You're NOT Welcome to Dubai

The UAE works very hard to be one of the most open Muslim countries in the world. They try to demonstrate that they're ready to participate in the broader cultures outside of Arabia. But sometimes, the traditions and religious laws here are still stronger than the modernization. In the news this week, we've had two cases highlighting this conflict.

First, the Dubai Tennis Championship is this week. The Ladies' tournament started yesterday. One of the qualifying players, Shahar Pe'er, is an Israeli woman who qualified to play. But she has been denied an entry visa by the UAE. For a little while, it looked like the Women's Tennis Association would cancel the tournament. But instead, they've elected to go on - but are examing whether to have the tournament next year. This violates the WTA rules for hosting a tournament that state all players should be allowed entry if they have qualified to play.

Second, the Emirates Literary Festival is coming in two weeks. I'm quite excited to go actually. It will be the first Literary Festival in the Middle East. One of the invited authors has now just been Un-invited. She has written a book set here in the Middle East. One of the characters in her book (a minor character) is gay. Actually, he's a gay sheikh. And so it was felt that debuting her book here would be too controversal. And so, she's been uninvited and her book has been banned. I wonder - actually - if there's more concern that the character is gay - because of course there are TONS of books in the bookstores here that have gay characters. Or is it because it is a gay sheikh. Unofficially, one of the brothers or cousins of Sheikh Kalifa (ruler of AbuDhabi) is gay. He is actually facing criminal prosecution in Switzerland for beating up a gay prostitute. So, maybe that's the sensitivity. One of the Festival organizers commented, "Banning books is not usually the way you'd launch a Literary Festival." Hmmm - now that's an understatement.

Usually, I think that Dubai would go ahead and have these people come. But with the recent economic situation Dubai is now having to look for support from Abu Dhabi - the neighboring emirate who has almost 80% of the UAE's oil revenue. Abu Dhabi is vastly more traditional than Dubai - and now they are using the financial dependence to try and exert more influence onto what was seen as their brash newfangled cousin to the north. And I think Dubai is forced to rein in their "progress" as they continue to look for financial support from Abu Dhabi.

Updated to add: Since I wrote this, the WTA has fined the Dubai tournament US $300,000. I believe they have also instructed the tournament to pay Ms. Peer US $48,000 which is her average earnings at tournaments over the last year. No word about whether next year's tournament is cancelled.