Quote:
Originally Posted by GO_UAE
Pizzuti you seem like the kind of person that wouldnt mind reading a little more on a certain subject , google history of Dubai and you wil realize that it actually has more history than NY for example and historical findings dated thousands of years ago ... i dont want to make it sound like a pissing contest , im just using the cities you mentioned as an example
it is a mistake so many others and myself even fell for 10 years back but i was pleaently surprised to find out Dubai actually does have so much history. Unless ofcourse your going to compare it to Egypt , Iraq and yemen , but then youll have to remove every american city off the list of "cities with a history worth mentioning"
im at college now but i will hook you up with some good informative websites when im back home about the history of Dubai and UAE in general
by the way, did you know the emirate of Dubai has mountains and beaches overlooking the indian ocean ?  |
The word HISTORY is not the same as the word PAST. I understand what you're saying - and I mean no disrespect to Dubai.
But HISTORY is when the current situation exists in reference to the past.
Dubai was a small town until suddenly it was a global city. There isn't continuation; it's as though you demolished the small town and simply put a new town on top.
Say they discovered an American Indian burial ground under Los Angeles - and found it to be 10,000 years old. Does that mean that Lost Angeles has a 10,000 year history? I would say no, you just tapped into the history of something different. Or landed there.
History is forged by something having developed slowly and steadily. For example, the UK legal system has no constitution, it is based on a thousand years of precedent. It is history because it gives people the ability to say "remember last time we did this?" and modify their behavior, or just pay homage to something they feel deeply connected to. The London street grid is hundreds of years old and modern streets are where they are in reference to the old street - and the culture exists in reference to past social issues.
I just don't think the Burj Dubai was built in reference to medieval Dubai. There isn't a past. Nobody said "remember last time we smoothed out the desert and built skyscrapers in Dubai?" And I don't think that David Beckham (who I hear owns a mansion in Dubai) feels much of a personal connection to the Arabic ancient Dubai.
That isn't an insult to Dubai - it will develop a history with time, inevitably. I do believe it would be better if it had the opportunity to learn from its mistakes. I think they'd be more reluctant to lay out the city the way they're doing it now. But in the future it will be able to look back and reference itself. 50 years from now there will be history in Dubai and 100 years from now there will be a colorful one.
When the poor construction workers who are building Dubai have children, who go to school and become middle-class, and then their children go to school and become upper middle class - lets imagine that someday, a poor Pakastani immigrant's great-grandchild is the mayor of Dubai - THEN that person can proudly say "my ancestors helped build this city with their own labor." THAT'S what it means to have history.