On Mike Davies' "Fear and Money in Dubai"

I've never been to Dubai and until just over a week ago it was somewhere I really wanted to go. When I began reading Mike Davies' article I was enraptured; imagining I was flying over the city just as he was describing, peering through the plane's window to gasp and gawp at 'the world' and 'the palm'. As he went on I thought this is even better than I'd imagined (or seen on tv). I wanted to book a holiday immediately, to splurge, to spend one night in the Burj with a butler, to shop 'til I drop. This is what it would be all about - unashamed, uncontrollable indulgence.
I wouldn't mind the 'room full of [fake] smiling faces', so what? People could grin at me if I was paying through the nose for a week. They can carry my bags too while they're at it.

I'd feel excited by the glass and steel jungle I'd travel through on the way to the waterpark. I'd feel like I was somewhere sexy, cool, funky. Like a celebrity.

After a week none of this would matter anymore because I would be home and back to work and all that's left of the shiny heat of Arabia would be some photos on facebook and a tan. It would've been a halucination, a mirage, a 'trip'.

That's all Dubai could have ever been to me - something quick, shallow, fun while it lasted. A harmless one night stand of a holiday.

Then I kept reading.

The daydream was shattered. Dubai became a poison apple, it wasn't what it was 10 minutes earlier. All the promise of a good ride was tainted by the knowledge that slaves built the fairground. How could i possibly enjoy myself now? Now I know a fraction of the suffering of the people wearing the smiles.

However, just like the experience I imagine I will forget after a holiday in the city, I wonder how long it will take me to forget Davies' article. How long it will take me to forget the suffering of Dubai's victims, like everytime I turn the famine in Africa off the news or walk past a homeless person?

Probably, like most of Dubai's followers, not long. Then I can get back to my heat magazine and think about booking flights.