ArabComment: How do you think that Dubai will perform during the global financial crisis, and how will your operations be affected?

Ahli: Actually our operations have not been affected at all by the financial crisis in the world because we still have companies establishing at the Dubai Airport Free Zone and asking for office spaces for the region. I’ll give you an example: we have now more companies from Japan, who would like to establish their offices in Dubai, and our location is an ideal location for them because they want to shift their operations of selling their products to the United States, and shifting it to other new markets, so Middle East, Russia, India are new markets for the Japanese companies.

ArabComment: Would you say that you’re offering a respite from the current financial crisis and that Dubai is a kind of a safe haven?

Ahli: Absolutely, yes.

ArabComment: You recently announced high growth rates for 2008. What would you say were the main reasons behind these increased profits, and what would be your expectations for next year?

Ahli: Because Dubai being the hub for almost everything in the Middle East and for example for aviation, shipping, tourism, a business venue and an exhibition hub. That creates demand, for everything; demand in opening offices; demand for visiting companies, expanding trade relations with neighbouring states.

Also, Dubai itself is a perfect location for doing business, you can always establish your company or your business in one place and then go to all of the region. For example in South East Asia you can either establish your office in Hong Kong or Singapore and that is where your operation goes into that region.

And the government is looking into the future…so we have perfect vision from the government making sure that the businesses are continuing and establish projects, developments in the local market that creates jobs, businesses and adds more trade between Dubai and others. Also because we import everything into Dubai from the six continents, different markets, and then we re-export, so it makes us a gateway to a 1.8 billion consumers if you fly five hours from Dubai.

ArabComment: You said that re-exports are a big part of Dubai’s trade. Dubai has come under a lot of pressure recently for its trade relations with Iran. Is Iran, for the companies involved in the airport trade zone, a big destination for re-exports?

Ahli: Actually Iran is a big potential business opportunity for many different markets and Dubai has always been the gateway of Iran’s trade; whether it is airport, through the container ship; we have these wooden dhows that take different products to Iran, its faster and its cheaper. So many companies that come from lets say Switzerland, Germany, France, Japan and China, if they want to trade and sell their products into the Iranian market then Dubai is their gateway.

There hasn’t been any affected trade between United Arab Emirates and Iran, and we are in the end very close neighbours. There is also Iran has banks. The Iranian banks are operating in Dubai so foreign companies that want to trade, sell their products into Iran, then the financial transaction will be through their banks in Dubai, or in the UAE, which makes it very safe for them and investors.

ArabComment: You mentioned that the UK has one of the biggest presences in Dubai Airport Free Zone, are you also targeting Europe and is the Euro zone an important market for you?

Ahli: We target different international markets but we focus on the main ones. Such as North America, Europe, Japan and Australia which are the main markets. However, we are also very selective of the companies we work with. Not just any company can come and operate here due to the limits of space.

So from these main markets we also focus on individual countries. So in Europe the UK is our number one focus and is very important for us for many different reasons. Mainly because British companies if they come they establish their business for the long term. We want a long term partnership. We currently have 140 British companies out of 1.400 companies in total then this is quite a big share from just one market.

Then our next focus is the German market, followed by the Swiss and French markets. But then the rest of the European market is not very important for us but we don’t deny having them.

ArabComment: Is the limited space available going to impact the greater vision for Dubai Airport Free Zone and does this result in your selective policy for companies aiming to set up in Dubai Airport Free Zone?

Ahli: When we say we are very selective it is because it is important to have niche companies in different sectors. This is due to the fact that people think as we are by the airport that we only support the aviation sector but this is not the case.

So as we expand we always get niche industries and companies based in our facilities so that is why we have selected companies and that goes through our limited space as we expand. Which is why we are always nearly fully booked when we finish a new expansion plot.

Next year we will start with another building that will add another 32,000 sq meters of office space and then from 2011 to 2012 we will have a completion of a much bigger project and that will add 130,000 sq meters of office spaces. Then after that we won’t have any more space.

We are thinking from now of expanding our airport free zone at the next airport in Dubai, which is called Dubai World Central. This is the future second airport that Dubai needs, like London has Heathrow and Gatwick, so Dubai will eventually need two main airports. So we will have a free zone over there as well. Also, we are thinking of managing free zones around the world. So we won’t stop our visionary to where we are just located. So if there is a requirement of managing an airport free zone in a certain city, why not. We would take it into consideration or in partnership.

ArabComment: Dubai is not alone among cities in the UAE and GCC in attracting international companies or building free trade zones as they all try to diversify their economies away from energy. Who would you consider to be your biggest rivals in the region, and is it possible to accommodate all these aspiring countries?

Ahli: Alright I can tell you the truth; we do not have any competitors because we are the only successful airport free zone in the region and we have vast experience in managing such a free zone. There is only neighbouring emirate, Sharjah that has an airport free zone and none in the rest of the region.

Other countries may have many companies but they are not great names from companies around the world. The reason that companies, like Rolls Royce and Johnson and Johnson, want to establish their facilities in our free zone is because of the connectivity. They can operate in Dubai for the whole of the region, doing sales and marketing, finding sale agents and distributors and so on.

For these companies to establish themselves in Dubai it is easy and they can get on any Emirates flight or one of the 120 international airlines and go to any of the cities in the region and do business meeting and come back. So this is the reason why we really do not have any competitors.

ArabComment: Would you say that this is the biggest contributing factor to the success of Dubai Airport Free Zones?

Ahli: Absolutely.

ArabComment: Any final comments?

Ahli: For us it is important to get more British companies, because between Dubai and the UK there has always been a special relationship. We will make sure that these companies will prosper over the coming years and will benefit by being in the Dubai Airport Free Zones. Our facilities are world class and have excellent living conditions.

By Julian Walker and Oliver Pearce

The event is being described as a chance to explore both entrepreneurship strategies and opportunities with up-and-coming businesses in the region, with speakers ranging from Anthony Clarke of GLE Growth Capital to Michael Blakey of Avonmore Developments Ltd. A key part of the happening will involve the actual entrepreneur pitches.

Angel investing is a relatively new phenomenon in the Middle East, and it will be fascinating to see whether or not the concept takes off.

Certainly Dubai, with its present position as the financial capital of the region, appears to be the prime location for such an event.

As the festival wound down, I found myself needing an injection of Hollywood, and Susanne Bier’s “Things We Lost in the Fire” was the ticket. Well, maybe. Susanne Bier is actually Danish, and this movie is somewhat unconventional. I’m not sure if it’s going to get a wide release in the Middle East, but I’m not holding my breath.

The one consistently terrific thing about this film is Benicio Del Toro and his brand of awesome. I’m not exactly sure how he manages to take the familiar role of a recovering heroin addict and transform it into something this charming and unpretentious, but I like to think it has something to do with being charming and unpretentious in real life. Either way, this is one performance any self-respecting Del Toro fangirl or fanboy cannot possibly miss out on, no matter where you are.

The rest of the movie oscillates between genuinely grounded, thoughtful material and occasionally coma-inducing melodrama. Halle Berry’s turn as shell-shocked widow Audrey is solid, but her obligatory moment of meltdown and surrender felt as thought it could have come off a check-list. While Del Toro’s heroin withdrawal scene has similar overtones, his inventive facial contortions alone create something original to watch.

David Duchovny, the dead husband who is the link between Berry and Del Toro’s characters, has some potential, but he disappears halfway into the film. The story is fragmented (much like a grieving person’s mind – which I thought to be a nice touch overall), and Duchovny’s character is seen in flashbacks. But the flashbacks just stop all of a sudden, and the film is the poorer for it. We understand that Brian was a righteous dude unjustly taken from his family in the prime of his life, but aside from the great dynamic he has with his drug addict friend, we don’t really get to know him as a human being.

The deadpan John Carroll Lynch is a source of comic relief as a weird but good-natured neighbor, but it’s a bad sign when you realize his character is actually more likeable than Brian’s.

Bier is drawing a fascinating parallel between addiction and grief however, and she does succeed in raising serious questions about the way human beings deal with both phenomena. Grief is seen as more “respectable,” but in modern-day life there also seems to be very little in the way of social tradition in regards to dealing with it (Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking has made the claim that today’s Americans see grief almost solely in terms of “moving on,” rarely addressing its actual dark nature). Audrey understands that Brian’s hapless friend Jerry needs rehab, for example, but Jerry in turn sees that Audrey is in a similar position. The old saying – “it takes one to know one” – certainly applies here.

Bier and the screenwriter, Allan Loeb, also have a handle on life’s cruel little sense of irony: Audrey worries that her husband might get shot while visiting his junkie pal in a neighbourhood that seems composed solely of other junkies, but tragedy comes at her sideways. Brian is killed, but not while slumming it with various “unfortunates,” far from it, in fact.

I do take issue with the fact that too many films that closely explore human emotion take place in opulent households. I understand that a bleak storyline can be offset by a gorgeous background to startling effect, but come on, poor people grieve too – and their lives are not devoid of beauty either. Beauty, after all, is more than a stately home full of expensive doodads.

Well, the time has come to separate the best from the rest. For me, the festival peaked with the world premiere of “Captain Abu Raed” – the first Jordanian feature film in a rather long number of years.

Let me tell you, all those decades upon decades were certainly worth the wait.

Director, writer, and producer Amin Matalqa described this film as a “fable,” which is probably as close as one can get to its essence without giving too much away. The hero of the story, portrayed by veteran Nadim Sawalha (you’ve seen him everywhere from “Syriana” to “The Nativity Story” as of late), is a janitor who gets mistaken for an airline pilot on account of a hat fished out of the trash in Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

Abu Raed is an older man who leads a quiet life, having conversations with his dead wife’s portrait and spending his evenings with only a cup of tea for company. This is a man who had dreams once; you can still see something of them in his kind, keen gaze, alongside past calamities and defeats, all equally ground down by the thievish passage of time.

It is the exicted attention of his humble neighborhood’s children that inspires Abu Raed to assume the role of storyteller and sage; as he recounts tales of the fictional adventures of the man he might have been, we discover that the man he is is not a whole lot different. Abu Raed can still be a hero, janitor’s uniform and all.

Thanks to the editing of obscenely young Laith Majali (who is also one of the producers) and the brilliant cinematography of Reinhart Peschke, the movie has a lush, gorgeous look: the light alternates between laving like honey and casting inky shadows on faces and streets. The city of Amman exists as a separate character here, a living landscape transversed with human lives.

This is a family-friendly (I hate that horrible adjective, but there it is) film that nevertheless deals with the darker side of life. Domestic abuse, classism, societal pressure, and senseless tragedy figure heavily in the plot. Not all characters are redeemed, and not all loose ends are tied up with pretty bows. While neither edgy nor gritty (more adjectives I despise), this movie lingers with you like a beloved childhood story whose undertones continue to unfold in one’s mind long after the original encounter.

If great books cannot be read, only re-read (this is according to Vladimir Nabokov, a good authority on the subject), then great movies ought to be re-watched, and “Captain Abu Raed” is no exception. This movie will open in Jordan in February of 2008, and it will make its way to Sundance earlier next year as well. I’d love to chase it all over the globe, but will have to sustain myself with memories in the meantime.

If you need a point of reference, I would say this movie is a bit like “Monsieur Ibrahim” – only more engrossing. It’s an urban romance both humourous and melancholic, and a great antidote to pretentious art-films and sickly-sweet family dramas combined.

It is also hopefully the start to a new era of Jordanian filmmaking. Enough of Jordan being solely the backdrop to foreign-made films, I say. While “Captain Abu Raed” is a standalone achievement of tremendous magnitude, it could also be the start of something equally terrific.

It’s good news all around, at last.

Nick Broomfield’s “The Battle for Haditha” has not yet gotten enough press. In some ways, this is understandable. Despite the explosive subject matter, this is a low-key film. There are no big-name actors, no enormous budget, and, most importantly, the picture’s stylistic elements tend toward a stark, bare-boned simplicity. Nevertheless, this is a film to see.

Broomfield cast many amateurs for key roles, among them some ex-Marines and Iraqi refugees, and this is both good and bad. There is a definite air of authenticity surrounding the film, yet the acting occasionally appears forced. Some of the dialogue struck me as contrived- although this may have something to do with the subtitles. I do not speak Arabic, but having been accompanied by an Arabic speaker at the screening, I discovered that the subtitles are not as good as they could have been.

This movie is earnest, but, in some scenes, it also comes across as didactic. Do we really need to see the chief insurgent character, a disgruntled former member of the Iraqi army, spelling out the message with lines such as: “The Americans created the insurgency by dis-banding the army”? Does the chief insurgent furthermore have to opine stiffly on the future of Iraq, noting (in a manner that suggests that he is channeling Fukuyama) the bleak possibility of the country inheriting a new leader, someone who will be a helluva lot worse than Saddam?

Yet in spite of a few missteps, this is a haunting picture. I can’t get it out of my head, and I probably won’t for a long time. Broomfield captures the comings and goings of the residents of Haditha, people whose lives are about to be shattered, with intimacy and grace. I was floored by the character of Rashied (Duraid A. Ghaieb), a young man besotted with his pregnant wife (Yasmine Hanani – who attended the screening alongside the director, and ex-Marine actors Elliot Ruiz and Eric Mehalacopoulos), keenly aware of the growing danger of staying with his family in Haditha, and yet unable to do much about it.

Alongside U.S. Marines and Iraqi civilians, Broomfield dares to portray the members of the Iraqi insurgency as human beings. These people are not just fundamentalist foreigners, they are also ordinary locals who are infuriated with what has happened to their country. This simple truth is about as inconvenient as anything Al Gore can come up with, and is bound to make American audiences squirm in their seats.

At the Q & A afterwards, Broomfield pointed out that the massacre at Haditha has been extensively researched, and the script was an attempt to stick as faithfully as one could to real-life events. The movie was shot on location in Jordan, and grim anecdotes were related: apparently, one of the Iraqi families featured in the film wanted to pack up and leave in the middle of the shoot, highlighting the adversity of refugee life for the crew and the rest of the cast.

The audience, meanwhile, was happily irreverent. People expressed their anger with the U.S. occupation of Iraq with ease, blunt questions were asked, awkward pauses were observed, and the entire occasion had a fresh, unscripted feel one so rarely gets in similar settings in the States. Kudos to the festival organizers for this, honestly.

One woman asked if “The Battle for Haditha” would get past “censorship” in the States, a question which reminded me of misconceptions people hold about the U.S. film industry. In the U.S., the real censorship lies in trying to find a distributor for a potentially controversial film. The MPAA can cripple a movie’s chance at being distributed by issuing an NC-17 rating, but such ratings are usually tied to graphic representations of sex. “Battle for Haditha” has secured a U.S. distributor and will, hopefully, be seen by at least a fraction of the people who need to see it most: those among us who continue to defend the ongoing, blood-spattered mess that has been made of Iraq.

The best moments of the film have to do with the peculiar duality of wartime violence: how it is both personal and mediated, vicious and strangely, grotesquely casual. It is the antithesis to all life, and yet it can make its perpetrators feel alive. No amount of theorizing can ultimately reveal its true nature, and Broomfield understands this. Sometimes, all you need to do is watch.

Aron: I love it. It’s very, very opulent. My relatives in Jerusalem live humbly – no dirt floors or anything, but a very simple life, and this is a big contrast.

Maz: People here get our references.

Ahmed: Dubai is very modern. It’s a beacon of light, in this sense.

Maz: It’s not exactly perfect. But there are problems everywhere you go, right?

Natalia: So, I’ve done my research or so I hope. I think I can see what you guys have in common. The Middle Eastern heritage, the desire to challenge stereotypes, the dashing good looks. How are you different?

Aron: Different fashion sense. Ahmed is the one who wears the hats…

Maz: Are you writing this down? Because he’s joking.

Natalia: [momentarily feels like a dingbat] Let’s talk about racism against people of Middle Eastern origin in the United States.

Ahmed: It’s huge. There’s nothing funny about being Middle Eastern in America right now. I’ve been called a “sand-nigger,” etc. But comedy about stereotypes is like therapy, in that sense.

Maz: I think American co-exist well with each other, all things considered, but there are still issues of prejudice you can’t escape, which is why laughing with people is important, which is why this tour is important. It shatters stereotypes. Someone once told me: “I had no idea that you people even laughed.” We are portrayed as completely humourless and that’s not even the worst of it. You know, my mother has been told, “go back to your country, bitch.” She had an accent, and people with accents seem threatening. This is beside all the stuff you would get at school, as a kid. Kids are brutal. But there are always people who have it worse than you. Like the gas station attendants, think about the crap they get on a daily basis.

Ahmed: American racists are lazy too. Someone started targeting Sikhs after 9/11, because of the turbans. Sikhs aren’t even Muslim. It’s like the Joe DeRosa joke about American people thinking that Egypt has oil.

Natalia: What about relationship weirdness? Ever since I met my Arab boyfriend all of these well-meaning people have been telling me that I must be very oppressed, raped and beaten on a daily basis. Do the women in your lives get similar crap?

Maz: My wife is a very intelligent woman, she can block it all out if need be. Our tour manager, however, had people really worried for her when we took the comedy tour to the Middle East.

Ahmed: You’ve seen the show, so you know my Egyptian princess joke, right? Girls date you to piss off daddy, and because you’re dark and exotic. A girl says, “Make me your Egyptian princess.” I put a sheet over her head and tell her to be quiet.

Aron: Jokes are good if you know what you’re talking about. Someone close to my girlfriend offers to give me a pack of Camel cigarettes, and thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world. Or else we’ll talk about golfing, and suddenly there are these lame jokes being made about sand.

Maz: People base their assumptions about Middle Eastern men and relationships on the Sally Field film, “Not Without My Daughter.”

Natalia: People have mentioned it to me at least fifty times since I’ve met my boyfriend.

Maz: You should watch it. It really clues you in to the attitude.

Natalia: I watched in high school. It was actually during a lesson of U.S. history. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure how it tied in at all.

Ahmed: Speaking of attitude, we do radio shows, and sometimes it goes well, and sometimes it’s ridiculous. People have said things like, “Hey fellas, did you fly in on a magic carpet today?”

Natalia: You’re kidding.

Ahmed: Nope. You probably know that a ridiculous number of Americans don’t even have passports. The ignorance makes sense, in this light.

Maz: Here’s something we’ve noticed: the local news always juxtaposes a segment on our comedy tour with a story about angry Muslims chanting, preferably burning an American flag.

Aron: [in sugary newscaster voice] “Thirteen marines dead in Iraq. And on a lighter note…” And she goes on to talk about us.

Natalia: This is surreal. Let’s talk about happy, joyful things. Such as your comic influences – anyone in particular come to mind?

Aron: George Carlin.

Maz: When I was a kid, I loved Eddie Murphy. Career-wise, I think my biggest influence is Richard Pryor. You know what they say about Pryor – he could talk about setting himself on fire and make it hilarious. This is something I admire.

Natalia: Ok, some people find the next question annoying, but I have to ask: what are your thoughts on Election 2008 in the States?

Aron: Hillary.

Maz: I’m a Bill Clinton fan. We need to have him back in the White House in some capacity.

Aron: Bill Clinton probably wasted less sperm than Bush has wasted lives. Since we’re talking about politics, I have this to say: when we make fun of our current leadership, we are not selling out our country. We want to be proud of our country. But the Bush White House is a disaster. It should be OK to say that without being labeled a traitor.

Ahmed: Bush is an embarrassment. If I ran into him in a public place, I’d hand him some cash and ask him to stop ruining everything with his presence.

Natalia: Tell me more about taking the tour to the Middle East. How are things different?

Maz: This is the longest time we’ve been on the road, ever. We’re shooting a documentary when we’re not performing. The Showtime Arabia crew is also filming us.

Aron: In Jordan, King Abdullah came to our show. In Cairo, the audience was mostly working class. We did two shows in one day, and a total of 3,000 people saw us in 24 hours alone.

Ahmed: In Beirut, I think we ended up sold out before we even had a venue. There are all these popular Facebook groups set up over there; it’s amazing.

Maz: And we do interview after interview.

Natalia: Such as this one. Wherein I’m not even letting you chew your food.

Aron: You should just have some pizza.

Natalia: [thinking about how ridiculous she looks when she eats] No thanks.

Aron: [concerned auntie voice] You have to eat! The leftovers will just get thrown away otherwise.

Maz: No, no, write down that we gave it to the children.

Natalia: I don’t think there are any needy children at Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. At the very least, I don’t see any right now.

Ahmed: Dubai’s an amazing place, like I already said. There’s another joke I do that you’re probably familiar with, the one about conservative Muslim families hanging out next to European men in Speedos on the beach in Dubai.

Natalia: You know, I’m originally from Ukraine, and most men wear Speedos on the beach. They can look quite fetching on the right person.

Ahmed: Yeah, but on most people they look not so fetching.

Aron: Especially after you’ve just been in the cold water.

Maz: I can pull off a Speedo. For all you know, I’m wearing one right now.

Natalia: I’ll tell everyone you showed it to me.

Maz: Yes! Because you’re Ukrainian! And you get it!

Ahmed: OH MY GOD, is that Jack Nicholson over there?

[It isn’t Jack Nicholson, alas. Although in Dubai, anything seems possible at the moment. While we're gaping away we're told that it’s time for these gentlemen to do another sold-out show. Not to mention the fact that Maz’s Speedo probably needs to be adjusted beforehand.]

As to be expected, a good number of both expat women and Gulf residents fetishize the dishdashah; fetishize it to the point of, well, artistic achievement, to be honest. The impeccable “starched stiffness” of the popular garment apparently symbolizes “male excitement.” John Donne would be proud.
Dubai is famous for the obvious stuff: islands in the shapes of palm trees, snowy slopes in the middle of a mall in the middle of a desert. What Dubai should be famous for is an occasional sight that’s nearly impossible to come across in the liberal U.S.: a girl in abaya holding hands with a guy in jeans and t-shirt, a guy in dishdashah buying dinner for a girl in a sun-dress.

Sex-tourism is a scary concept. Dubai’s rampant sugar daddy-tourism, however, is amusing. A woman cuts herself off in mid-sentence and walks away from a guy the minute she finds out he drives a Mazda as opposed to a Maserati. Don’t despair, lad, don’t despair, you want to say. Shallow people ought to stick to other shallow people. And you should stick to the high ground. Obviously, you saw so much more in her than the prominent boob-job and rayon-clad hips…

… On second hand, perhaps sugar daddy-tourism really is scary, and we are merely desensitized, as desensitized as we are to Eli Roth’s violence-porn.
All the perfumes of Arabia (and Italy, and France, and other fashionable places) go up your nose in enclosed spaces. Women and men signal each other this way, and the effect is like that of a blow-horn at a golf game. The pious subtlety snobs have a field-day with this, “oh dreadful vulgarity” and all that, but at least some people know how to live a little.
The world may wonder: where is Osama? Where, for that matter, is Blackbeard’s treasure? Where is Atlantis? The Holy Grail? In Dubai, the less adventurous among us merely wonder: WHERE do niqabis shop for the hot, quite obviously sweat-proof eye makeup? Don’t tell me the fellas aren’t looking at the niqabis. They are. And, in the immortal words of Wyclef Jean: “Don’t let the ladies fool ya’ll… They be doing the same thing you be doing.”