The strange world of the Euro-Gulf

The intriguing bond between Europe and the Gulf unites luxury and tradition in a relationship marked by mutual interests, cultural tensions and a future that is as promising as it is uncertain.

While waiting for the subway, I see a poster for a luxury gym chain. Locations? “City of London. High Street Kensington. Dubai.” What a shame to choose a place so disfigured by bad taste and disoriented expatriates. Still, the branches in the City and Dubai must be top notch.

Soon after, I am in Doha, and again the bond between Europe and the Gulf is inescapable. The emir of Qatar has just returned from an official visit to the United Kingdom, where his hosts were seeking a trade deal. Swiss-based FIFA has just awarded the rights to host the World Cup to Saudi Arabia.

Even in skyscraper-free Muscat, where alleys that could have been rationalized as in other parts of the Gulf twist freely behind the promenade, three restaurants in my hotel are extensions of Mayfair brands.

What a shame that the word “Eurabia” is already taken. And by such crazy people. (It’s a far-right term for an alleged plot to Islamize Europe.) Because we’re going to need a word for this relationship. The Arabian Peninsula has what Europe does not: space, natural wealth and the resulting budget surpluses to invest in things.

In turn, Europe has “soft” assets that Gulf states need to acquire, host or emulate to carve out a role in the post-oil world.

This is not the Gulf’s deepest external connection. Not while 38% of the UAE’s population and a quarter of Qatar’s are Indians. But perhaps it is the most symbiotic, if I understand that word correctly.

It is true that the US has a military presence in all six Gulf Cooperation Council states. This includes the presence in Saudi Arabia, which did not please Osama bin Laden at all.

But everyday contact? America is 15 hours away by flight. Their cultural assets are more difficult to buy or less coveted. Its citizens have little tax incentive to live in tax havens, as Uncle Sam taxes them at least part of the difference.

It wouldn’t take much for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf to age as much as its former porosity toward Russia

In the 1970s, when OPEC profits flowed through London, Anthony Burgess wrote a dystopia in which grand hotels became “al-Klaridges” and “al-Dorchester”. What a mental shock it was for even the most cosmopolitan Europeans to see — let’s not be delicate here — non-white people with more money than them. Still, they could look down on the Gulf as an uninhabitable place.

Half a century later, his grandchildren would call it “copium” (illusion). In fact, your grandchildren may literally live there for economic opportunities. (Al-Dorado?) As a banker friend explains, time zones allow for late nights, trading European markets and late dinners, so it’s young people who take a break in the Gulf, not veterans like me.

For how long, though? The improbability of this romance — between a culture of universal rights and monarchical absolutism, between a largely secular continent and the peninsula cradle of an ancient faith — distinguishes this relationship from any other I can imagine.

A relationship can be both necessary and unsustainable. It wouldn’t take much—some internal conflict in the GCC, for example, as seemed imminent in 2017—for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf to age as poorly as its former openness to Russia. If Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City are found guilty of financial cheating, a part of the Premier League’s history will be tarnished. Since it’s “just” sport, I feel like people are underestimating the reaction.

And it is parochial to assume that the relationship could only fall apart on one side. It is on the Gulf side that the most uncomfortable cultural adjustments need to be made. Because Europeans associate 1979 with Iran and perhaps Margaret Thatcher, they sometimes ignore the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by fanatics who thought the House of Saud had softened toward Western ways.

The region’s governments certainly do not forget.

The extent to which a place can liberalize without crossing a cultural boundary occupies (and is answered differently by) each state or emirate.

Everyone is very kind to “Mister Janan” in his hotel in Doha. But the metal detectors that must be passed upon each re-entry into the building are a reminder of what is at stake here. I wonder if Europe and the Gulf invest so much in this relationship out of a persistent doubt that it can last.

By Janan Ganesha, for the Financial Times*