Our nation’s continued success lies in its innovative approach

Arabic-language writers reflect on National Day’s significance.

Fireworks along the Abu Dhabi Corniche in celebration of UAE National Day. Delores Johnson / The National

The UAE’s celebration of its 45th National Day caught the attention of Arabic-language publications both inside and outside the country.

Commentator Salem Al Ketbi said that the strength of the Emirati model lies in its characteristic spirit of challenge.

"The journey of the union has been paved with challenges all along, the most difficult being its planning, construction and development," he wrote in the London-based pan-Arab daily paper Al Arab.

These “survival challenges” lay in building the institutions and people of a newborn country as well as forging the national identity of the union.

“For the first time in the history of the emirates, they coexisted under the same banner, which entailed their rearrangement, the reinforcement of the federal institutions and the unification of the armed forces,” he wrote.

These were among the measures that strengthened the spirit of the union and the fusion of its national identity.

“The two-term concept Al Bayt Mitwahid [Our Home Is United] coined by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, denotes the alignment of the Emirati people around their wise leadership,” Al Ketbi noted.

According to the writer, a look at the history of the Arabian Gulf and the UAE since its formation shows that challenges form a major part of the strategic environment where the union has seen the light, grown, developed and succeeded in overcoming these tough regional circumstances.

“On its 45th National Day, the UAE turns the page of yet another year of great strategic challenges that the wise leadership was able to overcome thanks to its determination and resolve, to restore the standing of Arab national security based on the rule that the security of each and every Arab state is part and parcel of the UAE’s own national security,” he concluded.

Writing in The National's Arabic-language sister daily paper Aletihad, Dr Asaad Abdul Rahman quoted President Sheikh Khalifa's words from 2005: "Today's union is a cultural, political, social and economic reality that was neither a gift nor an easy feat."

According to the columnist, these words explain the success of the UAE in different fields. Success that did not come from nowhere, but from the continuous efforts, innovative thinking and faith of men who challenged the reality of Arab division.

“Today, the UAE utilises its solid economic and financial base to advance steadily as per controls and standards underlying an economic model based on knowledge and advanced technology,” the writer said.

“Moreover, it adopts an approach of political, economic and cultural openness to the world and reinforces its regionally and internationally balanced political relations.

“The country is constantly undergoing turnarounds at all economic, social and service levels, in line with its ambitious strategies that seek to utilise its potential to achieve sustainable development.”

According to the 2016 Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum, the UAE ranked first regionally and 16th internationally in global competitiveness. It ranked among the best 20 economies in the world for the fourth consecutive year, beating developed countries such as France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Moreover, it has featured among innovation-based economies for the past nine years, and ranked first globally in the Edelman Trust Barometer in 2016 for the third consecutive year.

“Perhaps what characterises the Emirati experience is the harmony between Oriental Arab values and modern Western technology that raises the standards of living and quality of life of Emirati people and catapults the UAE among the most developed countries in the world,” Dr Abdul Rahman noted.

“Many are the countries that possess natural or human wealth, but not all of them have progressed.

“The UAE has imposed itself on the international scene thanks to strategic plans that are constantly being assessed and developed in light of the concept of the ‘rule of law’, where the law applies to all without discrimination and where people of 200 nationalities coexist in harmony.

“The experience of the UAE is a journey paved with hard work, accomplishment and generosity, whose significant outputs have accumulated to build a country in constant development,” he concluded.

Translated by Jennifer Attieh