Emirati professor becomes a Dubai taxi driver to explore what drives us

Ammar Shams will discuss his experiences and encounters behind the wheel at the Emirates Literature Festival this week

Ammar Shams trained as a taxi driver in Dubai and did the 4pm to 4am shift for two months. Photo: Ammar Shams

When Ammar Shams was in his fifties, he and his wife drove from Dubai to London. It took them two weeks, as they passed through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Belgium.

That is one example of what the Emirati professor calls the “exploratory side” of his life, the other two being the professional aspect – working in oil and gas and banking – and the academic aspect – teaching family law twice a week at the British University in Dubai after retiring from the corporate world, “in order to keep the grey cells active and alive”.

This exploratory side is the part he says he enjoys the most, and what led him to pursue a master’s in international comparative law at the age of 40, a PhD in the intersectionality between gender and Sharia at the age of 50 – and, most recently, a stint as a Dubai taxi driver a few months before his 60th birthday.

“It’s safe to say that I enjoy driving,” Shams says with a smile. “I de-stress by getting in the car and just driving, ideally in the desert or an open space where there aren't any buildings or other cars that get in the way.”

Of course, the life of a taxi driver entails quite the opposite. But it enabled Shams to meet people on their own terms. “I have always been curious about people. I want to find out more about the human condition, the human mind. But I realised, unfortunately, every time anybody interacts with another person, there's always effectively a filter.

“When I meet people, the first thing they see, especially if I am wearing my kandura, is ‘old Arab man’, and therefore their conversation or interaction will be on the basis of 'old Arab man'. I wanted to talk to people without that filter,” he explains.

Shams adds of his decision to train as a cab driver: “I also wanted to know more about the city I have called home for 60 years. So I know my Dubai, I know Barsha, Jumeirah, Mall of the Emirates, DIFC. That’s my world, right? A world where all my friends are effectively me. They’ve studied what I studied, lived where I’ve lived, experienced what I’ve experienced. It’s one-dimensional.

“I wanted to see Dubai through the eyes of others. I wanted to meet people who would be themselves when talking to me. I wanted to have fun, but more than anything else, I wanted to learn. I had no idea what to expect.”

The process comprised a two-week course alongside 34 other drivers-in-training, followed by an English language test and then two months on the road – or standing in the taxi ranks to pick up passengers from malls and hotels – during Shams’ daily 4pm to 4am shifts.

“Those two weeks alone were worth the entire exercise,” Shams says of the training. “It blew my mind. Of the other 34, two were lawyers, at least six had engineering degrees, others had graduated from business courses. They were phenomenally skilled, qualified people whose aspiration was to be a taxi driver in Dubai to earn a salary of Dh4,000-odd that they could send home.”

Over the course of two months, taxi driver Shams learnt much about the human mind and spirit. He also revealed one colleague refused to believe he is an Emirati citizen, even scrutinising his Emirates ID and driver’s licence photographs before commanding him to “return the wallet someone obviously dropped in your taxi back to the RTA office”.

Of the dozens of passengers he picked up and interacted with over the weeks, Shams says he did not have a single bad experience. While a handful did not seem interested in engaging in conversation, many others let their guard down almost instantly.

“I tend to get along with people and I like talking to them, and most were happy to unload. I got to know more about some of them in a 20-minute ride than I know about my closest friends,” says Shams. “The anonymity of a conversation with someone you are almost guaranteed to never cross paths with again is liberating.”

Shams also made a conscious decision not to take on a different persona. “I didn't want to create a caricature of anybody. I would have found that offensive. So I promised myself I'd always be me and answer questions about myself honestly, but only if anybody asked.”

The end game, he says, was to address concepts of bias and stereotypes. Drawing parallels between a peer he met at university and the drivers he trained with, Shams says: “At my student digs in London, I got talking to a guy who, after asking if I was Arab, went on to tell me he was Israeli. Halfway through our conversation he said: 'Sorry, I need to stop you for a moment. I told you I’m from Israel and you didn't flinch or react the way many Arabs would when they hear the word Israelis.’

“And I told him: ‘I'm going to find out about your politics later. If you're a decent human being, I'm not going to put the burden of your birth on you; it is not yours. As it turns out, he was the most pro-Palestinian person I knew on campus.”

Likewise, says Shams of the lawyers, engineers and “incredible human beings” doubling as taxi drivers in Dubai: “It was probably the single most humbling experience of my life. The human spirit and the amount of common decency I saw was phenomenal.

“It proved to me that stereotypes are man-made, and rarely based on anything other than experiential issues, but that can be a false perspective. The blinkers we put on ourselves often make us see only what we believe we have to or want to see. I like to make people think twice about what they think, and this was part of that.”

As for what is next on his exploratory journey, Shams says with a chuckle: “In a perfect world, and if I could get away with it, I want to drive an Uber in London to compare a similar experience in two different worlds.”

Ammar Shams will discuss his experience being a Dubai taxi driver and the insights he gained by connecting with diverse lives on February 2 at Dubai Festival City, as part of Emirates Airline Literature Festival