Opinion: Heading home, I sent a cheerful WhatsApp: “Just whisking over the Middle East.” Flights were being cancelled because Israel was bombing Lebanon. I had been idly reading the on-board map, trying to gauge our progress towards Iran.
The layover city, Dubai, is relentlessly marketed as a hedonist’s playground, all “luxury” and “fun” and “glamour”. The reality is always the otherworldly streets, the drive through the hot, strange dusk, the melancholy sense of dislocation. The Arabian Desert is out there. I will never forget seeing camels running along a highway in the night.
Dubai sparkles and shines, but hides the secret violence of its inner life. It’s a monument to the notion of “the bigger the front, the bigger the back”. Amid the fountains and boutiques, the Botox and the bling, are glimpses of toil and grime. The air is like an oven. Technology keeps nature at bay, but it can’t replace human labour. Thousands of poor, milling workers are up all night servicing the relentless machine.
I thought of Shelley’s poem about the impermanence of power. It describes a vast, ruined statue of Ozymandias, king of kings, a colossal wreck standing in the desert. Around it, “boundless and bare/ The lone and level sands stretch far away”. Nothing lasts forever. The greater the size and hubris, the more vulnerable human constructs are to collapse and decay.
Just after we left Dubai, Iran unleashed a firestorm at Israel. We were buckled in, glazed with weariness, bouncing down the globe towards home. I would be back in time for an event: the launch of CK Stead’s new collection of poems, In the Half Light of a Dying Day.
The first time I read these poems, I immediately rang the author. Not only are they beautiful, I said, but they’re a page turner. They actually have a narrative arc. They’re poignant and powerful. Many of them tell the moving story of the death of my mother.
At the book launch, I noted the good turnout. But there was a problem: the MC was late and there was no explanation. There were frowns, ripples of concern. As we waited, the conversation turned to a recent murder trial. Among the crowd were a senior pathologist, lawyers, a judge. The universal opinion was that the jury’s acquittal was laudably rational. All agreed on a general principle: if a case isn’t proved beyond reasonable doubt, it’s better that a guilty person go free.
Word came through: someone had managed to text the MC. His Uber had gone to the wrong place. This seemed mystifying, but we went on stoically chatting. We agreed the murder trial had inflamed passions, stoked debate.
Some coverage was so lively and sparkling, you wondered what would come next. A critique of the judge’s hairstyle, perhaps. Or thoughts on which counsel had put on weight. It was only a murder trial, after all. It wasn’t as if anyone had …
The trial was like some kind of trigger. The accused had been living in his own personal Dubai. All its “glamour” and “fun” hid another side: the sordidness, the collateral damage. Women noted issues of power and control.
But was there a sense, for other onlookers, that this Dubai of the mind was a dream destination? Maybe they’d been there in some sense themselves, and couldn’t decide whether to exalt or condemn. Perhaps the glittering desert, the hot violent emptiness, agitated them, aroused fascination or guilt. It’s hard to be detached if you’re emotionally engaged. The bigger the front, the bigger the back.
The MC strolled in and ambled through the room. The room came to order; finally, the proceedings could begin.
Charlotte Grimshaw is an Auckland author and critic.
