Abu Dhabi shows Dubai who’s boss
January 7th, 2009
There’s no more obvious sign of the shifting relationship between Abu Dhabi and Dubai than the last-minute renaming of the absurdist folly that is Burj Dubai.
The decision to rename the 828-metre edifice the ‘Burj Khalifa’ — after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Dubai’s financial saviour, Abu Dhabi — on the very day of its launch was fiercely resisted by Dubai’s ruling al-Makhtoum family right up to the last minute.
To me, this much is obvious from the fact that the tower, the world’s tallest, is still being referred to as as the “Burj Dubai” on its own official website — two days after its glitzy launch ceremony.
Last year, Dubai’s oil-rich neighbour Abu Dhabi ploughed some $25bn into rescuing its debt-addicted and feckless little brother from bankruptcy. And more bail-outs are expected this year as Dubai struggles to refinance its circa $200 billion debt pile. It is therefore unsurprising that Abu Dhabi wants its pound of flesh.
Basically Abu Dhabi wants to make it clear that its largesse does not come without strings attached. Otherwise, what’s the point of keeping dipping into its pocket? Who knows, the strings may soon extend further, perhaps as far as seizing control of Dubai’s cherished Emirates airline — or at least demanding a minority stake in it.
”[The renaming of the tower] is the most public acknowledgment thus far of Dubai’s political subordination to Abu Dhabi in the wake of the debt crisis last month,” Hani Sabra, Middle East expert with the New York-based consultancy Eurasia Group told the New York Times.
“The newly named Burj Khalifa is now a symbol of Dubai’s loss of independence,” intoned the Wall Street Journal.
Throughout the construction phase, the 828m “death spire” — hailed by some critics as the most elegant skyscraper since the completion of the Chrysler Building in the the 1930s — has been known as the Burj Dubai. But on the day of its launch, developers Emaar quietly renamed it the Burj Khalifa.
Jim Krane, author of City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism has condemned the tower, which is 300 metres taller than the Tapei 101, as an environmental catastrophe. He told CNN “It uses as much electricity as an entire city. And every time the toilet is flushed they’ve got to pump water half a mile into the sky.”
- To view a televised on the Dubai‘s financial crisis, in which I participated alongside Dr Christopher Davidson of Durham University and Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked, click here
- For other entries on Dubai from this blog, click here
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