| A similar calamity has befallen both the house of Al-Nahayan in Abu Dhabi and the state of Pakistan; each is trying to recover from the consequence of entrusting its finances to Pakistani bankers. Nothing has shaken the confidence of the investors on both sides of the Gulf as the realization that these modern fiscal wizards are not always in control of their volatile alchemy, and that the magic that they sometimes appear to perform is no more than an illusion, prone to evaporate suddenly in the glare of reality. |
| Who can forget the heady days in the 1970s, when United Bank and Habib Bank were still privately owned, and the sheikhs from Trucial states vied to be entertained by them and cajoled for permission to visit Pakistan in the winter to hunt the migratory bustard or houbara? Who can forget a visit to the Gulf at a time before the locals scratched their calloused toes in the now fertile sand and released a fortune in oil and hissing gas? Who can forget seeing the Gulf before the OPEC boom when flies outnumbered the local population of dusty bedus, or afterward s when expatriates replaced the flies, and the local began to feel like the bustards, a threatened spices in their own habitat? Who can forget the impact the sudden and inordinate wealth of OPEC countries had on our own society, how we forgot ourselves and as a result of our own misconduct lost our reputation as skilled professionals? [EXTRACT] |
Published in THE NATION 23 July 1992, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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