DUBAI -- Last month, Gen. Sheikh Muhammad bin Maktum, minister of defense of the United Arab Emirates, announced at a press conference that the Internet revolution and the "new economy" were coming to the government of Dubai. It was an incongruous spectacle, so traditional a figure, in distinctive black "dishdasha," delivering a pep talk like a wired and with-it corporate executive. As "synergy," "Internet-enabled solutions," "cycle-time reduction" and the like flashed across a screen behind him, he swore he would have his "e-government@dubai" Web site in place within 18 months, or "kick arse" if he didn't.
It was a typical can-do performance by the minister of defense; typically, too, it had nothing to do with defense. In the zany power structure of the federation that Britain created 29 years ago, its seven member-states retain vast autonomy. And defense is left essentially to Abu Dhabi which, thanks to its oil, is by far the richest of them.
Business was ever the main business of Dubai. Only the scale and variety of it has changed explosively. Barely a generation ago, Sheikh Rashid, founder of the modern city, sat by the famous Dubai creek charging a few dirhems on boats ferrying passengers across it. Today, under his son Muhammad -- the effective ruler because his elder brother, the titular one, is more interested in horses than public affairs -- it is perhaps the world's fastest-growing global city and intercontinental hub. It is also a non-Arab society planted in the heart of Arabia.