You may have trouble sending a letter to the United Arab Emirates if you don’t have a post office box. That’s because Dubai has no street addresses, no zip codes or area codes, and no postal delivery service. Somehow, the city manages to not just survive, but thrive as a major regional hub and international center of finance and commerce. How?

The UAE has a postal agency called Emirates Post, which operates the post offices across the country and which has about two dozen branches in Dubai, a city of about 2 million people. These branches hold post office boxes, where mail of all sizes can be delivered, but they do not deliver this mail to the recipients. It is the responsibility of the recipient to contract a post office box and check this to receive mail. (Not surprisingly, this can be a major hassle for anyone who works a full day at work, but fortunately, these post offices are generally open 24 hours a day.)

This means that addresses in Dubai are incredibly basic. If you have a PO box number, the only information you need to get something delivered is:

Mr./Ms. XYZ
P.O. Box #####
Dubai, UAE

Dubai also does not have numbered street addresses, probably because construction is so prevelant and roads are always changing that building numbers would be constantly changing. That provides a different conundrum if you want something delivered by international courier such as FedEx or DHL. The sender must write an address to best describe the place of deliver, typically listing the building name and neighborhood description. For example:

Mr. XYZ
Suite No. 999
XYZ Building
Jebel Ali Freezone, Gate 2, First right after entry
Dubai, UAE

Just make sure you include a reliable phone number so the couriers can ask for directions and confirm delivery time. The same happens when you have things delivered. Stores often include a form for drawing a map to your home to avoid confusion.

How do you survive in environment like this? Actually, it’s amazingly convenient. Because everyone in the UAE has to work somewhere, the solution (for most white collar workers) is to have mail delivered directly to the office, which at this Viceroy’s administrative office is checked diligently twice a day by an office worker. Any mail is personally dropped off at my desk. Interestingly enough, this means that the UAE’s bizarre system of no postal delivery actually makes mail delivery incredibly convenient.

Today, Iraqs go to the polls to elect a national government that will guide the country through the coming years and the probable withdrawal of US troops. Voting has been going on for days, with Iraqis overseas, police and troops having already voted.

The campaign has been a typical democratic affair. In a country tense with all the random violence, all parties are guilty of faning the flames of fear. Several major Shia leaders are pushing their people to vote because of a widespread fear of returning Baathists. Meanwhile, secular party leaders are warning against a Shia-led theocracy that be subservient to their lords and masters in Iran. While this is typical in a democracy, the risk is that this fear-mongering may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that when violence inevitably happens, the stage has already been set for the conclusions people will make.

I just got off the phone with a Western colleague who is working in Iraq and who has been there on the ground for almost three straight years, primarily in Erbil, Kurdistan. He has a pretty positive view on the country and on the elections when we spoke today, despite the fact that more than two dozen people have been killed in election violence, and his comment appears in the title of this post. (This guy works at a private company in an operation that is designed to avoid the typical pitfalls of running a business in Iraq. His office in Erbil has its own generator to make sure they can operate through the numerous powercuts in Iraq. They have invested in a direct satellite-to-internet connection so they do not rely on local providers.)

Al Qaeda’s “local affiliate” has pledged to disrupt the voting process with attacks, but voting seems to be going forward and the hope is that these elections will result in less violence. The bodycount has been steadily dropping for the past few years. And we can only hope that it continues, and that these elections provide some stability to a country that was ranked by the Economist as the most “business unfriendly” nation of 2010.

- Part 1 – Part 2 –

Part of the joy of working in Dubai is that 90% of the city is non-Emirati, and you regularly meet and interact with people from all corners of the world, some with very peculiar names. Some colleagues have spent years collecting a list of these peculiar names, and I share a few highlights below (listing nationality in parentheses, where known).

• Fabian Philandrianos: Manager (France)
• Chlorophyl Yip: Lawyer (Hong Kong)
• Superman Chan: Account Manager (Philippines)
• Twinkle Ling: Account Manager (China)
• Thomai Vaginis: IT Manager (Spain)
• Willy Rider: General Counsel (England)
• Peggy Trollio: Secretary (South Africa)
• Nyu Kok: Executive Assistant (Vietnam)
• Arsol Iroshka: Lawyer (Lithuania)
• Christodoulos Christodoulos: Finance officer
• Martha Anus: Manager (Australia)
• Ali G.: Waiter (Lebanon?)
• Cherry Fries: Sales Coordinator
• Alien Yam: Deliveryman
• Amanda Cockhead: Secretary (South Africa)
• Young-suk Kim: Project Manager (Korea)

(As it happens, you can actually find several of these people on facebook and linkedin…)

I’ve had a pleasant week traveling all over Jordan, from the capital of Amman to the edge of the Golan Heights, to the Dead Sea and down to the ruins of Petra in the south. Before I return to Dubai tomorrow, I write to share with readers my first impressions of the country.

Jordan is a poor country, and feels like one of the poorest I’ve ever visited. Outside of Amman, nothing is built properly. Most one and two story houses have bare concrete pillars on the roof with exposed steel waiting for money or opportunity to build an additional floor. Only one road, the desert highway that stretches from north to south from Amman to Aqaba, is smooth while all other roads are pot-holed. There are essentially no new cars on the road. Nomads herding sheep and donkeys are common.

Looking at the GDP-per capita figures, Jordan is much poorer than countries I have visited such as Turkey, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Oman but notably richer than Vietnam and Cambodia. However, both Vietnam and Cambodia are growing and have export-based diverse economies. Jordan’s economy has basically remained stagnant since 1995, and I can’t help but think that the Bedoin nomad culture contributes to this. On two occasions, I spoke with middle-aged Jordanian men who scoffed at the idea of concepts such as “work” and “ambition” and said that the best thing to do was to live like a nomad and enjoy a nap in the sun whenever the mood.

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Without missing a beat from my trip to Saudi Arabia, I am now heading off to Jordan, where I will travel through the country on a broad survey of Ottoman, Christian, Roman, and Seleucid and other historical ruins. The exact route and itinerary of this trip is not yet confirmed, but I will return to blogging in early March when I have returned from my trip. Rest assured that there will undoubtably be plenty of photographs and accounts from the journey.

UPDATED: Sorry, this post was sitting in the drafts and published without editing. I was supposed to go to Saudi Arabia but that has been postponed until next month. Stay tuned for more on that!

The Historical Geography of Saudi Arabia – Part 1

The Middle Eastern Theater of the Great War opened with the British capture of Basra, which was vital to securing oil supplies for their forces. After that, the war was stuck at a stalemate for years, with the primary British interest pulling in the Arab forces to fight with them against the Turks. This was a difficult task—the Turks were, afterall, Muslim brethren of the Arabs—but the recent favoring of Turkish nationals over the recent decades of the Ottoman Empire made many Arabs sore with Ottoman rule.

William Shakespear, who had first met Ibn Saud in 1910, looked to secure Saudi support for the British, but any long-term relationship between the two countries was damaged significantly when Shakespear was killed by Rashidi forces in the Battle of Jarrab. From then on, most British policymakers—including T.E. Lawrence and Lord Curzon—advocated the “Hussein Policy” of alliance with Hussein bin Ali, the Sheikh of Mecca. Although the British entered into the Treaty of Darin with Ibn Saud in December 1915 by which they recognized his sovereignty and paid him to continue his war against the Ottoman-allied Al Rashid, Ibn Saud’s reluctance to quickly move against the Rashidis, and the lack of Ibn Saud’s ability to directly attack Ottoman interests, put Hussein at the forefront of the “Arab Revolt.” After Hussein was successful in capturing Meccah, Jeddah and Taif in quick succession, the majority view inside the British camp was overwhelmingly in his favor. The Saudi-Rashidi theater became, as some might call it, a sideshow of a sideshow of a sideshow (A Lawrence of Arabia reference, for those of you who don’t get it.)

In 1917, the tide turned decisively in the favor of the British. In February, after years of battling in the region, the British decisively capture Kut in Iraq. , the forces of the Arab Revolt, led by Auda ibu Tayi and T. E. Lawrence, captured Aqaba, while a British offensive recaptured Suez. Finally, after a big push towards Jerusalem, the Ottoman forces surrended on December 9, 1917, and the war in the Middle East was over, although it took another 10 months for an armistice to be signed.

The two big events from the battle of Jerusalem until the end of the war were telling as to what the next decade would bring. First, we saw the first real battle between Saudi and Husseini forces in a skirmish at Al Khurmah; and the independence of northern Yemen as an independent Shia state.

Front page of the Gulf News yesterday in Dubai.

Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a senior Hamas military commander and a founder of the Al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated in the luxurious Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai on 19 January (or 20th January, accounts differ). On the day of the incident, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that he died of terminal cancer in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, but nothing more was said publicly. The news of his murder was only made public ten days after the assasination occurred. The account of his murder is unclear—he was either suffocated, electrocuted, poisoned, or injected with a drug that induced a heart attack.

The Dubai police have asserted that the assassination team consisted of eleven suspects holding various European nationalities. Also, two Palestinians were arrested in Jordan and handed over to Dubai, suspected of giving logistical assistance. One has been reported to be a security official in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, which begs the question from Hamas and others: is Fatah teaming up with Mossad to target Hamas? (Rumors are rampant, however, and some think that this was a Hamas inside job, while others suspect Mossad.)

Of course, all of this is reminiscent of the film Munich, which narrates the allegedly true story about Israel’s covert assasination of people involved in the attack on Israel Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972. Seeing the newspaper, however, one of my (Muslim) colleagues said it reminded him more like the hooligans from Oceans Eleven.

Fun gossip and rumors:

• This could be evidence of expansion of Israel’s assasination policy.
• Police chief Dahi Khalfan has said he will issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if investigators show Mossad was behind the killing.
• Meanwhile, there was no comment from Dubai-based diplomats from the countries linked to passports carried by the alleged assassin cell: six with British, three Irish and one each from France and Germany.
• A former high-ranking Mossad official, Rami Igra, told Israel Army Radio that the assassination, despite looking like a professional job, was far too amateurish to be Isaraeli, noting that the assailants were seen on a security camera.
• Poor Jerusalem-based British citizen Melvyn Mildiner was shocked to see his name and passport number listed as one of the suspects. He told Reuters news agency that he has never been to Dubai and had no connection with the Mossad or the assassination.

Today, the Latin alphabet is the international standard for phonetic writing. But this is a modern phenomenon. For centuries, Arabic was the central language to science and trade, and consequently, the use of its script was dominant worldwide well into the 19th century. Yet the 17th-19th centuries saw a slow decline in the use of Arabic, and a critical loss over ten years from the late 1920s to mid-1930s in the former Ottoman and new Soviet territories as Latin letters, and to a lesser degree Cyrillic, became the script of choice.

Colonialism and independence realized the decline of Arabic in Africa in many languages. Swahili, a major African language up the African east coast, has used the Latin alphabet since the 19th century, despite heavy influence from the Arabic language, along with Malagasy in Madagascar. Songhay, Yoruba and other West African languages were, in some regions, written in Arabic, although all are now written in the Latin alphabet. Nearer Arabia, Harari in Ethiopia, Berber in northern Africa, and Nubian in the Sudan area no longer use Arabic script. Even Afrikaans was written in Arabic by some people for part of the 19th century.

During the Arabic rule of Spain, Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, and Spanish were written in Arabic. During Ottoman rule of Eastern Europe, several languaegs—Greek, Bosnian, Romanian and Albanian—were written in Arabic script. Elsewhere in Europe, Tatars used Arabic to write Polish and Belarussian. But the decline of the Ottoman Empire saw the rapid abandonment of the Arabic script, and Turkey’s voluntary abandonment of Arabic script in 1928 saw the end of the Arabic script in Europe. Even the Kurds abandoned Arabic for a Latin alphabet in 1932.

The Russian Revolution and Soviet rule saw the switch from Arabic to the back-and-forth use of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, depending on the mood fo the Bolsheviks at any particular time. Russia’s central Asian languages such as Bashkir, Tatar, Chaghatai, and Chechen sporadically used Arabic but now all use Cyrillic. The languages of the Central Asian republics—Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik—are the same, having abandoned Arabic in the 1930s. The same is true for Azeri in the Caucasus. Uyghur in western China is the only Turkic language that still uses the Arabic script, and it remains an official language in that part of China.

In distant East Asia, Malay in Malaysia and Indonesia used Arabic script until Dutch and British influence gradually replaced that script starting in the 17th century. Some Filipino languages also abandoned the use of Arabic at this time. And finally, the Hui Muslim people used to write the Chinese and Dungan languages in Arabi script in a script called Xiao’erjing.

In addition to the obvious factors—imperialism, colonialism, and the Soviet hegemony—another factor was the printing press. Because there are several forms of each Arabic letter depending on where it appears in the sentence, material produced in the Arabic script could not be easily reproduced with a printing press.

In our previous discussions on what language to learn, Arabic has generally been rated as a second or third tier language in order of importance. A century ago, when the real-life Curzon, Younghusband, Chirol and Munro-Ferguson travelled the globe, it surely would have been a first tier language, if for nothing else than for the dominance of its script from southern Africa to western China. Those days, however, are long gone.

On the summit of Jebel Hafeet, on the border of the UAE and Oman, I found this graffiti—the characters for “China” spray painted on the rock.

I saw similar graffiti in a natural valley in Sapa, Vietnam, back in 2005. As China grows richer, and its citizens find more opportunities for overseas tourism, I guess we should expect more of this kind of vulgar graffiti to pop up in the natural tourist sites of the world.

I’m happy that China’s economic development has created an upwardly mobile middle class that has the opportunity to travel overseas. I just wish they wouldn’t take out their lack-of-modern-empire-penis-envy frustrations on the natural environment of the world.

(It could be worse—at least the Chinese government doesn’t have management over tourist sites outside China, which would be a real disaster for human civilization).

- Prelude: The Historical Geography of Saudi Arabia –

Most summaries you read about modern Arabian history focus on the Trucial States, the Arab Revolt, Pan-Arabian nationalism, and the modern political instability. Saudi Arabia is never mentioned until the discovery of oil, and Ibn Saud’s dramatic seizure of power that begins with his capture of Riyadh in 1902, and his slow consolidation of power in Arabia, is generally ignored or glossed over.

This is disappointing, or at least, it’s a shame for those of us who are students of geopolitics. Because the more I read about Saudi Arabia, the more I am fascinated by the shrewd and crafty geopolitical genius of Ibn Saud—how he survived and prospered through the heydays of the early 20th century and regularly bargained with much more powerful international players from a position of strength. This series is the first of four parts that will show you the modern geography of Saudi Arabia—following on my previous explanation of the first and second Saudi states.

You can see an animated gif of this transition here.

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