The year 2005.
I'm in Urfa.
I work with a company based in Bahrain and they asked me for a machine: a dredger that cleans the bottom in harbors and shallow waters.
The reason was simple. Sandstorms in the Gulf were reducing the draft of the harbors and ships were having difficulty docking. The seabed had to be constantly cleaned. We built the machine. Then 25 more orders came.
Just when everything was growing, it suddenly stopped.
Orders canceled.
Because the wind had turned in the Gulf.
***
At that time Dubai was building a dream.
Artificial islands rose in the middle of the sea, and sail-shaped hotels stretched to the sky in the middle of the desert.
Burj Al Arab was not just a hotel, it was a symbol.
Palm Jumeirah was not just an island, it was man's challenge to nature.
Then came the crisis.
Cranes are silent. Projects remain unfinished.
But Dubai has risen from its fall.
It became a financial center. It became a tourism base. It became the address of tax-free capital.
He created a “model”.
***
But there was one fact that was overlooked.
Dubai's oil was limited, but its real wealth was its geopolitical position.
And geopolitical position is a double-edged sword.
Its neighbor is Iran.
Every Gulf tension, every wave of sanctions, every missile threat affects first the air and then capital.
For years, the city was the address of gray money, escape and asylum; today, as regional risk has increased, reverse migration has become the talk of the town.
You can create a financial miracle in the middle of the desert.
But you cannot import trust.
***
For me, this story is not about ordering a machine.
Those 25 canceled machines described the nature of the Gulf economy:
A rapidly inflating, rapidly contracting, wind-driven order.
An artificial island is made.
Artificial skyscrapers are built.
But there can be no artificial stabilization.
Economy is not just concrete.
Economy means trust.
Economy means geography.
And sometimes a sandstorm silences the whole harbor.
Today Dubai is still glittering.
But any city rising in the middle of the desert has to take into account the direction of the wind.
Because balloons always depend on two things:
Air and trust.
If one is lacking, the other is not enough.