The UAE’s desert-inspired pavilion at Milan Expo 2015 is helping to start a whole new conversation abroad about the country. Roughly 400 Emirati volunteers between the ages of 20 and 35 have been hard at work answering various questions about Emirati life and culture at the Expo. These include, as we reported yesterday, such basic queries such as “Is everyone in the UAE rich because of oil?” and “Are women oppressed”?
In many ways, this is entirely unsurprising. While much of the world knows Dubai, or at least, knows of it, the UAE remains less well known as an entity. This too is unsurprising. This is a relatively young country and a unique federal union. This would be unusual in any part of the world, but more so, here in the Middle East.
So, we should not be surprised that people don’t know much about us. But we should be determined to spread the word. The UAE pavilion is doing just that, which prompts the question: why does it have to end with the end of this year’s Expo in Milian, three months from now?
In the years leading up to the Dubai Expo 2020, it would be ideal to have a mobile UAE exhibition that would travel the world, or at least everywhere that our two signature carriers, Emirates and Etihad Airways, fly. They criss-cross 90 per cent of the planet, so that would mean the pop-up UAE exhibition would be racking up a lot of airmiles, striking up a lot of conversations, answering a lot of questions and dispelling a lot of myths about the country.
And it could serve as a roving real live advertorial on the UAE, highlighting, for example, the “green” vision of the Masdar City project; world-class medical infrastructure; architectural wonders new and old; cultural treasures from across the seven emirates and perhaps even The National as a window into UAE current events.
In a sense, it would be a festival in a box, a ceaseless celebration and explanation of the UAE.
