Online archive will preserve the past

In the ghost village of Jazirat al Hamra, once a thriving pearling community in Ras al Khaimah, a visitor tries to show her daughter the beach where she played as a young girl. She finds it inaccessible behind a wire fence.

Jazirat al Hamra, thought to have been occupied since the 16th century, is one of the few remaining coastal villages in the Gulf region that predate the discovery of oil.

Yet today the abandoned houses of coral, sand and seashell, hemmed in on all sides by the pressure of encroaching modern development, are in danger of being lost altogether. The fate of the sandcastle village sums up the dilemma facing the UAE today: how to embrace the future while cherishing and preserving the heritage that is the foundation of today’s nation and is in danger of being lost.

Today, The National launches UAE Heritage, a project designed to capture and record living memories of the region’s past.

The weekly feature, which begins today on page a20 with the story of how Umm al Qaiwain was transformed in the lifetime of Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed, will be a gateway to a growing online collection of stories, photographs, video and oral histories.

And we want to hear from you. Saleh Hanbalouh, of the coastal village of Galileh, recently shared with us his memory of fishermen’s songs, learnt on his father’s boat as a child. His story, and some of the songs, can be heard in The National’s online UAE Heritage archive. Perhaps, like Saleh, your relatives also handed down their memories.

E-mail heritage@thenational.ae with your personal histories

Click here to read the first story from the UAE Heritage project – feature on how Umm al Qaiwain was transformed in the lifetime of Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed.