A Comparison Essay On Emirates Between Past And Present

A Comparison Essay On Emirates Between Past And Present

United Arab Emirates, one of the best countries in the world in terms of development, has seen a significant progress in many fields of life such as education, construction, and health. The surprising thing is that United Arab Emirates was founded only a few decades ago having been in existence for only three decades. However, this relatively new country competes with other ancient countries by its achievements.
On December 2, 1971, the United Arab Emirates announced a federation of seven emirates. The name "emirates,” is equivalent to the words "states" or "cities." The capital of United Arab Emirates, and the biggest city in UAE, is Abu Dhabi. Dubai is a more modern and famous city due to its amazing modern architecture. Then, other emirates are Sharjah, Umm Al Quwain, Ajman, Ras Al Khamah and Fujairah, where I live.

In the years immediately following its founding, the sheiks from the different emirates encountered a number of challenges. Among the challenges they encountered was the British occupation of the Arabian Gulf where the United Arab Emirates is located. However, revenue began coming in from the oil, which brought about a renaissance for the country. Using the revenue from oil, the United Arab Emirates began to make tremendous progress in the areas of education, health, and construction in the next three decades, which has drawn the attention of other great countries. From the reign of Sheik Zayed when country was in a poor state, emirates were able to compete with other countries.
United Arab Emirates' main focus is the education, which is a key element for the renaissance of any community. This focus on education has increased the efficiency of school and education authorities. The education in the United Arab Emirates is free for all school levels and the universities. It is not limited only to emirates people, and it’s also for the international people. My father was fifteen years old when the emirates united. "I noticed how the different today and those days are," he told me during my interview. He was living in sixth city, which is Ras Al Khama.
I remember one day when I got home from school, I saw my father and my grandfather were sitting on the sofa in the living room. I was wearing the school uniform, which was a light grey t-shirt and dark grey pants. Before I went to my bedroom, my father stopped me. He wanted to know how I was doing in school and what my grade was. After a while, my father took a deep breath, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said,
"Don’t lose this chance of education.” 
"Why?” I said,
"You know, Majed, when I was like you, I had a difficult time getting an education, but I got it. There were many things that had changed; for example, I started my first day in school when I was eight years old, and do you know Murbeh? That was my school,” My father said.
Murbeh is about thirty miles away from where he lived. He also said, "We didn't have a school bus. We were waiting for a volunteer who had a bus to take us to the school and we were waiting for him after the Fajer prayer.” The Fajer prayer is around five o’clock in the morning meaning that schoolchildren had to wait out in the cold that early to catch a ride to school. In addition, mad dad told me that, "The bus that we were in didn't have an air conditioner. He said that twice while he was tapping my shoulder and smiling. He did that because we have schools and buses that are comfortable unlike those days. My grandfather was listening to us while we were talking. And my father asked him, "How did you learn?”
"I didn't go to school; I went to the mosque to learn the basics of math and Arabic language grammar. In my day, I remember there were just five or six schools in United Arab Emirates; the mosque was the only place where people could learn,” my grandfather said, 
In addition, the health sector also started to evolve when the revenue in the United Arab Emirates increased. At the time when my father was a young, there were very few hospitals in all of the United Arab Emirates. Today,  there are hospitals all over the United Arab Emirates. This I was able to get from an interview with my grandfather whom I called using Skype during the weekend. I wanted to know what they did if anyone fell sick those days. He said, "I remember when my father was sick; he would go to India to get medicine and care”. He used the example of smallpox to show me the real condition of the hospital system  in the fifties and how it was hard to get care in the UAE. "It was terrifying; no one knew what it was, so we had to cross the ocean to go to India. But now we have the best hospital in the world,” he said while smiling. I did not understand him. Then, he then explained to me that the government of Abu Dhabi had opened a branch of John Hopkins Hospital a couple of years back. He explained to me that this was the best hospital in the world  and said "I don’t have to go out of our country to get the care anymore.” Furthermore, construction technology in the United Arab Emirates, especially in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, can be compared with  that of most of the other developed countries in the field of construction. Those two cities have the tallest buildings in the world, which are renowned globally.