Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (Arabic:الشيخ زايد بن سلطان أل نهيان), (1918 — 2 November 2004), the principal architect of the seven United Arab Emirates, was the moderate ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE for over 30 years (1971-2004).
Sheikh Zayed was the youngest son of Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the traditional ruler of Abu Dhabi from 1922 to 1926. He was named after his famous grandfather, Zayed bin Khalifa al Nahyan, who ruled the emirate from 1855 to 1909. On August 6, 1966 he succeeded his brother, Sheikh Shakhbut Bin-Sultan Al Nahyan, as emir of Abu Dhabi after the latter was deposed in a bloodless palace coup. Zayed was first elected to the presidency of the UAE in 1971 and was reelected on four further occasions: 1976, 1981, 1986, and 1991. These elections were not by popular vote, for no democratic institutions exist in the UAE. He was in fact appointed by the other six ruling Sheiks that sit with him on the Supreme Council. He was considered a relatively liberal ruler, and allowed private media, although they were strictly censored and were never allowed to criticize the government or the ruling families. His religious tolerance of Christians and the freedom given Western workers sojourning in the UAE was in marked contrast to most neighbors in the region and exposed him to criticism. Zayed was most respected around the world for his unifying influence and his drive to make the Emirates one nation. His calls for conciliation extended across the Gulf to Iran. Zayed advocated dialogue as the means to settle the row with Tehran over three strategic Gulf islands which Iran seized from the (future) UAE Emirate of Sharjah in 1971. This was hardly a magnanimous gesture however, for Iran's military dwarfs that of the UAE many times over, so there was no recourse but dialogue. It is also noteworthy that this approach has yielded absolutely nothing. The islands remain solidly in Iranian hands, despite over three decades of UAE diplomatic initiatives. Troubled by the suffering of Iraqi civilians, he also took the lead in calling for lifting sanctions on Iraq imposed by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Sheikh Zayed was considered one of the wealthiest men in the world. A Forbes magazine estimate put his fortune at around USD $20 billion. The source of this wealth could be almost exclusively attributed to the immense oil wealth of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates, which sit on a pool of a tenth of the world's proven oil reserves. Nevertheless he chose to live a relatively modest and traditional lifestyle, riding and hunting with falcons, though he gave up hunting with firearms, a sport at which he excelled, to set an example for wildlife conservation in his fragile desert homeland.He was personally popular, and was regarded to be considerably pious in his religious observances.
At the time the British withdrew from the Persian Gulf, Zayed oversaw the establishment of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Arab Economic Development; through it oil riches were channeled to some forty less fortunate Islamic nations in Asia and Africa during the decades that followed. He is also remembered as "the man who turned the desert green," because he invested oil revenues into projects to improve the harsh desert environment. A major vehicle for his ideas and activities is the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up.
In 1999, while he was in a hospital for some tests, the people of the UAE wrote him a personal thank-you letter with 1.5 million signatures. He underwent a kidney transplant in 2000.
On November 2 2004, Sheikh Zayed passed away, as announced by Abu Dhabi TV. No official cause of death was given; however he was in London recently undergoing hospital treatment.
His eldest son, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, born in 1948, took an increasing role in the government from the 1990s; he was ratified as president of the United Arab Emirates by his fellow rulers on the Supreme Council directly after his father's death.
Sheikh Zayed's critics point to the vast sums of the state's wealth that he accumulated for himself and his family, significantly dwarfing the amounts channeled to charitable contributions. Many poor Arabs regard with contempt what they insist is his wasteful extreavegance. One of his weddings landed in the Guinness Book of Records for being the most expensive in the world. He was also regarded as a hypocrite by many, most especially for regularly paying lip service to Arab Unity, but in practice he vigorously opposed any real integration with the much poorer Arab nations that lacked the Gulf states' oil reserves. Zayed valued and protected the independence and privileged position of the oligarchies and monarchies which ruled most of the Arabian Peninsula. Even the Gulf Cooperation Council, which he co-founded, was little more than a PR facade to project an image of integration and Arab unity. In fact, the GCC has little practical function, and lacks even the most basic integrations of the EU, for example. Furthermore Zayed did not scruple to employ the help of a secret police apparatus, relatively modest by Arab standards, but nevertheless resulted in significant abuse and oppression, especially of expatriate workers who were routinely denied due process and other basic rights. Torture was used when deemed necessary, which admittedly was rare due to the political stability and low crime rate enjoyed throughout the country. Zayed has also been criticized for allowing and profiting from the slave trade. It has been documented that small boys have been abducted and purchased from the poverty-stricken nations of the Indian Subcontinent and then sold into servitude in the UAE camel racing industry. He and members of his clan and the other UAE rulers (especially the Al-Maktoums of Dubai) patronize the camel races, which are the national sport. Despite official laws banning underage and underweight boys from being jockeys, such boys have been continually found despite efforts to conceal them. His detractors also point out that most of the achievements he took credit for were the result of vast oil revenues, and not personal leadership or acumen.
His ultimate legacy, considered separately from his personal popularity, will be difficult to accurately measure in the UAE, because there is no freedom of the press, no democratic institutions, and excessive government propaganda. This would make an unbiased discussion of his life and accomplishments and genuine criticism virtually impossible.
External links
- Sheikh Zayed's website (http://www.sheikhzayed.com/index_noflash.htm)
- UAE embassy obituary profile (http://uae-embassy.org/profile.htm)
ar:زايد بن سلطان آل نهيان de:Zaid ibn Sultan Al Nahyan es:Zayed ibn Sultán Al Nahayan ms:Syeikh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nuhayyan nl:Zayid bin Sultan al Nuhayyan ja:ザーイド・ビン＝スルターン・アール＝ナヒヤーン zh:扎耶德·本·苏尔坦·阿勒纳哈扬