Sheikhs, Lies and Real Estate: The Untold Story of Dubai (21 page)

‘I’ll be back, my love. I’ll be back…’

***

My first day at Milestone was to be an official induction
to the Dubai property market. Tariq believed it was important for all joiners
to gain a first-hand look at the city’s developments to touch and feel what
they would be selling. I was looking forward to it. I knew of most of the new
projects already, as they were plastered across newspapers and billboards every
day, but I had not been into the heart of the construction sites to see the
progress close up. This would surely be an eye-opener.

I was joined on the day by six other people who
had been recently recruited into the sales team. We piled into the Milestone
minibus and started our adventure. Our tour guides were Sharon and Amy, two
bubbly blondes from Liverpool who worked as business development managers in
the Milestone projects team. They looked like sisters, except that Sharon was
much shorter and larger than the skinny and rather lanky Amy. Together they put
on a well-rehearsed double act straight out of a British seaside holiday camp.

‘Gooood morning! How is everybody today?’ asked
Sharon on the speakerphone in her thick Northern accent. ‘Welcome to the
Milestone tour bus! I’m Sharon and this is my colleague Amy, and we will be
your guides on a whirlwind tour of three of Dubai’s most iconic developments.
Feel free to ask questions, and if you need the bathroom I would ask you to
wait until we alight. Let’s have a great day!’

I sat next to the window at the back of the bus
to get the best view. Next to me was a young, pasty Englishman dressed in a baggy
suit and a pink necktie, with an oversized knot.

‘This is quite exciting, isn’t it?’ he said in
a Cockney accent.

‘Yes, it is,’ I replied politely.

‘I’m Paul Potters.’ He extended his hand. ‘I’ll
be working in the commercial sales team.’

‘Nice to meet you, Paul,’ I replied and shook
his hand. ‘So are you joining Milestone from another property firm?’

‘Nope. I have no property experience whatsoever,’
he replied smugly.

‘Are you serious?’

‘I swear, none at all. This all quite new to
me.’

I was quite confused. ‘So what were you doing
before this?’

‘Believe it or not, I was a golf coach at the Dubai
Golf Club. I never even thought about property as a career,’ he chuckled.

 ‘So how on earth did you get this job?’

‘Well, Tariq is an avid golfer and we met in
the club house one afternoon. We started talking, and he asked me if I wanted
to make some real money. After chatting for about an hour I was offered the job.
I couldn’t believe it!’

I couldn’t believe it either. Why on earth
would Tariq hire a former golf coach? Surely somebody with experience of real
estate in the region would have been a more sensible candidate. I began to
question whether Tariq was the shrewd businessman I thought he was after all.

I probed a little further. ‘So, Paul, what kind
of people were you coaching?’

‘Mainly very senior guys: CEOs of multinational
firms, chairmen of property companies, lawyers, consultants, bankers, and even
some sheikhs. You name it, I’ve taught them to swing. A lot of them are good
friends and I can still freelance at the weekends. So happy days!’

The penny dropped. Paul brought something valuable
to Milestone that few salespeople could. It was an old business adage that the
best contacts were made on the golf course. By recruiting Paul, Tariq had
effectively bought direct access to a database of high-profile contacts and
potential customers. Paul’s Rolodex was the cream of wealthy expats and
Emiratis. And a man who could improve your golf swing could always be trusted,
so even though Paul knew little about property, his relationships now belonged
to Milestone. It was a stroke of business genius.

We drove into the centre of an enormous
construction site with hundreds of cranes and dump trucks working actively
around the growing foundations of dozens of towers, all at varying stages in
the construction process. This was the beginnings of the Downtown Dubai
district, a five-hundred-acre development that was to become the most valuable
square kilometre of real estate in the world. We parked outside the modern sales
centre, the only completed building on the site.

As we entered, we were greeted by Noura, a
pretty young Emirati woman dressed in a traditional
abaya
. She asked us
to gather round a full-scale model of the development before beginning her
presentation.

‘As you can see, the development will include
the Dubai Mall, the planet’s largest shopping and entertainment complex; The
Residences, a series of high-rise apartment towers; and the Old Town, a
low-rise traditional residences community...’

Her pitch was flawless and she spoke excellent
English with a distinctive Californian accent.

‘...When it’s finished, it will boast nine
world-class hotels, nineteen residential towers and thirty thousand homes...’

She pointed at the centre of the model, where a
giant silver, needle-like structure protruded high into the air.

‘...The grand centrepiece of the development
will be the incredible Burj Dubai, or ‘Dubai Tower’, which will be the tallest
building in the world. This mighty skyscraper will be surrounded by restaurants
and cafés, and will feature the globe’s largest dancing fountain...’

The height of the Burj Dubai model compared to
the surrounding buildings was astonishing. It looked like a futuristic icicle,
pointing at the heavens as if to make God aware that Dubai had arrived.

‘If you turn around, you will see the building
is already in progress.’ We looked through the giant windows to see the
skeleton of a giant structure. The foundations of the actual Burj Dubai had
been laid and even at this early stage, it looked colossal. ‘Once it is
finished, on a clear day you will be able to see Iran from the observation
deck,’ smiled Noura.

‘I have a question,’ said Paul, interrupting her
in full flow.

She paused. ‘Sure, please go ahead.’

‘What if I feel like a pizza?’

Noura looked baffled. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You know, pizza. What if I lived right at the
very top of the building? High up, way up there.’ He pointed at the tip of the
model.

‘Yes…’

‘How could the pizza possibly stay warm? Surely
it will take ages for the pizza guy to get all the way up there!’ Despite the
giggle that rippled through the crowd, Noura was stumped for an answer.

‘I’m not sure if the architects had thought
about pizza guys,’ she smiled.

‘Well, they should have. And not just pizza.
Burgers, coffees, heck, even fried chicken.’ We all erupted with laughter. In
his own way, Paul had exposed an important design flaw. Building a tower as
tall as the Burj came with a plethora of new and complicated logistical
challenges. Although cold pizza was not the highest priority, the fact that Noura
didn’t have a constructive reply was perhaps a worrying sign that certain
details had been overlooked.

We eventually drove out of the emerging
Downtown district to our next destination. Our minivan passed a large queue of
South Asian labourers in blue overalls and yellow hard hats, waiting for a bus
to take them back to their labour camps after an all-night work shift. Construction
in Dubai was around the clock, and these poor men would soon be replaced by a fresh
batch who would continue where they left off in a seamless, never-ending
ordeal. They looked empty and soulless, as if their monotonous lives had sucked
dry every last drop of their humanity. Some of them held hands, desperate for
some companionship and assurance in their otherwise meaningless and dispensable
existence.

I remembered reading an article back in London
about the unspeakable trials these men had gone through to get to the Emirates.
They were made to live in horrific conditions at the behest of their
unscrupulous employers, who confiscated their passports and withheld their pay
without warning. They were desperate and powerless, and often their only escape
was suicide. Stories of blue-collar workers jumping from building sites or
slashing their wrists were increasingly common, although allegedly hushed up by
the authorities. Such was the cost of earning a little extra money to feed
their poverty-stricken families at home, many of whom they did not see or hear
from for years at a time.

Glimpsing their forlorn faces so close up, my
heart sank and I swallowed hard to get rid of the lump which suddenly formed in
my throat. It was easy to forget that these were the men who were building
Dubai, brick by brick with their bare hands. Without them, there would be no
city. I had never been so close to their world before; most expats in the city
went about their daily business without crossing paths with these labourers.
But as they watched us pass them through their tired eyes, for the first time I
saw them as real human beings with needs and dreams like the rest of us.

‘So how did everybody enjoy that?’ asked Sharon
as we hit the Sheikh Zayed Road. ‘That Burj Dubai is going to be something
special when it’s complete. Don’t you guys think?’ We all nodded in agreement,
except Paul, who had made his stance quite clear.

Our next stop was the Dubailand sales centre on
the Emirates Road.

‘Dubailand will be the biggest theme park in
the world: a theme park of theme parks,’ said the Emirati representative as we
walked through the showroom. ‘Within Dubailand will be forty-five world-class
projects, which will include golf courses, super-hero worlds, eco-tourism
districts, autodromes, an Andalusian spa complex, a Las Vegas-style strip, a
snow mountain, art galleries, the largest zoo in the Middle East and the Mall
of Arabia – the largest mall ever built.’

The sheer scale of the Dubailand project was
mind-boggling, and the miniature model of the development was the largest and
most intricate I had ever seen. There were dozens of mini-projects within the
complex. The Falcon City of Wonders featured life-size replicas of the planet’s
most iconic buildings, including the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben.
Bawadi was a fifty-five billion dollar strip with fifty-one themed hotels
offering sixty thousand new rooms. US theme park and entertainment giants like
Universal and Marvel had already signed up to build their own parks within
Dubailand. There were full-size dinosaurs, indoor mountain ranges and giant
roller-coasters. When it was finished in 2012, this mighty pleasure park would
make Disneyland look like a kindergarten playpen.

While I walked around the enormous scale model,
it suddenly struck me how important Dubailand was to the future of Dubai. The
city’s tourism sector was critical to its sustainability over the coming years,
and Dubailand was the cornerstone of this strategy. If Dubai was going to
fulfil its lofty ambitions of attracting 15 million overseas visitors, three
times as many as New York City, it needed something spectacular to bring them
in. This larger-than-life pleasure dome was the key to Dubai’s aim to be the
world’s leading tourist destination, and there was little doubt from what I had
seen today that it would claim that crown in no time.

‘Psst, over here!’ said a voice behind me. ‘Psst,
here, here!’ I peered around my shoulder curiously.

‘Yes?’

‘So is it true?’ asked a small, unassuming
Indian woman. She was a member of our party but we hadn’t formally met.

‘Is what true?’

‘Is what everybody is saying true? That you are
Tariq’s son.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Somebody told me you were his son. That’s how
you got the best-paying job in Milestone.’

‘No, I’m not his son. Who told you that? And
how do you know what I’m being paid?’

‘Everybody is saying you are being paid more
than anybody and you have been given an apartment.’

‘Well, that’s none of your business!’ I said
assertively.

‘Okay. But can you do something for me, please?’

‘What?’

‘Can you tell Tariq that the salary is a bit
low? If he can give me extra one thousand dirhams then that will be better.
Okay?’

I couldn’t believe her cheek. ‘No, I won’t tell
him that!’

‘But he will listen to you. You are his son.’

‘I'm not his son!’ She shrugged her shoulders
and scuttled off to join the rest of the group.

The final stop on the journey was the upcoming
Culture Village project, towards the older part of the city. The Culture
Village was modelled around the old architecture of Arabia, offering a rustic
experience with traditional wind towers, cobbled stone walkways and creek-side
souks. In a city often accused of submitting to soulless modernity, the Culture
Village aimed to instil some much-needed history and heritage to redress the
balance.

‘The centrepiece of Culture Village will be
Palazzo Versace, a decadent condominium resort with two hundred and sixteen
hotel rooms and one hundred and eighty-eight apartments decorated completely in
Versace opulence.’ Our guide this time was a chubby Emirati man of no more than
20. ‘The Palazzo Versace will also feature the world’s first refrigerated beach,
so visitors will always remain cool.’

 ‘Sorry, I’m confused,’ I interrupted. ‘What
has Palazzo Versace got to do with Culture Village?’

‘The architecture of the Palazzo Versace is
like an old Roman palace, which fits in with the cultural heritage of the
master project,’ he replied, in what seemed like an off-the-cuff response.

‘Yes, but doesn’t that dilute the Arabian
theme? I thought the point of Culture Village is to promote Arabian culture.’

He started to look rather nervous. ‘I’m afraid
I will have to get back to you on that.’

The truth was that Culture Village was yet
another example of ‘faux Arabia’ – a modern attempt to recreate the Middle East
of yesterday, albeit with air conditioning and Starbucks. It wasn’t
particularly convincing.