Cultural Dissonance

Just heard about this on the BBC and I find it intriguing. It seems that a couple of Brits have been arrested for having sex on a beach in Dubai and their sentence was pretty harsh (by Western standards): 30 days in jail, a thousand-Pound fine, and deportation from Dubai. It's not as bad as it could have been, according to that AP article:

"The pair, both in their 30s, face up to two years in prison [emphasis mine] if convicted of engaging in sex outside marriage, public indecency and drunkenness."

Here's the thing that gets me about this. In the past 10 years and particularly in the past 5, Dubai has built a slew of extravagant hotels and resorts that are eye-catching and headline- making, most notably The Palm Islands Project and the hotel Burj_Al_Arab. As these projects have developed, I've been thinking that Dubai is more and more becoming a giant phallic symbol for the power of pure capitalism. Now, let me say as a segue that I'm not anti-progress; in fact, I like to consider myself to be fairly progressive. But particularly for a nation rooted in traditional Islamic values, this place is shockingly devoted to the pursuit and prominent display of wealth. Yet the people of Dubai hold fast to their conservative and modest values, which is bound to result in friction as the leaders push for increased tourism and commerce from Western cultures and the residents are in an uproar over the behavior of those tourists. And as we all know, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. It seems to me that pandering to all that Western capital and setting up the current party atmosphere would certainly result in just such a situation.

Let me clarify that I am not arguing for anyone's right to have sex on a beach; there are obviously laws against that at beaches around the world. And let me also say that I firmly believe that as a guest in another country, one should attempt to defer to the local culture as much as possible, just as one would attempt to be a considerate guest in another person's home. But having said all of that, I think Dubai is in the midst of a culture clash between the people who come to visit and the people who make it their home. My personal assessment is that, as so many anecdotes have been used to illustrate throughout the history of mankind, unchecked capitalism always results in violent confrontation. And if the leadership of Dubai don't make an executive decision of some sort, there will be Big Trouble on the Horizon. Though that Big Trouble might be nothing more than a slump in tourism and trade.