My birthday with the Sheikh

Exactly twenty years ago, in March 2000 , I travelled to Dubai to meet Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, now Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai. He gave me what I’m told is the only “personal interview” he has ever given. When he found out my visit coincided with my birthday, he also gave me a birthday present - quite a special one, as you will discover if you read on.

The Sheikh has been in the news this week. Not in a good way. Reading what I have read in the past couple of days, I thought I would dig out my interview with him from twenty years ago - and here it is.

I haven’t re-edited it with the benefit of hindsight. I think it’s quite intriguing as it stands - even if what he tells me about having one wife and no more than a dozen children turns out not to be the whole story. I hope you’ll find the interview tells you something about the Sheikh’s heritage, his interest in horse racing, his court, his view of democracy, his attitude to time and sleep, his thoughts on the place of women in society. - and gives you a flavour of his style of leadership and gnomic way with words.

8 March, 2000. His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Raschid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, and one of the richest men in the world, is staring fixedly at me with his big brown eyes.  He speaks softly, calmly, with a definite Omar Sharif accent, and a quiet authority that brooks no argument.  ‘Horse-racing is one per cent of my life.  One per cent.  At most.  This is the truth.’

If Your Highness says so, one per cent, of course, but it’s hard to believe all the same, given the awesome global impact the Sheikh and his brothers have had on racing in recent years.  They own, breed, and run hundreds of the finest horses in the world.  Since 1994, when Balanchine became the first non-European trained Classic winner, taking the Oaks and then beating the colts in the Irish Derby, the Maktoum family’s private stable - named Godolphin after one of the three founding stallions of the modern thoroughbred - has annexed fifty-five Group One races around the world.   The Maktoums have poured millions - some say £ 1 billion plus - into their hobby and reaped the rewards.   Over several continents people are employed simply to collect and catalogue their trophies.  At the Nad al Sheba racetrack in Dubai they have opened an elegant museum to celebrate their triumphs.   (Their favourite jockey Frankie Detorri’s signature was in the Visitors’ Book just above mine.  Alongside his autograph he’d written: ‘Come on me!’)

Inevitably, not everyone is comfortable with the Maktoums’ contribution to the Sport of Kings.  These chaps are a bunch of Bedouin tribesmen after all.  They come from a country not much bigger than Kent.  Some say their oil-gotten gains have distorted the market by pushing up prices artificially.  Even the Queen Mother is reported to have reservations about ‘all this Arab gold’.  Sheik Mohammed is unconcerned.  He will not be riled or provoked.   He believes Godolphin’s success is about much more than cash.  ‘It is about quality - of horses, training, facilities, people, leadership.   You cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy loyalty.  You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls.  You must earn these.’    He takes satisfaction that what began as ‘an experiment’ little more than a decade ago has evolved into ‘the world’s most potent racing force’.   People said it couldn’t be done.  They wouldn’t believe that horses wintering in Dubai, bred and trained by outsiders, could conquer the world.   ‘One of life’s greatest pleasures is doing what others think you cannot do.’

The Sheikh is prone to gnomic utterances.  ‘Stride on, and the world will make way for you.’   ‘Every obstacle is a stepping stone to your success.’  ‘You don’t fail when you fail.  You fail when you refuse to get up.’   Ask him for the thinking behind his decision to move part of his breeding operation from Britain to France and he says, with a smile: ‘Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.  In the race for excellence, there is no finish line.  I want the best for my people.  We go for good prize money.  It is important.  Not for me, I do not need it, but for others, for the stable lads.   Where will you find the world’s richest race meeting?  Yes, here in Dubai, next Saturday.’             

I am talking to His Highness in his principal palace on the outskirts of the city, not far from the race course.  I am honoured and surprised to be with him.   Before I set off for Dubai I went to see an old Gulf hand who explained the pecking order within the Maktoum family.   ‘They’re all descended from Maktoum Bin Butti who settled the area with about eight hundred tribesmen in the 1830s.  Mohammed is the third of the four brothers, but he’s the one who counts.  He’s the one to see.  He runs the show.  He’s fifty.  The oldest is Maktoum, he’s the Ruler, but he’s a figurehead, he’s not really interested in the job.  He’s smitten  with his new Morrocan wife.   Then comes Hamdan, who’s Deputy Ruler.  He’s got various government jobs, but his real passion is the horses.   And the youngest is Ahmed.  What can you say about him?  He eats, he sleeps.  He looks good in a uniform, but that’s about it.  He’s not even interested in horses.’

When I arrived in Dubai I understood I was to see Sheikh Mohammed right away.  In fact, my first encounter was with His Excellency Dr Khalifa Mohammed Ahmed Sulaiman, ‘Director of His Highness the Ruler’s Court’ and former ambassador in London: ‘Sheikh Mohammed will see you, but I cannot say when.  You must remember we have a different perception of time.   I was born in 1950 or 1951, but I do not know when.  In those days in this country we had nothing, literally nothing, no records, no papers, no paper.  We did not write.  We had no schools, no electricity, no roads.  We had no watches, no clocks.  Perhaps there was a clock in the mosque, but nowhere else.  We had no concept of time as you have it.   If someone said, “I will see you this evening” it simply meant that they would see you some hours later.  I hope His Highness will see you before sunset.’

In the event, it was thirty-six hours later that the call came.  And even as I was swept towards the palace (Intercontinental Hotel meets Buckingham Palace with a pleasing touch of Ali Baba), past the sentry posts, past the gorgeous peacocks and floodlit fountains, I was warned that the meeting might still not take place.  ‘The American astronaut Buzz Aldrin came to see the Sheikh.   We were assured His Highness was ready and waiting, but when we walked into the room His Highness had disappeared.   We were told, “His Highness has gone to catch the bustard.”  Mr Aldrin was quite confused.  He did not appreciate that it is a tradition that each October the Sheikh must capture the first bustard seen in the desert sky.’

The court of Sheikh Mohammed is a bizarre blend of ancient and modern.      There he stands at the top of the stairs, surrounded by twenty or thirty courtiers, a true Arabian prince, tall, dark, handsome, in traditional dress, mobile phone in hand, ready to extol the virtues of modern Dubai, ‘the communications and commercial hub of the Gulf’.

As I approach, the sea of courtiers parts.   I bow, he shakes my hand and leads me through to a drawing room the size of a tennis court.   He indicates the sofa where I am to sit.   Arabic coffee is served.   I begin to tell him how wonderful Dubai appears to be.  He says nothing.   I tell him how wonderful he appears to be.  Still he says nothing.  I am thinking this is going to be an impossible interview, when a servant steps forward and collects our coffee cups.  The Sheikh smiles: ‘We Arabs do not talk until we have finished our coffee.’

Throughout our meeting, which lasts two hours, courtiers come and go, messengers approach and retreat: sometimes he receives them, hears what they have to say, takes a document from them, sometimes he raises a hand and silently they back away.  I feel I am in a scene from one of Shakespeare’s history plays: ‘My liege, I bring news from France!’

The Sheikh is seeing me because he wants Western readers to know about modern Dubai - sunny, civilised, sophisticated, a place to invest, a place to visit.  They don’t eat sheep’s eyes, they don’t cut off people’s hands, you can dress as you please and they happily serve you alcohol.   I am seeing him because it is clear that he is an unusual man.  Everywhere I have been they talk about him.  He is revered.   The managing director of the Internet City project (designed to make Dubai the e-commerce capital of the Middle East) is positively dewy-eyed: ‘He is a real leader.  He is there for me twenty-four hours a day.  I can call him on his mobile anytime.  You fall in love with your leader and you work hard.  He pushes you to be creative.   He is a simple man.  You see him in a shopping mall, walking by himself.  He is one of us, but he is a hero too.  He rides 160 miles on horseback in endurances races.  He is amazing.’   (Incredibly, this appears to be a universal verdict.  The population of Dubai runs at around a million, of whom only twenty per cent are native Dubaians, the rest expatriates, mostly workers from the Indian subcontinent.  Everyone I quizzed, from the Home Counties MD of the Dubai Dry Docks to a gaggle of Fillipino housemaids, spoke of Mohammed with admiration tinged with awe.)

I say to the Sheikh, ‘Clearly you are a good leader.’

‘I do not know if I am a good leader, but I am a leader.   And I have a vision.  I look to the future, twenty, thirty years.  I learnt that from my father, Sheikh Raschid.  He is the true father of modern Dubai.  I follow his example.  He would rise early and go alone to watch what was happening on each of his projects.  I do the same.  I watch.  I read faces.  I take decisions and I move fast.   Full throttle.’

It could seem absurd, except that the achievements are there to be admired.  In forty years the country has progressed eight hundred.  What was a sandbowl is now an oasis.  Oil came on stream in 1969, but Raschid and son quickly realised it wouldn’t last: it has fallen from 450,000 barrels a day to 250,000 and by 2020 will have run out.  They set about diversifying, developing tourism, turning Dubai into the reexporting, trading and service centre for the Gulf.  ‘What you see now is only ten per cent of what we want to do.’  Drive around the city in your Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph (retail price £ 158,333: there is one being raffled every day this month as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival: the odds are 5000 to 1) and you see fabulous hotels, skyscrapers, golf courses burgeoning everywhere.   Go out into the villages and grub around the back streets and still you see prosperity and meet contented people.     

Of course, Sheikh Mohammed has the advantage in that what he says goes.

‘I am running my country myself, with my people.  I do not have advisers.  I think they are a waste of time.’   Will democracy ever come to Dubai?

‘What do you want?  What they have in Russia now?  Or Algeria?  Or Palestine?   What is democracy?   My people can see me whenever they want to.  They come to Majlis.  They tell me what they think, they give me their problems.’  

Majlis is an open meeting at which any Dubaian can come and meet the the Sheikhs.  At the Ruler’s Court I am shown the sofas where regularly, usually at lunchtime, the Sheikhs sit to receive the petitions and views of the people.   A British journalist tells me he went to one Majlis and heard a man pour out his heart to the Sheikh, telling him about a bad debt that was going to ruin his business.  The Sheikh reached for a newspaper, tore off a scrap and there and then wrote out a banker’s draft for £ 10,000.

‘We look after our people.  We give them education, land, pensions.  And we listen to our people.  When the price of petrol went up, I remember all the taxi drivers came to Majlis.  They stood there and they shouted at me.  That is democracy.  I know what my people think.  All people are selfish, but a leader must not be selfish.  He must put his people before himself.’

I say, ‘But you and your brothers are good men.  Yours is a benevolent oligarchy.  But what about your sons and grandsons?  How do we know your successors will be good?’

‘I am the Crown Prince.  I will choose my successor.  It may be one of my sons or it may be someone else.  I will choose.’ 

‘But you will not give your people the vote?’

‘What is democracy for?  To make people happy and safe.    My people are happy and they are safe.’

Well, certainly all the ones I encountered were, blissfully so, but then I didn’t meet any women.  I saw some.

‘And you will see more,’ said the Sheikh.  ‘Now we are educating the ladies.  Every single girl now coming out of university will have a job.  We are pushing women.  Yes, it is late, but we have ladies in the police, in the army.  You will find them at immigration and at the new stock exchange.’

‘Still in the traditional dress?’

‘Of course.  We are not Europeans.  Our tradition is different.  It does not mean it is wrong or will not change.’

What about the practice of men having more than one wife?  ‘That is usually for a reason, to do with health or other problems.’  He smiles.  ‘I have only one wife.  She is here in the palace.’

But the Sheikha does not appear in public.  With the exception of the Ruler’s young Moroccan bride, the Maktoum wives and daughters are kept well under wraps.

I ask the Sheikh about the woman accused of adultery who has recently been sentenced to death by stoning.  ‘That is in another of the Emirates, Fujairah, and it will not happen.   In Dubai we do not do this.   We have had executions, but not many.  There is very little crime here.’

This appears to be true.  The handful of British expats I met (there are around 20,000 in all) told me they do not lock their doors at night.   There was a problem with an influx of Russian prostitutes a year or two ago, but apparently the police quickly had the matter under control.  Drugs are not a feature of Dubai society.

‘You must have some problems here, Your Highness?  Money laundering?  Corruption?  Bribery?’

‘Some foreigners do try bribery.   They think it is expected.  They are wrong and we are after them.  From your society we try to take only the good things.’

‘Is there a free press?’

‘Yes.  We have laws that must be obeyed, of course, but the press can say what they like . . .’  There is a pause.  ‘About policy.  They cannot say what they like about people.’  From my reading of the two English-language papers, they are cringeingly respectful of the Sheikh and his brothers.   At the Ruler’s Court Dr Khalifa explained, ‘In Dubai we respect our leaders.  When I was in England and America I saw how your media mocked Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.  Is that healthy?  Is that good?  I think not.’

Sheikh Mohammed is evidently all-powerful.  How rich is he?   He won’t say.  According to various rich lists his net personal fortune is in the region of $12 billion, but who knows?   It is impossible to untangle the Maktoum wealth from that of the state.   Dubai doesn’t reveal its reserves, doesn’t publish a budget.  Why not?

‘We do not publish figures because people would discuss them.   We would be restricted.  This way we are flexible.  We do what we believe is right.’

It also makes life a lot simpler.  At the airport I met the Sheikh’s uncle, head of the department of civil aviation and chairman of Emirates Airlines.  ‘When I need to buy a new aeroplane I go to Mohammed and tell him what I want.  We go through it together carefully, but it will take no more than half an hour to take a decision to spend several million dollars.  The line of command is very short and the decision-making process very simple.’

Sheikh Mohammed has eleven children and a twelfth is rumoured to be on the way.  How does he ensure that his offspring are not spoiled?   ‘I was not spoiled.  When I went to school here I was treated like the other boys.  Then I was sent to a language school in England, at Cambridge.  I had £ 3 a week to spend.  When the money for the gas meter ran out, I went cold.  At Mons, where I did my officer training, they treated everyone the same.  It is so with my children.   I took my daughter away from the school where they gave her ten out of ten.’

I ask the Sheikh: ‘What is your secret?’

 Without hesitation he replies, ‘God.  Faith is everything.  It gives you the strength, the energy, the power.  I am a leader because it is a gift from God.  I am a happy man because I never keep things in my heart.  If something is wrong, I tell people.  I take decisions.  I don’t feel burdened.  I sleep well.’

‘How much do you sleep?’

‘Four hours, two hours.’

‘Truly?   Look into my eyes and tell me the truth.’

He leans forward and pushes his face into mine.  ‘I tell you the truth.  In the day it is all rush.    At night it is quiet.  I am alone.  I write my notes with my green pen.  I read.  I read a lot of classical Arabic.  It is a beautiful language.  How many words did Shakespeare use?   40,000?  In Arabic there are forty thousand words for different fish.   At night, I write my poetry.   And I think.  I am never idle.’ 

‘Do you have a message for the British people?’

‘Yes.’  He sits back and laughs.  ‘Come and have a nice time in Dubai.’

‘And for me?’

‘For you?  For you?  Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up.  It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.  Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up.  It knows it must run faster that the slowest gazelle or it will starve.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re a gazelle or a lion, Mr Brandreth.  When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.’

Postscript 

The Thoughts of Sheikh Mohammed 

I told Sheikh Mohammed that the day of our meeting happened to be my birthday.  ‘I will give you a present,’ he said.  For a fleeting moment I pictured an Arab stallion or even a Rolls Royce coming my way, but he could sense I wasn’t one for mere material gewgaws.   He gave me a collection of his love poetry and a calendar featuring photographs of his favourite horses and nuggets of his wisdom.

‘Extraordinary determination.  That’s what makes ordinary people real leaders.’

‘At the root of all creation is imagination, because before you achieve you must first conceive.’

‘It is the leader who sets the pace of the pack.’

‘Begin when you are sure of yourself, and don’t stop because someone else is unsure of you.’

‘Go to the edge, the voice said.   No, they said, we will fall. 

Go to the edge, the voice said.  No, they said, we will be pushed over. 

So they went . . . and they were pushed . . . and they flew . . .’

‘Watch your thoughts, they become words.  

Watch your words, they become actions. 

Watch your actions, they become habits. 

Watch your habits, they become character. 

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.’