The Towering Dream of Dubai

"Here's an example of what I'm talking about," he said. "They're all sitting side by side and all doing it with respect."

It is remarkable how little U.S. policy figures in conversations here. The dispute this winter over a Dubai company's plans to manage six U.S. ports was seen less as an insult and more as a failure of Dubai officials to market themselves and master public relations. Religion comes up usually only in the context of illustrating Dubai's tolerance. Unlike in Egypt, Lebanon or Syria, almost no one mentions the Bush administration's talk about democratic reform. Politics, in fact, is rare in Dubai, where power resides with a single family, the Maktoum clan. In this city of transients, 85 percent of its workforce foreign, politics hardly exists.

For good reason, Muntafiq said.

"Democracy is a means, not an end," he said. "It's a system, a process, a tool. What is the end? I don't know, but I have my own opinions -- a world-class health-care system, a world-class education system, a job for every person willing and able, rule of law, civil rights and liberties. I would have thought these would be the outputs of democracy. Does it matter how we get there? I don't know, but I'm asking the question. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't have it, I'm just saying it doesn't really matter here."

Muntafiq smiled. Everything achieved so far, he said, is 10 percent of what Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, said he has envisioned for the model. "Ten percent," Muntafiq said again, shaking his head.

"And that scares the hell out of me."

Soaring Plans, Asian Laborers

Tatweer is part of Dubai Holding, the sprawling investment arm of the government that has overseen the creation of Media City, Internet City and Knowledge Village. Another of its projects is the Jumeirah Beach Residence, near the Persian Gulf, where Abdel-Rahman Shrooz Miah and Mohammed Noor al-Amin work each day, beginning at 7 a.m.

At the end of one shift, covered in paint, the Bangladeshi laborers walked past the project's advertisements. "The Lifestyle of a Lifetime," one reads. Another, in succession, beckons, "Invest in Life," "Invest in Choice," "Invest in Fun," "Invest in You." It is a 90-minute ride, sometimes two hours, to their shantytown of a home in neighboring Sharjah.

"When the work comes to an end, it feels good," Amin said, settling into the seat.

Amin is 24, Miah 19. Both look 14. Here for three years, Amin makes about $400 a month, Miah $245. Each paid an agent in Bangladesh more than $3,000 to secure a visa and work in Dubai, and both still owe a large share of that. Neither has visited home. They call their families once or twice a month, usually talking for the 10 minutes that an $8 phone card will buy.

"The first thing they ask us is to send money," Miah said. "And we usually don't have it."

A perpetual haze hovers over Dubai, redolent of pollution or a sandstorm. More likely, the frenetic construction cloaks the city in excavated dirt. It softened the sun, as the men set out for home. The street toward Sharjah was congested. The lane into Dubai was free. They turned their heads as a black Porsche Cayenne sport-utility vehicle, without a license plate, barreled the other way; they speculated the driver was Sheik Mohammed's son, the car his trademark.