The Best Intentions in the World

Chapter 2 – Safineh-1

CHAPTER 2

SafinehBack then, French citizens were not a common sight in Dubai. The Brits had been there first.

For the most part, my fellow countrymen lived a comfortable expatriate life in Abu Dhabi’s suburbs, near the foreign embassies. Their support was unlikely. I was but a pioneer on Creek’s banks, that small inland sea that has seen the birth and rise of Dubai and so perfectly encapsulates its fragmented history.

Switching careers and starting all over again would be very demanding. Furniture design was now a thing of the past. I had to begin from scratch.

Photography became my profession. Dubai would give me an opportunity. Demand was there, and growing. There were not many of us professionals. With little competition, all I needed was to prove my worth. But first, I had to build a portfolio.

Showing stolen pictures of Saudi women was not the cleverest of moves, reputation wise. I could not afford that kind of controversy.

At first, Dubai seems artificial and tasteless. It struggles to engage you on a personal level. It feels like another Singapore or Geneva, a sanitized city so obsessed with tidiness and order it becomes inhospitable—soon, one feels like an unwelcomed guest in its midst. But the comparison does not do Dubai justice. It is far too dirty. Sandstorms cover the city with dust and give it more humane features. Though fragile, uneven, submissive, I was beginning to tame it. I began to embrace its failures, its scars. Underneath the erected buildings, glowing like poorly scaled fish, I could feel tremendous vulnerability. With caution, I kept looking for a crack, a way in, and by doing so, stumbled upon my very first subjects.

Abandoned homes were a favorite of mine. Old mansions covered with weeds, with stray cats roaming about—living memories of a not-so-distant, potentially painful past. Not everything was brand new in Dubai. People had lived in the city long before the wealthy Russians and the Saudis in their fancy neighborhoods. I took pictures of homes with a history. The first one I shot was by the sea, a little fisherman’s cottage without windows and a rusty garden swing as only proof that a family had once lived between these shattered walls. There was an opening in the wooden fence. One could peep through, just like a keyhole, and see the sea. I saw a sailboat in the distance. Soon, it would meet my line of sight. I took the picture.

Another time, I went walking around Satwa, one of the oldest, most authentic parts of the city, full of Filipinos, Indians and low class Emiratis who have been around for centuries. Satwa was Dubai’s truer soul, a stark reminder of all the pain and sacrifices that had been required to reshape the city into a modern metropolis. Satwa was a collection of small, white, often ill-designed shacks. To someone with wealth, they would have been fit for temporary accommodation, at best. Yet to most, they symbolized what it meant to have lived a successful life—despite their crooked shapes. Real estate developers had sought to rebuild parts of this neighborhood. To them, Satwa was no more than a dirty stain on Dubai’s land register. “Rebuilding” meant kicking families out of their homes and tearing down the walls to build luxury villas near a golf course.

The inhabitants had been kicked out, the doors had been sealed, windows shattered, blue crosses and ID numbers drawn on every front wall. The bulldozers would finish the job.

This part of Satwa looked like a war zone. A war for profit. A few houses still stood around the edges, waiting for their turn to come. Small houses in the front, triumphant towers in the back. I snapped a picture.

I took my best shots during the great fire of the Al Qamar theater. It was the place for Bollywood films. The early Friday screening saw hundreds of young Indians rushing to the booths to buy a ticket. If a celebrity was on the poster, local police came to assist the theatre staff in their struggle to contain the overly excited crowd. True fans had already learned all the songs in the movie by heart. The carefully crafted ballets on screen were echoed by a giant karaoke in the projection room. As soon as the lead actress appeared, you could see hundreds of pairs of eyes shimmering in the dark. The word admiration does not do it justice. She was idolized like a goddess. The men were not themselves anymore. Every time I was amazed by the look on their faces. They were hypnotized by the screen. They could no longer behave or act rationally. Anything could happen, I thought to myself.

Alas! I was right. One evening, Indeya’s latest film was being screened. She was a superstar from the state of Kerala, a gorgeous woman who had risen to the top and had become a queen in Bollywood. Most of the Indians in Dubai hailed from Kerala. Indeya held a special place in their hearts. After the first dance, the whole room was in a trance. Some guy forgot where he was and lit up a cigarette, except he did not put it out properly under his seat. The fire caught quickly. Fortunately, the whole crowd got out in time. The next day, nothing was left of the theater but a burnt black carcass. The seats’ frames were still standing. The screen was completely burnt and the smoke had etched spectral shapes on the wall behind. It was now a theater fit for ghosts. I took a lot of pictures.

The director of the Mathar art gallery praised my work. He wanted to showcase it. We were newcomers in Dubai, him as a gallery owner, myself as a photographer. Both of us would benefit from an acclaimed exhibition. People came in droves to the opening. There were not many art galleries then. Expatriates had come looking for a hidden gem, something inspiring enough to rekindle their passion and prove to their friends back in Europe that they had something to show for all the time they had spent in the Middle East.

I was but a mere epiphenomenon. Artists from the sub-continent were already flooding the market, backed by a handful of patrons who bolstered the movement. I was introduced to people as a nostalgic Frenchman, an Orientalist looking for traces of history among Dubai’s transient ruins. The gallery sold a dozen pictures, enough to kickstart my new career.

Yet were I to ever make it big, I would have to target a wider audience. I needed something that would truly resonate with the Emirates. Fahd was categorical: “It’s either eagles or horses.” I went for horses, with a clear idea in mind. That idea would guide my eyes and hands during the shoots.

The roles would be reversed. Horses would have a human composure and riders an animal-like expression. I visited an equestrian center in the middle of the desert, in a lush, uncanny British oasis built out of the burning sands by a very determined sheikh. Getting the authorization to shoot turned out to be easy. I flattered their egos. Every Emirati I shot could already see himself on the cover of a magazine celebrating the glory of Arab thoroughbreds. They did not know what to think of the final product. The horses seemed peaceful while their faces looked distorted by pain and effort. I never bothered to explain my reasoning. We held a second exhibition, with plenty of local buyers. Among them was a sponsor for an advertising company. He made sure to mention my work to his partners.

That is how I landed my first job, a photo shoot starring Emirati women, out shopping in the Arab Mall, one of Dubai’s largest. In truth, most of them were from India or Iran. Who could tell the difference behind a veil? It was only fair game. After all, I had spent the last two years struggling to frame and capture the female body underneath a niqab, picturing the motion behind the fabric, longing for the brazenness of a gaze circled in eyeliner… At least it made my work easier.

Soon my pictures were all over the billboards on Sheikh Zayed Road, the city’s main artery. That exposure gave me great publicity and many agencies started courting me. They wanted me to “do the Arab Mall feat again.”

“How do you take such beautiful pictures?” they often asked, genuinely intrigued.

“It’s as if you could see through the fabric… They are naked, but only to your eyes.”

That recognition felt great. I made no mention of my first trials as a photographer, back in Saudi Arabia.

And thus began my career: I was taking pictures of Emirati women going window shopping in great big malls.

The Arab Malls’ owner was not just anyone. His name was Khalid Al Firas.

He was my first serious client and soon became my first real friend in the region. Dubai owed its notoriety to entrepreneurs such as Khalid. With the sheikh’s blessing, he built the first shopping centers in all the Emirates. A pioneer, he had remained humble and very grounded despite his sudden rise to prominence.

The success of our advertising campaign was proof enough of my abilities. Khalid would now entrust me with his most ambitious projects. I became the resident photographer of the Al Firas family.

The boundaries between work and friendship were gradually fading. It made sense after all. How to qualify the opening of a new mall when he was at the very center of the stage? What was one to think of a family picture published in the morning papers for all to see? The Al Firas truly were a powerful family.

The privileged bond he and I shared meant all my needs were cared for.

But the exclusive nature of our contract prevented me from working for anyone else.

Khalid wanted me to cover the biggest event in Dubai at that time, the Arab Cruise, the start of a unique journey through the Strait of Hormuz.

Khalid was nostalgic of the 70s, a time when Dubai was a modest commercial port with nothing but dhows as far as the eye could see. The cruise was his idea. Baptized “Truce Coast” by the British, the small port had quickly grown to become one of the major maritime crossroads in the region. Dhows linked India, Pakistan, Iran and most of the old Soviet territories that had transitioned to a market economy following their independence. Coastal guards from the subcontinent mistook dhows for common fisherman’s boats. But in the ships’ holds, smugglers had stacked cotton, gold and cigarettes. They made a fortune.

Trade was in rupees back then, and Arab was not the language of commerce. Setting itself apart from the clans of Bombay, the Al Firas family made its first steps in this highly profitable business with the sheikh’s blessing. After having invested in a ten ship fleet, they had set sail towards Iran, at the other end of the Persian Gulf.

Khalid often made the crossing from Dubai to Qeshm, an island near the Iranian coastline. It was an odd, barren place—a parenthesis, a free-zone acting and entry point for all the goods traded in the peninsula. The Qeshm harbor allowed for all kinds of commerce, easing processes and opening the official trade route to Iran. Despite the Islamic revolution, the island remained out of reach, free from the clutches of power and time.

Khalid wanted to relive the wild days of his youth. He was sixteen when he had first crossed the strait. He loved to tell that story: the commotion on the docks, the frantic coming and going of load carriers, the fishermen on the pier and the muezzin chants slowly guiding the ships up the creek and finally, the misty harbor fading away in the distance—he remembered everything.

The Al Firas had turned one of their original dhows into a “yacht disguised as a fisherman’s boat,” according to Khalid’s own words at the inaugural speech. The Safineh was oddly deceitful. It really did look like a traditional trading ship, except for the fresh paint job and brand new satellite dish sitting atop the cabin. The inside was a mix of polished woodwork and precious metals. Freed from its holds, gold was now lavishly displayed on the forecastle deck. Cruising along Dubai’s creek was a major tourist attraction in the country. A few companies fought for its monopoly. Khalid aimed at something different—and wanted to leave the harbor behind and sail towards the Iranian coast, like he had in his youth.