Regarding Gaby Hinsliff’s article (Influencers sold the world a fantasy Dubai – and now it’s gone in a puff of missile smoke, 6 March), Dubai has certainly been marketed as a place of aspiration, often through social media. But the suggestion that recent events somehow represent a moral reckoning for those living there feels glib. Most residents are ordinary professionals and families who have built lives in Dubai over many years. When tensions rise in the region, their first concern is the safety of their families, not the preservation of a “fantasy lifestyle”.
Many people move to places like Dubai not out of frivolity but because they are seeking a tax and regulatory environment that allows them to keep more of what they earn.
Rather than dismissing those who leave as participants in a lifestyle fantasy, commentators might usefully ask why so many skilled workers are drawn to jurisdictions with simpler and often lighter tax regimes.
Mark Husbands
Nottingham
• I cried when I saw the cartoon in the Guardian depicting an expat in Dubai – cried with fear and distress. My son is currently “sheltering in place” in Dubai as a result of the current crisis in the Middle East. He’s not an influencer or a tax dodger. He moved there during the pandemic for a graduate job opportunity when there were very few opportunities in the UK – a situation that sadly continues. He’s not asking for sympathy or demanding to be brought back to the UK, he’s showing incredible courage and continuing to work while under fire to pay off his student loan.
I wonder whether the cartoonist has ever had been in imminent danger from missile and drone attacks? I doubt it – otherwise how to explain the lack of empathy shown in this cartoon published only three days after the crisis broke?
Jessamy Hadley
Ascot, Berkshire
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