British media drum up needless fears over UAE
Picture used for illustrative purpose only.
Gulf Today, Staff Reporter
The British media seem to have made the UAE their favourite hunting ground and like hounds, attack it on the slightest pretext.
If a British couple are caught in the UAE indulging in unseemly behaviour, they raise an outcry, without crosschecking facts. If a Westerner (read: Brit) is behind bars in this country for drunkenness, they see foul play, and make it a sounding board for human rights violations – which is nothing but crying wolf.
The UK papers are drumbeating fears of insecurity among Westerners in the wake of recent developments in the Middle East.
The cause celebre: a comment by an academic, who told the BBC, “If I was a Western citizen I would leave the United Arab Emirates immediately. Not only will Iranian leaders retaliate but also Iraqis will retaliate.
“The Americans have murdered Iraqi war heroes, this was a senior Iraqi government official. The American position in Iraq is no longer sustainable and I think that the whole region is now a threat.”
They tom-tom such nervy hype because they use it as a clickbait, a ploy to garner more hits on the web.
Take, for instance, The Telegraph: It screamed: “Westerners should leave UAE immediately: Gulf warning as British troops put at greater risk in Iraq after US kills Iran military chief, January 3.”
Or for instance, Metro: “Westerners warned to leave Dubai and Abu Dhabi ‘immediately’ amid tensions after US strike.”
The American and British Foreign Offices have updated their travel advisories but neither clearly mentions Dubai or the UAE.
The fact is that the UAE has been more than magnanimous in extending a hand of welcome to the British.
There are thousands of Britishers living in the UAE. There are no visas for Britons to enter the UAE. Many tourists from the UK land on the UAE shores, for a spot of sunshine, sea and sand. British glitterati spotlight events and brands here, celebrities unwind in seven-star hotels in unimaginable opulence.
Perhaps this luxury is the cause of jealousy among the penpushers of Fleet Street who, with their stiff upper lip, take the moral high ground and indulge in needless exercises for everybody to relish, because the world is their oyster for their fake, sensational ‘pearls of wisdom’. Perhaps they are unable to afford this richness in their own country, which has been pummelled by recession. Their own economy has taken a battering, so they capitalise on battering the prosperity and all the trappings with it here.
Dubai is among the safest cities in the world, with over 96 per cent of the people feeling safe to move around in the middle of the night. Check how safe London is after midnight, and then raise the brouhaha.
