Photo by Koh Terai/The Gazelle

Abu Dhabi has an uncanny feeling about it. It is similar to many other places I’ve been, and might bring back bad memories for anyone who was born and raised in U.S. American suburbs and tried to escape by coming overseas. Astounding demographic diversity can be found in the city, even if everybody is not here for the same reasons or of their own volition. I don’t want to replicate the same binary of modern versus traditional, progressive versus conservative (also called Beirut syndrome, i.e., OMG niqabs and McDonalds). Abu Dhabi is one of the weirdest and most interesting places I’ve been to, which is why it annoys me when I hear students refer to the city we sort of live in, but should try harder to be a part of, as boring, or not a real city. Statements like these promote the Tumblr-esque fetishization of cities like New York, London or Paris, make claims about what real is and finally show an utter lack of interest in the city we actually live in. Instead of talking about how little there is to do in Abu Dhabi, maybe we should just go out and do something.

Statements about how much Abu Dhabi sucks are invariably tied to the reminiscences or valorization of cities like New York or other places in cool — read, white and European — parts of the world, or even cities that outwardly espouse a more Western-style modernity in their status as global cities. In a comment on the NYUAD Confessions page, a user recently discussed how they wished they could go back to New York, on a post about how boring Abu Dhabi was. This sort of valorization of New York revolves around it being the center of culture, a dynamic and wonderful city where one can do anything. Most of those things are true about New York, but this perspective obscures the shitty aspects of the city. It ignores rampant social issues like poverty or the mundane aspects of everyday life in every city. This Tumblr-style discourse — imagine a macroimage of the Empire State building or the Village with a quote about New York — not only does a disservice to New York, but makes it seem like no other place has the same mystique. This is beyond untrue: some of the most interesting things are not happening in New York, and sadly, artists, writers, thinkers, etc., get uprooted from their locales and taken to these sorts of places by the money and lure of the kind of prestige that comes from attaching yourself to New York, for example. This discourse promotes writing and reading, speaking and thinking, interacting only with these locations, dislocating us further from where we actually are.

Photo by Koh Terai/The Gazelle

While removing us and dislocating us from Abu Dhabi, this discourse also disparages the experience of those who live in Abu Dhabi. When we say that Abu Dhabi isn’t a real city, what does that actually mean? Unless you’re a pretentious philosopher, you probably don’t take it to mean that the city doesn’t actually, physically exist. Instead, it implies an artificiality, a falseness which makes no sense whatsoever. How does one explain the myriad of people who live their youths, working lives and old age in Abu Dhabi, both citizens and residents? Life events and milestones happen here. For many people, this is home, and this is our home for the time we are here. Our life in Abu Dhabi is real. There are successes and struggles. I buy phone credit; I lose my phone. Even simple things like this connect us to the city. The fact that many students on campus have cellphones and no local SIM cards is representative of an attempt to remove oneself from the city. We are given SIM cards in our first year; maintaining those with a little credit is worthwhile. When you leave campus, you shouldn’t be entering a space where you become lost, without connection, without our campus WiFi — when it works.

I took an Arabic class my freshman year. I do not claim to speak more than a few poorly pronounced words of the language, but just being able to read the signs in the city allows me to be a part of the city and orient myself in it. The words are no longer indecipherable symbols that alienate me or separate me from the world outside of the car window. They are given meaning through being converted into sound. We need to stop thinking about escaping, about study abroad, about spring break, and instead open our eyes to the place before us. If you make an effort, you will discover some gems in Abu Dhabi. With the buses running to different parts of the city for free, there really aren’t any excuses. Oh no, no café culture, nothing happening on the streets; again, untrue, and if it’s food you want, Abu Dhabi provides cheap delicious eats from an insane diversity of places. When you say there is no culture in Abu Dhabi, what you’re saying is that the city doesn’t have exactly what you want. Maybe you haven’t even tried to find it. Abu Dhabi is harder than New York or London, which sometimes luridly present a false version of themselves to tourists. This is our city, we aren’t tourists, dig a little deeper, put in the effort, pop in the SIM, hop on the bus or in a cab and see it for yourself.