The Emirates has garnered a reputation of competitiveness on a global level – a fixation of sorts on producing high achievers and amassing the largest number of notable feats.
When it comes to breaking down the nature of such motivation it’s clear that it comes from a deep understanding of poverty and hardship that’s long gone but never forgotten.
It must be easy to conjure an image of chaos as one reflects on the rapid, and often inconsistent, change the Emirates has gone through, as a country and a people.
Among that change is at least one constant: fear. A fear of losing touch with our collective heritage and long-standing traditions that many cherish.
It may seem that a shift in perspective would be inevitable, but the reality of the matter is that people often react quite viscerally to change, no matter how small it might be.
Emiratis have learnt to accept a relatively large number of concepts in a respectively short span of time – concepts that, at first, seemed to threaten their way of life.
For example, the first school to open its doors in Abu Dhabi, an all-boys school, struggled to enrol students. It was only with the adamant encouragement of the former ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan and, subsequently, the support of Sheikh Zayed, the founding President of the UAE, that parents began sending their children off to school. When they eventually introduced a school for girls, it took twice the effort, as well as financial incentives, to push for the education of girls.
I believe that our Bedouin instinct is to always shove ourselves into new frontiers, sometimes without any further planning or expectations. In turn, this has us stuck in a cycle where we continue to struggle to cope with some of the modern culture that’s being formed around us.
For example, when the first coloured abayas were introduced into society, we saw people mock “fashionistas” for being some of the first to embrace this fashion-forward move. There was a nonsensical, nationwide uproar towards this coloured garment.
Even today, we seem to be at a standstill, with people continuing to discuss and argue whether or not this change really does affect a person’s identity, and whether it is an offence towards our heritage. The modern form of the abaya as we know it is a variation of a variation of a concept that was introduced in the early days of the establishment of the Emirates, we must remember that the abaya didn’t even exist within the vernacular of the Emirati tribes.
All of this leads me to believe that we’re in need of a re-education; a reboot if you will. I do believe that we’re completely capable of understanding, with compassion and acceptance of one another.
The Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court has recently launched an educational initiative known as Moral Education, which is to be implemented as a mandatory part of the school curriculum. The initiative is expected to introduce and teach the concept of tolerance to children.
I can’t emphasise how important this initiative is; it could not have come at a better time for us as a people and a country. I expect that this endeavour of the purest form of tolerance will become one that we regard as a goal we must achieve and to view it as another ribbon on the wall of acknowledgement.
We can’t allow slowing growth in the economy to hold us back from achieving further groundbreaking feats. As a society of ambitious people, we understand that we should never rest on our laurels.
Afra Al Khazraji works for Mubadala Business Management Services.
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