Expats should accept Abu Dhabi for what it is

At the Abu Dhabi art fair earlier this month, writers, gallerists and collectors from all over the world mingled around the vast Emirates Palace Hotel and the majlis tent. Christie's presented works by Middle Eastern artists. Larry Gagosian lent his private collection for public view on Saadiyat Island, where branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim are due to open in 2014. Drinks continued long into the night while, by day, a Bedouin tent offered dates and cardamom coffee as a couple of camels dozed nearby. This is the Abu Dhabi the emirate wants you to see – cultured, cosmopolitan, forward-looking, yet treasuring its past. And this is the Abu Dhabi you probably will see if you go as a tourist or for a short business trip. But especially since the economic downturn began and reports appeared of cars being abandoned by fleeing expats at Dubai airport in early 2009, a different perception has taken hold of the United Arab Emirates . "I can't get my head around being in a country where religion rules," one recently arrived British worker complained to me. For all that many Europeans disdain the bling of Dubai, they seem almost disappointed to find laws which show that it is not, after all, a Gomorrah of unrestrained libertinism – as Britons jailed for public canoodling have found. These states are accused of exploiting foreign workers, of censoring free speech and the press, and of being arbitrary autocracies. When the criticism is not that substantial, we hear the whining of spoiled expats: the dream didn't come true, they say, pictured in their luxurious but remote gated communities (and they wonder why "it's difficult to meet people"). There was glee and precious little sympathy when financial disaster hit Dubai. It was almost as though many wished that the sands would reclaim the land. Part of the outrage appears to stem from the realisation that these states are not fun-and-business parks with European values and governance that just happen to be in the Arabian Gulf. From Kuwait and Bahrain to Qatar, the UAE and Oman, they are not democracies; although we might want to consider what we wish for. The gift of democracy has come at the cost of thousands of lives in Afghanistan (figures are highly disputed) and of more than a million in Iraq, according to one survey . True, the UAE's press is not wholly free and there are many sensitivities about the royal families and stories perceived as harming national interests . But do we think that we are entirely without such restrictions here in Britain? Only the other day I came across a memo sent to me by the editor of a paper where I was once a junior executive. I had run a story about Rupert Everett being rude about the Queen – pretty innocuous stuff, I thought. Not the editor. He pulled the article from the next edition, told me off in writing for my "considerable error of judgement and taste" and even, so I was told, wrote to Buckingham Palace cravenly apologising that the story had appeared, however briefly. The freedom and liberty in these states is almost unbelievable compared with nextdoor Saudi Arabia, where I spent part of my childhood – and was therefore shocked by the relative openness of the UAE and Qatar on the first of numerous visits as an adult. Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper puts many Fleet Street publications to shame. The Qatar Foundation's televised Doha Debates are fierce and illuminating (in the most recent, the audience overwhelmingly rejected a motion saying "This house would prefer money to free elections"). Perhaps you can't drink alcohol and wear next to nothing on the street – but there are plenty of places where you can. And there was no shortage of highly political work to be seen at the art fairs, both in Abu Dhabi recently and in Dubai last March. What openness and reform there is, however, is never enough for some. Yes, these are at heart highly conservative Islamic countries where there is no imminent prospect of liberal democracy. As a visitor, this need not affect you, but if you really don't like it, don't go – either on holiday or for work. One suspects that like Wilfred Thesiger , a great friend of Sheikh Zayed, the late ruler of Abu Dhabi and "father" of the UAE, some people wish that these states had never developed. We could then still admire the purity and nobility of their penurious Bedouin existence. Today's Emiratis, however, would prefer you get your nostalgia fix at the exhibition of Thesiger's photographs at Jahili Fort in al-Ain, on the Abu Dhabi-Dubai border. They prefer progress – on their terms, of course. Just as we would.