In April 2011, Abu Dhabi hosted the 17th GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) stamp exhibition, a well attended and received event. The newspapers covering the exhibition remarked on how significant stamps were to heritage. On display were stamps from the national archive, demonstrating ‘national consciousness’ prior to becoming a nation (i.e. pre-1971), as well as representing a more global and cosmopolitan outlook. Postal services in what is now the UAE began in Dubai in 1909 by Great Britain but administered by the Government of India. Neil Donaldson, in The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf (1975), discusses how throughout the 19th century (until 1946), Political Residents and Political Agents living in the Gulf states were all appointed from the Indian Political Service. As postal services became necessary, it was the Indian Postal Department that opened up offices in Muscat (1864), Bahrain (1884), Dubai (1909) and in Kuwait (1915).

Civil mail from Sharjah went through Dubai until 1963.

July 10th, 1963 Sharjah opened its own postal office, issuing its own stamps and postal stationary under the name of Sharjah and Dependencies (which included Kalba, Khor Fakkan, and Dibbah). During this time, there were also some unauthorized overprints that were in circulation. Although Sharjah and her Dependencies joined the UAE in December of 1971, it was not until July 31st, 1972 that the UAE assumed full postal responsibilities. Since most of Sharjah’s visual stamp culture was not really UAE specific, many UAE stamp catalogs do not list them.

These (below) are some of the first stamps issued by Sharjah in 1963, all of which I have “collected” images of from Ebay:

From left to right, the first has a portrait of Sheikh Saqr (III) in the top right corner, with the flag of Sharjah fluttering over a map of the Trucial States, and is a 1 n.p. (naya paisa or new money/currency). It seems to be a reasonable and well placed first issue: it establishes the figure of authority, the symbol of authority and the location of that authority. The next three stamps, the World Health Organization (WHO) and fight against malaria campaign (illustrated by the mosquito and the WHO emblem), the Freedom from Hunger campaign, and the International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent Centenary stamps immediately propel Sharjah into international concerns and through the issuing of such stamps, places Sheikh Saqr as one who commands authority in issues related to international well-being. The visual representations on stamps can be coded as, what Michael Billig calls, banal nationalism (1995), that is, the everydayness of nationalism and national rhetoric. Pauliina Raento and Stanley Brunn also used this framework to look at the visual culture of stamps in Finland (2005). However, in the case of Sharjah and her Dependencies, 1963 continues to be pre-federation (and thus pre-nation). Through the issuing of these stamps, Sharjah establishes distinct visual registers for domestic and international codes. Codes that are indicative of an autonomous region, not one subservient to British (or regional) interests.

In line with this observation, 1963 marked another very significant moment in my Ebay stamp image collecting. I found this stamp image (shown below) in memoria of the assassination of (US) President John F. Kennedy. This stamp is considered a overprint. The overprint says, In Memoriam John F. Kennedy 1917-1963. Overprinting is technically something that makes a stamp inauthentic and not collectable. And yet, this stamp is used and it circulates at the time (as per the cancel marks on these stamps – also seen on Ebay). It is at this juncture that Ebay begins to provide me with a new visual public history, one that is simultaneously geo-politically informative and intimate.

JFK’s death left a very deep impression on Sheikh Saqr. Not only were stamps issued in memoria, but on the first year anniversary, a coin was also minted with JFK’s portrait on one side, and on the other, the flags of Sharjah. This first year memorial coin is written about quite a bit by coin collectors on various sites because it garners much interest for its subject matter and unexpected minting location. However, it is considered inauthentic by some because it was not authorized by the British. Its minting was authorized by Sheikh Saqr.

This linked Sharjah’s interests with the US and directly against Britian but in a manner that Britain could not politically protest. I could just leave this suggesting a political move, but after reading a bit on Sheikh Saqr, I actually do think he was deeply moved by JFK’s assassination. Although after the fourth year of commemerating JFK’s death anniversary (see below), there are not many more stamps for JFK circulating on Ebay.

I am particularly fond of the overprinting and the unofficial (and thus unauthorized and inauthentic) stamps and coins. In this counter heritage Ebay narrative, Sheikh Saqr emerges as a worldly, scientific and thoughtful man — at least in terms of making decisions about what gets issued on a stamp, and the sorts of global ‘stamp’ discourses Sharjah (and her dependencies) may engage in during that time.

Counter heritage is necessarily fleeting and so I do not despair when I find stamps and they are only available for 22 hours. I know they will resurface and will circulate. And I will continue to be on the look out for them as they belong to a decade (1963-1972) that provides a glimpse into an unacknowledged aspirational postcolonial state.

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In reading news about Gaza, Syria, and Iraq (among other places), I have been actively searching for spaces of humanity and hope in the world around me. Where is that space in which we trust other human beings, the people we do not know and may or may never intersect with again? I have been thinking about how we might design trust and co-operation into our urban fabric and the ways in which we traffic ourselves through our every day.

I am in Sharjah at the moment and there are a few things that one cannot escape mentioning about being in the UAE during summer: the sheer heat and traffic (arguably the latter is a year-long concern). Last week while in traffic, bemoaning world politics with the air conditioner blasting, I considered how we merged into a roundabout. This one very simple urban traffic structure forced all of us to be considerate of each other, watch and anticipate each others’ movements, and continue to move in a direction together with the ability to peel off when desired.

As a form of urban design, roundabouts have their own history, upon which is layered another, local, culturally specific history. Most roundabouts out there in the world, are considered to be modern roundabouts, that is “a one-way circular intersection without traffic signals in which traffic flows around a center island.” (definition from the US Institute of Transportation Engineers Briefs on Roundabouts and click here for a fun Flash timeline of Roundabouts). Roundabouts come from a very specific lineage and were not always ‘modern’ – in fact, the first circle, called the Circus, was designed in Bath, England in 1754 and was a pedestrian centric design. Today, it is a Grade 1 listed building with the city on the World Heritage List.

My introduction to the Circus at Bath came in 1985 at the British Council Library in Karachi. That summer (also one of sheer heat, traffic, and load shedding), for the love of air conditioning, I had decided to read every book in the Fiction section. I learned about the Circus in Bath while reading Georgette Heyer’s, Bath Tangle (1955). Against the backdrop of this ancient city of circular pedestrian walk ways, healing airs and amazing waters, the Regency Chick-Lit provided some serious discussion of class, gender, and society.

The Circus at Bath sets up a certain form of heritage for later roundabouts. These are spaces where there is a history of publics, and these publics seem to acquire distinct shapes. Although I am trained to think of a public sphere, when imagining a public space, I think of squares. Interestingly enough, roundabouts, in many Gulf contexts are also signed as squares. For example the sign for Kuwaiti Maidan in Sharjah also says Kuwait Square and in colloquial speech, called Kuwaiti roundabout. The use of square is a holdover place-name from when these areas (pre-roundabout, c. 1950s) were much larger squares or a maidan/maydan, a word with roots in Arabic, Persian and Urdu/Hindi (not surprising given the history of the region and it’s inhabitants).

According to Dr. Bassem Younes, the 1950s and 60s saw the construction of many roundabouts in the UAE as spaces to organize traffic, as well as for sculpture and flowerbeds, with Sharjah having arguably some of the largest roundabouts in the world. The 1950s were a time of civic development in Sharjah, although much of this happened with the aid of the government of Kuwait who provided the means to build schools, hospitals and various social institutions. In fact, the Kuwaiti roundabout was constructed in the mid-1980s, built in recognition of Kuwait’s contribution to the development of Sharjah.

There is something about roundabouts/maidans that may, despite what urban planners design, provide a space for dissent through co-operation. One only has to look to the protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev, or to the after effects of pro-democracy rally held at the Pearl roundabout in Bahrain to recognize that these every day, vernacular spaces where co-operation may become powerful, are the ones that military aspire to control through force or design. This is true about cities in which there is escalating domestic civic violence such as at  chowrangi (Urdu word akin to roundabout) checkpoints in Karachi, or ad-hoc military stations created on roundabouts in the residential suburbs of Aleppo. The roundabouts, once activated as public spaces of potential co-operation move into spaces of control and violence and are no longer really about driving around, but rather, standing and claiming a place.

It continues to be very hot here in Sharjah. I drove around some roundabouts today and noticed that when it is ridiculously hot outside, people drive in rapid short spurts. This leads to some driver confusion in the usual co-operative strategy of driving around at a constant speed, yielding into and out of traffic.  As I drove around the large and lush green circle with the double masted Dhow surrounded by a small fountain and a Kuwaiti landscape, I thought even amid some driver confusion, starts and stops – there was some sense that we were all in it together. And given what was happening at so many other roundabouts in the world, quite lucky.

Kuwaiti Roundabout, Sharjah UAE August 1st, 2014 Photo by Uzma Z. Rizvi

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