By Dr. Nidal Shoukeir, Professor of Strategic Communications and Governmental Relations
In a world where crises are accelerating faster than the maps of expectation can keep pace, the stability of nations is no longer measured solely by their ability to weather the storm. It is also measured by their ability to keep life moving through it, to preserve the rhythm of everyday life, and to maintain people’s capacity to look toward tomorrow with confidence. Against this backdrop, the United Arab Emirates stands out as an experience worthy of reflection. At a time when the region and the world are living through the consequences of successive conflicts and crises, the Uae, despite being situated at the heart of a turbulent region, appears to be maintaining a different rhythm of life.
Anyone visiting the Uae can see and feel a remarkable level of activity and a palpable sense of energy—one that, to a significant extent, places the visitor at a distance from the atmosphere of crises that has cast a heavy shadow over life in many parts of the region. I was in the Uae over the past two weeks, and what I experienced firsthand was striking: cities alive with movement, events taking place one after another, projects moving forward, institutions at work, and cultural, media and economic activities that are not focused solely on the present, but leave a clear space for the future in their thinking and planning.
In just two weeks, I personally took part in more than ten events across Abu Dhabi and Dubai. I began in Abu Dhabi with the Hili Strategic Forum, followed by the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. I then moved to Dubai, where I experienced firsthand the atmosphere of the Arab Media Summit, rich with events and activity. I returned to Abu Dhabi to conclude my visit by taking part in a cultural and strategic event, the Congress of Arabic and Creative Industries.
I would say that what struck me about this experience was not simply the number or diversity of events, nor the scale of attendance or the profile of the speakers. What struck me most was what was happening behind the scenes: a clear determination to keep life moving, and to ensure that the future remains present in thinking and action, even under the most difficult circumstances. And, truth be told, the same feeling and the same passion accompanied me between Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the other emirates of the country. Three fundamental realities gradually emerged before me:
First: The determination to protect a way of life
The first thing that catches the eye is the determination to preserve the way of life the country has created for itself, and to continue along a path that can be described as the “Emirati dream.” This does not appear to be merely a temporary response to circumstances. Rather, it is a culture of work and life reflected in everyday details, in the way institutions operate, and in the ability of teams to continue delivering what has been planned, even when circumstances around them change. Anyone who sees the teams working behind major events in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and observes the scale of coordination, discipline and effort devoted to keeping life moving, realizes that this goes beyond organizing an event or holding a conference. At its core, it is a culture of life, work and continuity. A crisis does not mean closing doors, suspending ambition, or postponing the future to an unknown date. On the contrary, maintaining the normal rhythm of life itself becomes, in times of turbulence, an act of significance. This brings to mind the Czech thinker and former president Václav Havel’s understanding of hope, when he wrote that hope is not a prediction of the future, but “an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.” Hope, in this sense, is not a promise that things will necessarily unfold as we wish, nor is it a denial of the difficulty of reality. It is the ability to continue working toward something we believe is worth achieving, even when the outcome is not guaranteed. This is where hope becomes a strategic concept rather than merely a passing emotion. When businesses, projects and events continue, and when people remain able to carry on with their daily lives and ambitions, crisis management extends beyond containing its effects to protecting the capacity to keep looking ahead.
Second: Confidence in tomorrow begins with planning for it
The second point that struck me—and perhaps one of the most significant—was that I did not see these events as being concerned only with the present. I saw practical confidence in tomorrow. As I moved from one event to another, the story did not end when an event ended. Behind the scenes, there was talk of future editions, new ideas being developed, dates being considered, and teams planning what would come months from now, perhaps even the following year. That is where a significance emerges that is not always immediately visible to the visitor. When a team begins preparing for next year’s edition while still living through the details of today’s event, it is treating tomorrow as a date for which one must prepare, rather than as an unknown possibility. This is not simply a calendar of events. It is practical confidence in the future. Those planning a new edition of a conference or forum while still in the midst of the current one are sending a practical message: life will continue, ideas will evolve, audiences will return, and there is a new space to be filled from now. This kind of confidence does not require many slogans. It appears in the small details that a visitor can see behind the scenes. At this point, I am reminded of the words of physicist and Nobel laureate Dennis Gabor: “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.” The statement comes from his 1963 book Inventing the Future, in which he explored the idea that the future is not merely something we predict, but a space in which human beings can participate in shaping what comes next. The difference between waiting for the future and creating it may lie precisely in these details: beginning work on tomorrow before it arrives, and treating it as an open space that can be developed, rather than simply as a consequence of what happens today. That is precisely what I saw in the Uae: An event ends, but preparations for the next one have already begun; one season closes, while the next is already being imagined. Perhaps this is one of the clearest signs that confidence in tomorrow is not an abstract idea, but a daily practice. Those who plan the next edition while still living through the current one are not simply waiting for the future; they are already preparing the place into which the future will arrive.
Third: The dose of hope you can see without anyone having to describe it
The third point, and perhaps the most powerful on a human level, is the dose of hope you receive in the Uae without anyone asking you to feel it. No one tells you that circumstances are easy, and no one can live entirely outside the context of a turbulent world. Yet what you see before you is different: life continuing, vibrant cities, full events, institutions at work, teams preparing for what lies ahead, and people talking about projects, dates, new editions and new ideas. You realize then that hope can be something built into the details of everyday life. And here I return once again to Havel’s words: hope is not a prediction of the future, but an orientation toward it. Perhaps that is why what remained with me most from this visit was not a particular conference, a particular session, or a number associated with the events I attended. What remained was the quiet feeling that life goes on.
People are working. Institutions are planning.
Events are taking place today while preparations are already underway for their next editions tomorrow.
And amid everything happening around the UAE, there are still people looking ahead. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of “hope.” It does not mean that the world has become free of crises. It means that crises have not succeeded in taking away our capacity to live, to work and to dream. And when I left the Uae, I did not think much about the number of events I had attended. Instead, I kept returning to the recurring scene I had witnessed in more than one place: people working on what comes next while the world around them is preoccupied with what is happening now. And so, perhaps describing the Uae as “a home of hope and a gateway to the future” is not merely a poetic title, but a description of a scene I witnessed with my own eyes. It is a home of hope because, when you are there, you see life continuing, work continuing, ambition remaining alive, and people able to look toward tomorrow without feeling that the present has taken that tomorrow away from them. And it is a gateway to the future because you do not see the future as a distant date. You see it in meetings, in plans for upcoming events, in new projects, and in ideas being developed before today’s projects have even come to an end. Perhaps the most beautiful image that captured this entire experience for me is one that repeats itself behind every major event: While people are focused on what is happening on the stage today, somewhere else, someone is already preparing for what will happen on the stage tomorrow. And so, in a world where there is so much talk about crises, there remain countries that choose to speak, through action rather than words alone, about life—and what comes after it. In the Uae, it became clear to me that the future is not something they are waiting for. They are working on it…
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