why [many people think nationals are] not cultured is that they’ve never been invited inside the Arab community. And that was just a stroke of luck. Typically I wouldn’t031 have been either. Just because I moved to Jumeirah [in the 1980s] and hung out with Arab guys who I became friends with, who were like, ‘Come over, play board games with me.’ Slowly you eat lunch with them, slowly you go away for a picnic with the family one weekend, you know. Before you know it, you’re in. And that’s where the culture is. People think that when they come to Dubai, they’re going to see culture like, ‘Oh, I’m going to see old buildings, I’m going to see how glass was made, like in Syria.’ No, there is none of that culture here, and there never will be. The culture here is within the community, the interactions and experiences you have with the local people.

When talking of assimilation, or in this case, non-assimilation, we must define our reference point – to what culture/people might these immigrants be assimilating? Dubai presents an interesting and opposite case to most places where people migrate to: the Emirati national citizen population is a small minority who are under siege from an ever-increasing foreign majority, and find that their culture is diminishing in importance in public spaces.

Expats party on a Yacht in Dubai. CARLOS CAZALIS / CORBIS

This ‘siege mentality’ of nationals has heightened as a result of the post-2001 economic and population boom in Dubai, leading many nationals to withdraw socially and geographically from expatriates. However, this was not always the case. John, the European-Canadian expatriate working in his father’s business, pointed out how relations between expatriates and nationals had changed. He said,

Even running around in the desert near our places we used to hang out with the local kids. But now if you hang out with local people it’s probably business . . . Back in those days, there were loads of tents everywhere; they’d just welcome you. ‘Come in, sit down.’ All the locals offered you food, so welcoming. That doesn’t really exist anymore, because there’s so many expatriates out here, they [nationals] have started to shut themselves off. So that culture existed back then, it was great, it was really nice.


Syed Ali teaches sociology and studies pottery at Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Eli, and children, Sami and Noura.