The Desert Lives

The Desert Lives

In the West we grow up with a pretty good idea of wealth. Even the underprivileged amongst us will rub shoulders now and then with the wealthy, if only by snapping off the stars off the front of flash Mercs or throwing stones at the stock market. We cruise past Hampstead and look across manicured lawns, watch the ponces load their golf clubs into their jeeps. Some of us adore wealth by elevating mindless footballers, shallow Hollywood actors and pop musicians into some kind of millionaire’s royalty that’s to be admired from a distance. We have vague ideas that Bill Gates has become a very rich man by screwing competitors with crude capitalist maneuverings. The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And deep in our hearts we adore the dollars, even the small change and look away when someone tells us from the sidelines that four fifths of the world is piss poor, wracked by war, disease, famine and exploitation. It keeps us where we are and it keeps them unreal, marginal, like a bad mirage. We lie to ourselves everyday and night and party on, on the bloated bellies of emaciated children, while destroying the planet as quickly as possible. As the old adage goes, ‘The machine is slowly dying and there’s no driver at the wheel’.
Well, let me tell you another story.

My friend and I hire a flash new Mazda, 3000 miles on the clock, and drive into the desert of Arabia. Seas of sand sway on both sides of the road as soon as we leave the gleaming island of Abu Dhabi behind. We are headed for Al Ain, another Emirate, an oasis on the Omani border. There is no oil in Al Ain, just a small town amongst the sand dunes. But the new Mazda, every suburban bod’s dream, is nothing more than a wheel-barrow in Arabia. In a couple of years they will use it to shovel the sand off the six lane highways that criss-cross the Arabian peninsula. We share the road with brand new Mercs, tinted windows flashing past. Station wagons race through radar traps like there’s no tomorrow. No matter what the fine, the owner won’t even the notice the money falling from his/her pockets. He is cocooned behind his tinted windows and rarely steps out into the sun.
Al Ain rises out of the golden wasteland, the featureless shifting sands. Thirty years ago, we would have found a camel train, a couple of date palms by a waterhole, a group of fierce, hardy, poor and honorable men, sitting around a fire, reading the Koran. Today we follow the luxury automobiles into a clean town inhabited by poor Indians, Pakistanis, Afghanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans. None of them have money for a car, not even a Mazda. They are poor, living in paradise. Some rarely go home. They get paid a pittance and are often treated poorly by their employers. Still, more enticing than living in a slum in Kabul, Lahore or Delhi.
It’s Friday, the papers are full of the USA’s war drums. Needless to say, people here, rich locals or poor foreign workers, are not happy about the latest maneuvers of the imperialist clowns from the west. But everyone is friendly. No one here resents us for stepping out of the cool into the hot. The humus is great and the table in the small restaurant where we eat quickly fills with mutton curry, salad, rice and bread. It’s a feast.
Down at the livestock market, big men from Peshawar buy and sell truck-loads of lambs. The Arabs, all dressed in gleaming white long flowing shirts barely step from their vehicles to buy. The Arab women, covered from head to tow in black, are present everywhere and yet totally removed from us. In the big mall down the road they crowd around racks of French lingerie, choose expensive perfumes and pick over food from all over the world. In fact the mall is so cosmopolitan it takes your breath away. You want French cheese, Thai noodles, Chinese prawn crackers, Mexican beans? It’s all cheap. It’s all tax free and no one in the Emirates pays any kind of tax.
When people get married here, they are given a house and a car by the government. If they want to study, here or abroad, the government will pay for it. If they need help to start a business, the government will set it up. No need for democracy, multi party politics. In the land of plenty different agendas melt together. And the head of state makes sure every citizen has more than enough to live.
The girls at the cash registers in the mall are all Filipino. The cleaners are from Pakistan. The protitutes that move along the roads at night and work the bars are freelancers from China or trafficked women from the former Soviet Union.
To get to the camel market, we have to cross into Oman. Oman is not quite as rich as the Emirates, but here too, all public work is performed by foreigners.
At the camel market hundreds of animals stand in the sun or are strapped to the roof of pick-ups. There are camels for milk and camels for racing. Prices start at a couple of hundred dollars but for a top racing camels you can spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars. It’s much cheaper to buy a woman from Turkmenistan than a camel from Saudi. All the camel sellers come from Kos, Afghanistan. They are poor of course, the animals are all owned by Arabs.
The desert lives. The machine is running smoothly, there’s an Arab at the wheel. The fuel is a high concentrate mixture of local oil and foreign sweat.

At lunchtime, the call for prayer sounds across Al Ain. Muslims, whether Afghani, Pakistani or Arab, head for the mosque. Traffic ceases, shops close, the world comes to a halt and comes together in a moment of prayer and contemplation. Money fades into the desert sand, the word of God unites all for an hour. America is remote, the infidels pale into insignificance, western consumer culture is just another toy to keep the sand away. The 21st century of luxury automobiles rubs shoulders with the medieval ambience of the camel market. There are no contradictions. There is no dissent. Everybody here, rich or poor, slave or master, gets something. A huge sign by the highway reads “May peace be with you”.