National Day 38

Back in the late seventies I never heard the word Emirati, I'm not even sure it existed. People identified themselves as from Dubai or Sharjah or Abu Dhabi. The UAE was a fact but people still identified with their emirate first.

The flags flying in Dubai were the emirate's red and white, as in this shot I took of dhows on the Creek in 1978, rather than the national flag:



How things have changed.

Last evening at The Walk at Jumeirah Beach Residence there was plenty of evidence that people now identify with the country.

Car after car was decorated:



Even the cartoon characters' carers had patriotic safety jackets on:




There were plenty of abayas and shaylas with red, green and white decoration and more than a few of the kids were wearing the kind of clothing I'd seen in Satwa the week before:



I think it's an interesting and dramatic change in a relatively short period.

More National Day decorations...

Mubarak, UAE

National Day tomorrow marks 36 years of the UAE, which I've read is the longest-lasting federation in the Arab world.

I first moved to Dubai six years after the original six emirates joined together, and in those days the feeling was still largely that it was very much individual emirates in a loose federation.

In Dubai it was rare to see the country's flag, Dubai's own red & white flag was very much more in evidence, as you can see from this 1977 photo of dhows on the Creek...

The unified country has come a long, long way since then.

Congratulations.