Sharjah & Dubai airports

Reflective opportunity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSjT28v9Z4E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yXy4YGOyvU&feature=share

Sharjah airport 1937, Dubai airport today.

The black-and-white video clip of Sharjah airport, called Air Outpost, filmed in 1937, contained a lot of interesting information. Most of the people in the clip were Arabs, travelling on foot, by donkey and by camel. The city of Sharjah then had a population of 15,000; today it is over half a million. The population then was overwhelmingly Arab, with a sprinkling of Indian and Iranian traders. We saw the daily council at the sheikh’s palace. We also saw footage of the oyster beds, source of the world-famous Gulf pearls. Pearl fishing was then the main occupation, but previous occupations mentioned were gun-running and African slaving. The airport, built in the shape of a fort, was operated/supervised by British personnel. The aeroplane which was arriving at the airport, a 4-engined Hanno, H.P. 42, built by Handley Page in England for Imperial Airways, was described as being 4 days out of England, bound for India & Australia. The previous 2 stops had been Baghdad & Alexandria. This plane had an amazing safety record, with no lives lost in civilian service. It could carry 6 passengers in the forward compartment & 12 in the aft. Arab merchants were seen handing over a cargo of pearls which, before air travel, would have travelled overland or by sea to its Indian destination. We see mechanics at work during the night servicing the plane in readiness for its dawn departure on its next 450-mile hop. We see a weather balloon being released from the roof of the airport's meteorological station to get information regarding wind speeds and so on. Finally we see the plane take off after its one-night stopover.

The second colour video showed people dancing, more or less spontaneously, in Dubai airport. The contrast between the two airports could not have been more striking. At Dubai airport we could see people from a multitude of countries and cultures. They all seemed happy either to participate in or film the dancing.

317 words