How Sheikh Zayed became everyone’s voice
Oil was just a means to accelerate a reality. One man was the vision of that reality, its heartbeat, its spark, its hope. From the Arabian desert, burning under the scorching sun, came a man who would challenge the world and naysayers; those incapable of daring and dreaming and believing. He also challenged the all encompassing vastness of a parched land surrounded by oceans of the undrinkable.
Death was commonplace at that time, among the young, old and those in between. Women died during childbirth as their children followed with fever and flu. Men became victims of the necessity to provide for their families as they traveled across the unrelenting desert for food and drink or plunged like human anchors into abysmal waters searching for treasures within the womb of a perilous sea — pearls dearer than life.
However, that suffering would no longer last with the coming of a great man. He would not rest until the dreams he had for his people became a reality. And that in itself was a constant evolution of greater desires for them; their comfort, happiness and betterment; their growth, development, health and wealth. This great man was the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Often, you can tell a great leader from the manner in which he treats his people. And Sheikh Zayed was the epitome of a great leader. He walked amongst his people homogeneously as Zayed the man, before Zayed the leader. Humble was he, and Allah elevated him, and what he loved the most … his people.
On his sovereign land he erected houses of marble and cement, and buildings of stone and steel — his hands, blistered with the proof of hard work as he shaped the concrete foundations of an urban world and deeply plowed to plant palms, trees and flowers. And he did this along with those whose sweat showered the earth with determination.
Lights soon filled our streets not because of the dusking sun or glowing moon, but because electricity traced
Lights soon filled our streets not because of the dusking sun or glowing moon, but because electricity traced our land, and cozied our homes with bulbs and lamps.
our land, and cozied our homes with bulbs and lamps. Cars buzzed, rumbled and beeped on tarred motorways. Traffic lights and signals coloured the air with synchronised vivacity of green, yellow and red. Air conditioners forced the heat into obscurity, now a foreigner in the voltaic metropolis of human invention.
Anthems are sung in schools as our flag danced with the wind. Sirens cried as healthcare became available, doctors and nurses no longer a dream. Echoes of the Athan reached every corner from microphones atop statuesque minarets. Markets that scattered the cities are now filled with mosaicked shelves of every product imaginable. Water bottled in abundance, is no longer a worry — thirst has been killed.
A world was carved in the vision of his eyes, for the glory of his people. Sheikh Zayed was the balance the Arab world needed; the beacon of light effervescently illuminating an age of darkness; breaking the manacles of ignorance with knowledge and moderation. And it was through that knowledge, that his voice became sonorous towards the rights of women; an effulgence of opportunity and a realization that “the woman is half of society.”
He became everyone’s voice, the weak, poor, the strong, rich, the Emirati, and the non-Emirati. He was diversity personified and tolerance manifested. Unlike other rulers who suppressed and deprived their people of knowledge, Sheikh Zayed vowed to educate, culture and empower us. He was a man of knowledge, and knowledge is power. Powerful, his power only commanded respect, knowledge and culture. It called for us to be righteous and compassionate. It called for us to be profound. His power wasn’t totalitarian, it was humanitarian. As the Year of Zayed nears, I urge you to awaken the dormant giants within yourselves and to embrace his call for greatness through knowledge and hard work, love and unity, giving and building, loyalty.
Mohamed Luqman is an Emirati writer