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Mon. Jan. 5, 2009
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Politics in depth > Asia > Politics & Economy
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Analysis
Palestinian Solidarity & Legitimacy in the UAE
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UAE's President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan attends the opening of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Muscat December 29, 2008. (Reuters Photo)
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As Israeli jets pounded Hamas positions in Gaza, claiming hundreds of lives and destroying vital infrastructure, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates announced on December 29, 2008 that the Gregorian New Year would not be celebrated in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or any of the other five members of the federation.
While small pockets of the UAE’s massive expatriate community voiced their indignation over such authoritarianism – presumably having booked themselves into lavish New Year parties, the majority of nationals and non-nationals in the UAE praised the decision and were eager to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The autocratic decree came as no surprise to long time observers of the UAE, as support for Palestine and other oppressed Arab and Muslim populations has always been a key legitimacy resource for one of the world’s few remaining traditional monarchies.
| Since independence, the UAE's rulers have maintained their popularity by developing an unwritten bargain with their citizens. |
Since independence nearly 40 years ago, the UAE’s rulers have maintained their popularity and expertly avoided meaningful political reforms by developing an unwritten bargain with their citizens and other residents.
While a significant chunk of this bargain has been made up of handouts and other oil-financed distributions of wealth to the population, much has also relied on the ability of sheikhs to present themselves as good Arabs and good Muslims, as befitting their tribal pedigree.
Traditionally this has been accomplished by lavish spending on mosques and other religious resources (including Christian churches), coupled with an enormous overseas aid programme to Palestine and other worthy causes. In all cases, the monarchs have won positive headlines across the region.
Religious resources
Since the first oil booms the simplest way for the UAE’s sheikhs to promote Islam has been to provide physical infrastructure for the religious community and pay the salaries of all ulema. With several mosques on each street and – in theory – with mosques at walking distance from all national males, the UAE’s largest emirate - Abu Dhabi - has eclipsed even Saudi Arabia in this regard.
Indeed, while there may be high rise skyscrapers, the town nevertheless still looks Islamic and cannot be confused easily with a modern, secular city elsewhere in the world. Symbolically, the enormous Sheikh Zayed Mosque was finally completed in 2007 at a reported cost of over $540 million. With 82 domes and minarets of over 100 metres in height, and capable of holding over 40,000 worshippers, it is now recognized as the third largest mosque in the world.
Giant mosques have also been built by the UAE elsewhere in the Islamic world, and in most cases these carry the name of the sponsoring sheikh, thereby extending the piety of the ruling family beyond the UAE’s borders. Most notably, the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Mosque is currently under construction in Bethany, on the West Bank. At a cost of nearly $5 million, the mosque will have the tallest minarets in Palestine.
During Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan’s tenure as president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, esteemed ulema from other countries were invited to come to the UAE and present lectures, often during Ramadan. Over the last few years these visits have increased in their frequency and scale. In 2004 a conference was held under new president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s patronage on the subject of the Prophet’s guidance. Hundreds of scholars were invited, many of whom were personal guests of the ruling family.
| For many years the UAE’s rulers have donated land for the construction of Christian churches of all denominations. |
Similarly, in Ramadan 2008 over 30 religious leaders were invited to Abu Dhabi at Khalifa’s expense to ‘expose the UAE to the latest learned debates on Islam. The delegates included Egypt’s minister for Islamic affairs and the grand mufti of Syria, in addition to several prominent academics from Azhar University in Egypt.
In parallel, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi’s office also sponsored a number of lecturers during Ramadan, including esteemed Saudi scholars and a number of non-Muslim dignitaries. Delivered in Arabic and English, they were held in his majlis twice a week.
There has also been a strong emphasis on promoting religious tolerance, especially between Islam and Christianity. For many years the UAE’s rulers have donated land for the construction of Christian churches of all denominations, and these continue to be embraced by the whole community.
Certainly Christian festivals and holy days are respected and newspaper reports will often focus on Christian gatherings in Abu Dhabi or elsewhere in the UAE. Moreover, when an ancient pre-Islamic Christian church was discovered on one of the UAE’s outlying islands, its restoration was immediately ordered. Since the 1970s there has also been support for inter-faith dialogue and institutions working to project the moderate face of Islam.
The UAE has historically been one of the largest donors to the Islamic Solidarity Fund, and has provided it with its chairman since 1988. More recently, in 2005 the Tabah Foundation was established in Abu Dhabi. Chaired by a respected Yemeni scholar the foundation was instrumental in pacifying reactions following the 2005 Danish cartoons scandal and the 2006 comments made by Pope Benedict XVI that were deemed defamatory to Islam.
The foundation even invited a group of Danish students to visit Abu Dhabi and meet with local students. In 2008, it was then announced that for the first time non-Muslims would be allowed to enter an Abu Dhabi mosque, and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority has since begun to advertise 90 minute guided tours of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque for all interested parties, regardless of their religion.
Overseas aid
| The UAE's assistance to Palestine over the last decade is believed to have been in excess of $4 billion. |
The bulk of the UAE’s overseas aid receives extensive domestic and regional newspaper coverage, which invariably stresses the historically strong relations between the recipient country and the UAE. Indeed, a day will rarely go by without a major UAE aid-related article appearing, often rather crudely stating the dollar figure of the aid involved. Also mentioned will be the member of the ruling family presiding over the charitable body and perhaps a specific story of a stricken family or village in the country in question.
The first of the major aid organizations to be founded was the Abu Dhabi Fund for Arab Development in 1971 – later renamed the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD). This had an initial capitalization of 50 million Bahraini dinars and by 1974 it was estimated that overseas aid was over 20 percent of the UAE’s GDP, as surplus oil revenues were being channeled into war torn Palestine and a $200 million gift was given to Egypt and Syria to help them recover from their war effort.
Throughout the 1980s the ADFD’s work gathered pace, with funds being channeled into Iraq and with over $3 million of flood relief being supplied to the Yemen. Notably, the ADFD helped to rebuild the giant Marib Dam in Yemen at great cost in 1986 and continued to contribute to its maintenance costs up until 2002.
The 1990s saw the circle being widened even further, with aid being dispensed to Somalia and the dispossessed Muslim communities in Kosovo. Moreover, following Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait over 60,000 Kuwaiti nationals fled to the UAE, the majority arriving in Abu Dhabi. All were provided with accommodation and free medical care.
In 2008, a federal minister of state without portfolio made a controversial statement that the UAE gave 3.6 percent of its GDP in overseas aid. A British United Nations representative for humanitarian affairs countered that such a percentage was highly dubious given that the average aid contributions for first world donor countries was about 0.7 percent.
This view was backed up by the head of the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs who agreed that 3.6 percent was extremely high and called for "more visibility and transparency" from the UAE.
Since this debacle Abu Dhabi has set up an External Aid Liaison Bureau in an effort to provide a better interface between the various UAE aid donors and foreign bodies. However, given the UAE’s long history of generous overseas aid and its continuing commitment to such programmes, the original figure may have been accurate after all.
Certainly, in recent years it is thought that the ADFD alone has dispensed over $6 billion in aid to 52 different countries. Assistance to Palestine over the last decade is believed to have been in excess of $4 billion, including a $62 million Sheikh Zayed Residential City having been built in Gaza in 2004 and the $70 million rebuilding of the Jenin Camp after its destruction in 2002.
After the resolution of the Lebanese civil war the UAE injected between $500 and $700 million into the country, and funding was provided for the Lebanese Army to purchase high-tech mine clearing equipment. Following the 2006 conflict, the UAE Red Crescent Society provided Lebanon with a further $300 million as part of the Emirates Solidarity Project. Most of the money has been spent on rebuilding physical infrastructure damaged by Israeli bombings and constructing new hospitals and schools.
Other major projects have included the supply of 40 tons of medicines and foodstuffs to the Sudan and the Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Foundation’s building of over 100 new water wells in Sierra Leone. Since the Anglo-American invasion in 2001, UAE Red Crescent Society aid to Afghanistan has amounted to $41 million, with a further $30 million having been supplied by other UAE-based groups. This has been used to construct a large hospital, six clinics, a public library, 11 schools and even a 6000 student capacity Zayed University of Afghanistan.
Soon there will also be a Zayed City to house over 2000 displaced persons and 150 water wells. Very recently the president’s personal aid foundation also announced that it would pay for the construction of a $100 million Khalifa bin Zayed City on the outskirts of Cairo to help house poor Egyptian city-dwellers.
Another great recent recipient of UAE aid has been Iraq. Over the last five years several large donations have been made, including a gift of $215 million for the reconstruction effort made in 2005, and the UAE Armed Forces’ supplying of helicopters and other equipment for the new Iraqi military.
Moreover, in summer 2008 Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan announced that he would scrap all of Iraq’s outstanding debts to the UAE – amounting to some $7 billion. He explained that this would "help alleviate the economic burdens endured by the brotherly Iraqi people," and then invited the Iraqi prime minister to Abu Dhabi to confirm the deal.
Remarkably, in the near future there may be an even greater beneficiary of UAE largesse than Palestine, Afghanistan, or Iraq, as it was revealed in summer 2008 that the Arab League was so short of funds that its secretary general had begun to press a number of member states for increased donations in order to keep the league alive. He stated that the UAE along with Oman and Qatar had been the most accommodating thus far.
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Dr. Christopher M. Davidson is a fellow of the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies at Durham University and a visiting associate professor at Kyoto University, Japan. He is the author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success and The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival. His new book, Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, is published in April 2009.
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