Sheikh Zayed’s institution of giving lives on and will never be forgotten

dubai — Commemorating the 100th birth anniversary of the founding leader of the UAE, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the President, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, declared 2018 the “Year of Zayed” (Aam Zayed in Arabic), for his role in the founding and construction of the Emirates as well as his local and global achievements. The announcement coincided with the anniversary of Sheikh Zayed’s appointment to the presidency on August 6, 1966. After the Year of Giving (Aam Al Kheir) of 2017 with humanitarian and charitable initiatives, in 2018 we will commemorate a symbol of Emirati liberality.

The Year of Zayed is about loyalty to the founders of the federation of the UAE, now a modern country that achieved a lot locally, regionally and globally. Sheikh Zayed instilled in the minds of Emiratis a value system of tolerance, moderation, openness, harmony, and coexistence. These very values are used today as indicators for welfare and happiness in a society.

The historic figure that is Sheikh Zayed made countless contributions to regional and global prosperity. The desert, from which the founding leader derived strength, rigidity and foresight, gave birth to the exemplary country with a policy as unique as the relationship between the people and every leader since Sheikh Zayed. His ultimate touch can be seen everywhere: from politics, civil engineering to moral and social values, and everywhere, all around the world, his humanitarian and charitable deeds are remembered.

To remember this leader is to keep for generations to come a cultural heritage of human progress, he to whom many generations owe the prosper times they live in. A vanguard emancipator of Emirati women, the first president put the female factor in the development process, at a time women in the region were marginalised. Female education served development and preserved identity.

The founding leader once said that the Emirates will put women in the place they really deserve, that religion and modernity both dictate. “We will not meet the people’s expectations with archaic mentalities at odds with our religion, our heritage and our era,” he said. He was a strategic thinker, a transformational leader that prefigured the future while learning from the past. For him, a true leader both acts and inspires others.

The values he stood for can inform institutions and projects in fields such as politics, administration, and humanitarian and charitable work. We need year-long efforts to institutionalise these principles of strategic thinking upon which the UAE was built.