I had never been tempted to visit Dubai, even when friends came back from there waxing lyrical about its attractions, natural and man-made. The one and only occasion that I did was when an Emirates flight to Australia was delayed by a night and we had to sleep over in a hotel. But even in that short, unsolicited time, my instinctive aversion to the place was quickly confirmed.

Just going through Customs at the vast airport was already enough. Men in long, white robes take a patronising, even arrogant attitude that makes you wonder whether you are being welcomed to a country or a prison. The armed soldiers make it worse, for even if such scenes are now an everyday occurrence at European airports, they still make you feel uneasy by the way they look at you with X-ray eyes.

I have to admit I am allergic to anything and anywhere that is sanctimoniously religious, like America’s Bible belt, for I consider faith or non-faith as something personal and very private. I can safely say this in a national newspaper here, of course, but doing so in Dubai, as in some other Middle Eastern sheikdoms, would be risking one’s life.

I find Dubai’s two faces rather disquieting. On one hand you have the ostentatious exhibition of modernity with all the marbled, six-star hotels and gravity-defying towers, and on the other a prevalent mentality that takes you back to the Middle Ages. Stories about couples, lovers and honeymooners from Europe, being arrested on charges of kissing in public, gays having to go underground (which must be quite easy given it is all desert sand) to avoid persecution, and religions other than Islam being barred from even showing a presence, let alone a towering cathedral, give one the creeps and are the obvious reason for the current reaction all over Europe against more Islamic influences in its cities, with the French, as always, acting the fastest to ban both the burka and the burkini.

The modern towers I do not mind. There are towers everywhere in the world. It is where these towers have disturbed the required architectural and environmental balance that one is right to demur. Dubai has all the land it needs, but in our case the word caution is not enough to underscore the importance of striking a balance. This is how the Opposition leader, Simon Busuttil, should have spoken rather than just going for a blanket “I do not want Malta to become another Dubai” statement, as the overall comparison is ridiculous.

Malta can never be another Dubai, thank goodness. While insisting that we have no alternative but to go for high-rise if we really want to save what’s left of our shrinking countryside, I certainly believe there is still time to put some sense into our developers’ mind to make sure the right balance in such a small and restricted land is attained. I claim neither originality nor exclusivity for this thinking, for it is undoubtedly the view of the majority who do not want progress to stop at levels that have long surpassed their need but still think a proper national plan is required to avoid causing more irreparable damage. The sins of the past 25 years, including Tigné Point and the Hilton, should serve as the ideal eye-opener at this moment in time.

In the current Dubai sensation debate, I would seriously reconsider the Sliema tower project with its phallic shadow falling heavily on an area that has already gone high enough. But the objections to the towers at Mrieħel are being shown for what they are – an empty exercise in political hypocrisy. To use as an excuse the distant view of Mdina – from some obscure angle at what is today a derelict and disgracefully abandoned piece of land on an island that daily cries out for some available urban territory – shows we are all trying to typically hoodwink one another.

Whose distant and near views in Malta and Gozo have not been partially or fully spoiled, at some stage over many decades, by new blocks of apartments and, before that, by high-domed churches smack in the middle of one-storey-lined villages and towns? There are religious towers and there are commercial towers, but they are all towers.

Please do not interpret this as some sort of objection to the beautiful churches that abound on these Islands. I am simply saying there is always an explanation for the need of going sky-high, be it spiritual or imperative within the concept of countryside and arable land preservation. Physics genius Stephen Hawking in fact refers to these generational enterprises as “cathedral projects”, which he describes as “the modern equivalent of the grand church buildings, constructed as part of humanity’s attempt to bridge heaven and Earth”. He insists these ideas are started by one generation “with the hope a future generation will take up these challenges”.

So while many agree with Simon Busuttil, whose representative had actually signed in favour of the Mrieħel high-rise project when his party was still in power, about not wanting Malta to become another Dubai, it is for different reasons. He is evidently nonplussed that there is so much foreign investment pouring into our economy, hence his irksome negativity. Many of us, however, do not want us to become another Dubai mostly on grounds of personal freedom and other human rights.

 

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Shameful decision

The International Paralympics Committee’s decision to issue a blanket ban on Russian athletes from next month’s Rio Games has rightly been condemned as shameful by all those who believe that every athlete should be given due justice and tested individually, more so in the case of these athletes who face a much bigger challenge to getting there and competing with the best, than athletes at the current Olympic Games.

The entire Russian paralympic team, made up of 267 athletes, has been banned after 35 of them were mentioned in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into doping. This took place only two weeks after the International Olympic Committee announced that it was leaving the decisions on the Russian athletes, apart from track and field, to the individual federations – a reasonable decision. It is why there are 271 Russians currently competing in the Rio Olympics, still a small enough number, though, for the bigger Western nations to gain easier access to the medals. Western media opinion has no doubt prevailed.

 

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Linguistic quirk

I was watching a gang of lanky young men and women cavorting in the sea the other day. They were loud, so you could tell they spoke a kind of English, but funnily enough, they swore intermittently in perfect Maltese. There must be an explanation for this linguistic quirk, professor.