Characteristics Of Modernity

Modernity is a term that used by different humanities and social sciences to describe a time when the society change their socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practice to ways that match with post-medieval European practices and ways of life. Social scientists have believed that countries should met with specific dynamics and features to consider as modern city. However, does UAE consider as modern city, I will apply Giddens features and dynamics to investigate in this issue.

UAE society is a society that has mixed with different people from different background, ethnicities and races. People there deal and interact with each other, and experienced the city life and modernity development, but does that makes them as modern
Gideens believe that in modernity people interactions are only rarely guided by tradition only if it seems rational and justified. People became more critical about their traditions also; they evaluate and change their traditional ideas and practices. How ever, in this point the UAE cannot be considered as modern society according to Giddens modernity theory, because they stick much to traditions. To illustrate, a lot of Emirate families live in a house with extended family, including their grandfather and grandmother, they always judge the new youth, which keep the youth feel that their families watch them and they are going to be critics if they not follow the tradition. Also, they tend more to marry within the same tribal or family, because some people fear that their norms and values would affect if they practice inter-marrying. However, the younger generations are not following traditional and cultural norms and values strictly as the older generation, but it still exists. However, the Islamic religion play an important role in the society practices which keeps the society away from changing their traditions because it connects much with the Islamic principle. Moving to Giddens dimensions or features of modernity, he marks 1600s as the beginning of modernity in Europe, and it has developed because of interplay of some institutional dimensions different. Modernity features are capitalism, industrialism, coordinated administrative
The UAE does not occupy any specific industrial field in the world, they may manufacture some petrochemical product, but they do not manufacture like European countries. Also, they depend much on oil revenues as source of money, and a lot of political scientist consider the UAE a rentier state. 6

Moving to coordinated administrative power, which involves the control of information and monitoring of the activities of subject by states. The UAE government is always practice different surveillance tactics to control their subjected, and on the other way, to insure security in the way that they arrested any one whom they feel may threaten the state by collecting some records thorough their surveillance methods. In the recent months, the government has captured a terrorist group of men who wanted to bomb malls and hotel in the UAE, but the government was able to capture them before they admit a crime. 2

Finally, military power, the concentration of the means of violence in the hands of the state. Day by day, the UAE became more interesting in power and the issue of security; they have started the plan of recruits of the national service recently, in 2015. 3Also, they started to purchase more military equipment since the Arab Spring started in the neighboring countries.