Reading what writes Mike Davis on Dubai, the phantasmagorical metropolis of the desert, my thoughts focus on a reflection on the environment. Dubai was born within a few decades from nothing thanks to macro-credit and ecocide, suppression e perhaps modern slavery. Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing, at last, into history. But if they limited to replicate Montecarlo in their home would still be the less.
The fact is that they go shopping abroad with their swollen beautiful wallets. And even here, if you just buy soccer teams, go on. But the fact is that their wild trowel threatens to destroy corners of paradise. I would like to make an example close to the “Dubai wave”. Welcomed as a savior of the homeland in Sardinia (as if the island was a third world country), the Emir of Qatar not only promises new cement in Costa Smeralda, but also in Stintino, as if its beauty were not the beach of the Pelosa, the sea or the island of Asinara. And for just € 8. 5 million (less than a modest football player), an ionic archipelago was bought in Greece, the Echinadi, six intact islands. He would obviously want to build mega resorts, but in Greece there seems to be a rule that you cannot build a larger villa of 250 square meters. He said he was amazed: his only bathroom is 250 square meters and the kitchen is 1000 square meters. But on the other hand, I would also praise Dubai policies.
Dubai exports 70000 barrels of oil every day. 35 times less than Venezuela. It has just over 2 million inhabitants, 14 times less than Venezuela. It is a territory of pure sandy desert useful just to bury a person. Venezuela is three times larger than the size and floats in oil, as well as having immense deposits of iron, bauxite, natural gas, coal and more nickel, manganese, gold, diamonds, an impressive hydroelectric potential and fresh water that flows from thousands of sources. Dubai is even tacky. In Venezuela, 14 million inhabitants, half of the population, live in cardboard and tin barracks. Why? Dubai does not know corruption: everything is in the hands of the Emir, who is working for his people. In Venezuela, the communist government quickly made millions of dollars disappear. In the emirates, citizens live in first-class homes. In Venezuela, regular citizens live in shacks.
