Circle of life

ACCORDING TO LEGEND, an elephant graveyard is a place where elderly elephants instinctively direct themselves once they reach a certain age. Originating from fictional accounts popularised in films from MGM’s Trader Horn and Tarzan the Ape Man to Disney’s The Lion King, an elephant graveyard is where elephants that have had their day in the sun go to die—far removed from the competitive day-to-day life of the herd.  
    
Often the result of greedy hunters seeking ivory riches, elephant graveyards are frightening places that bear the markings and remnants of large-scale activity, yet retain the eerie skeletons of so many of the once-great creatures. Massive carcasses left to rot in the sun and preyed upon by vultures and hyenas: this is the stuff of an elephant graveyard.     

At the end of May, I was calling around to some of my contacts just to find out what’s new on the street and I was surprised at the frequency with which I heard: “We’re doing most of our work in Saudi now” or “We’ve closed our Dubai office and we’re moving to Doha” or “We’re chasing money for work we did in Dubai, what do you recommend?”

As the same message was repeated time and time again, I started getting that spooky feeling I had the first time I watched The Lion King and witnessed a young Simba and Nala traipse through the elephant graveyard, naive to the very real dangers that could befall them.  

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As my imagination spiralled, I began wondering whether Dubai might become the region’s elephant graveyard. Once little more than a desert oasis, the 1980s and 90s saw enterprising young architects and engineers (read: hunters) flock to Dubai in search of riches. Many of them met local partners and, together, found a great deal of success and became very wealthy off ivory-laden contracts for elephantine projects.

As more elephants (read: projects) came, so came the hunters. As more hunters came, so came the vultures and hyenas, looking to easily capitalise off the work of the hunters. Now everyone seems to be moving out of Dubai. They’re picking up and moving to greener savannahs in a predictably nomadic fashion. Analysts call it ‘following the market’ but really, it’s little more than following the herd of elephants. Where there are elephants, there are hunters; and where there are hunters, there will undoubtedly be vultures and hyenas. It’s as predictable as the circle of life.

“Dubai has become a ghost town,” remarked a friend at the weekend. While I wouldn’t agree it’s gotten to the point of tumbleweeds and tombstones, the skeletons of unfinished buildings adorn every sector of the city like so many rotting elephant carcasses.

The once-profitable hunters have long since moved on, as have the scores of hyenas and vultures that used to do their dirty work. Some days Dubai can be downright eerie and, make no mistake, danger still lurks for both the naive and the enterprising.

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