Young Emiratis have heard much about Sheikh Zayed, the father of the nation. They know that he unified the country and spearheaded the nation's development, among many other things. However, they do not know how he accomplished these things. The schoolbooks I studied and the ones still being used do not analyse the difficulties, challenges and obstacles that he faced. They do not investigate the process of unification. Students only know what happened, but not how. This means that while students read positive things about Sheikh Zayed, they do not know the scale of his achievements. Studying Sheikh Zayed provides an opportunity for further knowledge production in political science and related fields, but studying his life in a manner that lacks analysis eliminates that opportunity within academia.
When asked how Sheikh Zayed encouraged women into education, some may say that he built schools and universities. However, this is quite superficial. Many people can build schools, but not many can change a society’s perceptions about female roles in society. Sheikh Zayed sent his own female family members to university to promote the idea that education is an honourable pursuit, so that others would follow his example.
Changing attitudes is much more difficult than building schools, yet this has not been studied. When Sheikh Zayed was ruler in Al Ain, he faced opposition from tribal members who did not want to share the water of their irrigation channels with the poorer members of society. This was resolved when Sheikh Zayed gave up his own water rights and others followed suit.
Similarly, many do not know about the efforts necessary to create the union. Schoolbooks teach little about the struggles and obstacles he faced and instead mostly recite the milestones. In reality, great struggles between the different emirates ensued, as well as Bahrain and Qatar (which were considered to join the union at some point). There were different viewpoints to weigh up and a general lack of trust.
Such details are mentioned in other books within the UAE, such as the National Archive’s Zayed: From Challenges to Union and Zayed: Man Who Built a Nation. However, they do not feature in any of the school texts. Without remembering these struggles, how can one truly understand them and how can one truly learn from them?
In fact, the different viewpoints and the obstacles that ensued from those differences, show the importance of persistence, tolerance, reconciliation and coexistence – values which the UAE was built on. Deeper knowledge of the obstacles to the union can be used to promote these ideals. It is not enough to reiterate to students that these values are vital pillars of the union. Only when students understand the depth of the issues that existed and the efforts that were made to overcome them, can reconciliation and tolerance be appreciated.
I speak from experience. I recently developed the idea for a research project studying Sheikh Zayed, to create new knowledge from his vision. I emailed professors in major western universities asking for support.
Other postcolonial figures of his time, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, are much more commonly studied than Sheikh Zayed. There is more serious research on them, and therefore their political ideas can be easily found. I believed that studying Sheikh Zayed in the same manner would create knowledge that can be used within these fields, which are predominantly Eurocentric.
This is not to say that books about Sheikh Zayed do not exist. They do, but they are mostly biographical accounts. None analyses Sheikh Zayed’s political decisions or the unification process in a systematic manner that allows for the creation of theoretical or conceptual knowledge for use in different settings. Therefore, when one reads in political science, they end up reading about the ideas of many different thinkers or leaders, but not Sheikh Zayed’s. What I proposed is an attempt to create new knowledge from Sheikh Zayed’s life.
Some professors told me this was not a good idea. In their words, they believed it would read more like a “hagiography” if an Emirati were to write such a study. They worried that my topic would not be academically rigorous and would centre on the glorification of a political figure.
The fact remains that when one wants to write positive things about where they come from, they will be viewed suspiciously by those who think they are too close to the source to look at the situation critically. To be taken more seriously, the person speaking of their own society must not only know the history, but also the different interpretations of it. They must know the problems and not only the best success stories.
Therefore, when studying Sheikh Zayed, it is not enough to know that he developed the nation. It is imperative that Emiratis know how this happened, what the process was, how struggles were overcome and what obstacles remain.
It is vital that this is studied in an analytical and academically rigorous manner. It is not only then that the knowledge created can be taken more seriously by others – but it is then that Emiratis can benefit most from the examples of Sheikh Zayed.
Rana Almutawa is an Emirati faculty member at Zayed University in Dubai
