Something is happening at UAE community blog

A community is forming.

Take a look at these two posts and the thoughtful comments on them:

1. My hopeless vision. Some quotes:

Today's Dubai has become an inverted mirror-image. We seek everything new. We forget our roots. We embrace things we don't understand just because others are. We are extremely competitive, especially when it doesn't matter. We don't care. We would rather die than be caught outdoors instead of in-malls.
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I relate to this post so much, I am constantly home sick in my own country. We have changed and "developed" so fast.
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In the US, I used to live near a mosque where many muslims from many parts of the world come to pray and socialize in. I used to have friends from different nationalities and the same goes for my wife. I saw there Muslims who are proud to be muslims and they communicate with others as muslims. Unlike here in UAE, we are becoming like native indians in America. I'm really homesick.

2. Dr Al Suwaidi interview. A sampling of the comments:

These are things that are said among the elite in the UAE, but I have never seen published. Kudos to him and the ECSSR.
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I sympathize with people feeling the loss of their culture. I don't think nationalism is a good answer, though. Much better are targeted initiatives to foster the missing culture in ways that affect the cultural ocean we swim in, combined with an educational system that teaches people how to think for themselves and perceive what is of value. Then people won't be caught as helplessly when meaning dissipates. They can look around them and chart a course to things of value, some of which will surely involve continuity with their grand-parents, old culture, ecology, and mother tongue.
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Foreigners need to understand that Emiratis have had to adjust with enormous cultural and social change over the space of a couple generations, often unwillingly so. It's a society in constant transition and the focus is inevitably shifting toward attempting to safeguard their identity.

See also these two hard-hitting posts, Oh my, another traffic jam! and Life's a beach.