From the Mystery of “Sheikh of Dubai

Hong Kong has been slipped into the limelight again. A few months ago it was Lionel Messi, now it’s the so-called “Sheikh of Dubai”. Some time ago, a noble “Sheikh of Dubai” named His Highness Sheikh Ali Al Maktoum visited Hong Kong, and right away he made a big move – he wanted to invest 500 million US dollars in Hong Kong to set up a family office! After his visit to Hong Kong last December, he decided to set up a family office, his first overseas presence. If it goes well, it will be the first overseas family office of the Dubai royal family. But just when everyone thought that the “Sheikh of Dubai” was coming to Hong Kong with a bag full of money, things suddenly took a turn for the worse.

“I’ll be back in May!”

Originally, the Sheikh said he had invested US$500 million in the project and was received by the Hong Kong government with high standards, and the Chief Executive, Mr. John Lee Ka Chiu, also met with him in person. However, before the scheduled launching ceremony of the family office, the Sheikh suddenly had to leave on important business, and he even sent a message through the air, “I’ll be back in May! The last person to say such a thing was Jia Yueting, who is building a car in the United States and will always claim return home next week. This sudden change has made people suspicious of his real identity and intentions. With the depth of the investigation, the media also gradually unveiled the real veil of Ali.

Through facial recognition technology, it was determined that Sheikh Ali bears a 100% resemblance to a singer named Alira. According to Alira’s online video interview, he said that his parents are pure Dubain, no Filipino blood, because he likes the kindness and enthusiasm of Filipinos, so he sings Filipino songs. From the tone of his voice and his English accent, he seems to be the same person as Sheikh Ali. Currently, Alira’s official website, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok homepage are all inaccessible.

In the Middle East, there are many Sheikhs, while Ali was not known in Hong Kong before. Some Hong Kong media even found that almost no one in the political and business circles in Dubai knows Sheikh Ali. The Sheikh’s family office website is less than a year old, and the address is in the middle class area of Dubai, far from the business center, and the address in Hong Kong is just a signboard instead of the name of the Sheikh’s family office. The Director of International Relations of the Sheikh’s Family Office is called William Tien, whose doctoral title comes from the “Humanitarian technologies innovation and deployment Honorary Doctor” awarded by Horizons University in France. After checking, this Horizons University was once exposed by the media as a pheasant university.

When things got to this point, a reporter asked the UAE Consulate General in Hong Kong, and the reply was: “It is confirmed that Sheikh Ali is from the ‘ruling family’ and can be addressed as a ‘sheikh’”, and is a distant relative of the current UAE Vice President, Muhammad Al-Maktoum. Hong Kong government people also responded to the news, said the Sheikh’s title is written on the passport, so the identity is real, I hope people do not guess, but also do not be nervous, after all, Hong Kong has not suffered any loss. In that case, he is not a fake Sheikh, but he is just not that close to reality. Has Hong Kong been “tricked” or not? Will the “Sheikh of Dubai” come back in May? It’s hard to tell if it’s true or not, so we can only wait and see what happens.

However, in handling this incident, Hong Kong government officials seem to be inexperienced in the process of “scaffolding” (i.e., using public relations tactics to create visibility and recognition in order to gain higher public recognition), and are unable to distinguish the real from the fake and differentiate the powerful innovators from those who are just bubbles but not powerful bigwigs. Without verifying the backgrounds of the people concerned, CE John Lee has been utilized as a cheerleader to promote his client, which can be regarded as a display of incompetence.

The Mysteries of Truth and Falsehood

A lot of people in Dubai are Sheikhs, just as Liu Bei said he was the descendant of King Jing of Zhongshan in the period of Three Kingdoms, but a lot of people have some Han lineage, Liu Bei’s thin lineage did not bring much dividend; it was a bit useful after he went to Jingzhou. And it is in this kind of gray area, true or false, real or false, so that the outside world can not see clearly, so that there is an opportunity to create momentum, take advantage of the situation, for their own profit. It must be said that the “Sheikh of Dubai” incident nowadays inevitably reminds us of another past incident – the media-hyped “His Holiness the White Horse Osei”, Wu Dayong, nearly a decade ago.

In 2015, “His Holiness Baima Osei” Wu Dayong held a grand sitting ceremony for actor Zhang Tielin in Hong Kong, and gave Zhang Tielin the Dharma name, Dharma vestments, Dharma equipment and other items. In his personal website and external propaganda, Baima Osei even claimed that Naomi Xinxiong Rinpoche and Moza Rinpoche of the Kadu Monastery in Sichuan had certified him as a living Buddha. However, the occasion, the program, and even the robes he wore were all said to be not in line with Tibetan Buddhist religious rituals.

The microblogging credentials of Wu Dayong were even more bluffing – “Chairman of the World Trade Organization Foundation”. This was the home base of His Holiness Baima Osei, and all his activities were organized in the name of this organization. Formerly known as the WTO Business Facilitation Association, the organization was established in Hong Kong in 2001 and was renamed as the United World Trade Foundation around 2013, which is a non-profit organization. Apart from “promoting Buddhism” on various occasions, Ng Dayong’s other important job is to run his businesses, which are mainly divided into two parts, one is the “Global Tianquan Project” and the other is called “Alpha Brain Development”. Although promoted as a high-tech and environmentally friendly technology, professionals are not optimistic about its application in the real world.

In the end, people with a little common sense and experience are not alerted to the fact that a Hong Kong person has been certified as the Dharma King of Tibetan Buddhism, which cannot be regarded as a limitation of ability and knowledge. On the contrary, most of the Melbourne Chinese expatriates who are willing to be touted by the Chinese in their community are doing so for the sake of profit and losing their conscience to deceive the Chinese in their community. As for the politicians who utilized their public office status to tout, they were obviously paving the way for their own future. There is a former Speaker of the Upper House in Victoria who was willingly invited by His Holiness Baima Osei many times to make appearances in Melbourne, Hong Kong and other places, obviously hoping to gain benefits for himself in the process.

However, despite being exposed in China, His Holiness has been able to repackage himself as a Malaysian Dato’ and an environmental entrepreneur, and continues to be active around the world, which shows that he has a solid backing, and is also recognized by the Chinese government. This is not just a scaffolding activity to get money, but a higher level of “scaffolding”.

Higher level of “scaffolding

In addition to monetary returns, “scaffolding” can also have other goals, including politics, money laundering, and money transfers, etc. These goals are not simply to obtain money, but may be a means to splash money, which is not easy to be discovered by ordinary people.

Every time His Holiness came to Melbourne, he would give a feast to the community and free hospitality to the expatriates, as well as a large number of gifts to those who participated in the support. In fact, the participants knew that there was no free lunch in this world, but they believed that they might be able to benefit from it, so they were willing to be cheated. His Holiness has indeed connected many Melbourne expatriates to many enterprises and social organizations in China, and some have even been invited to visit and attend the National Day activities. It is evident that His Holiness Baima Osei’s activities in Melbourne are believed to be closely related to China’s efforts to unify the overseas Chinese. I remember that at one of His Holiness’s events in Melbourne, the guest speaker was Mr. Lu Wenduan, who is currently the Vice Chairman of the All-China Federation of Overseas Compatriot’s Associations, which shows what kind of power His Holiness Baima Osei has in his hands.

After the passage of the Anti-Foreign Interference Act in Australia in 2018, it is believed that the Australian government will be concerned about the active participants are also likely to be targeted by the Australian Intelligence Agency, whether the parties involved can be considered innocent of being implicated, can not be determined. What is certain is that His Holiness was packaged and supported in Melbourne, and this did form the basis of his activities in many countries in the following years, building up the united front for China.

How to avoid being dragged into the shed?

Exaggeration, internationalization, authority and public service have always been the self-packaging techniques of His Holiness Baima Osei. He has been called “the single most influential spiritual wisdom teacher in the world. As is standard for all “masters”, the activities he participates in or organizes are of a public service nature, and the words “global” and “humanity” often appear. It is hard not to think that this is an ulterior motive to deceive the world and make money under the banner of Buddhism. This is the way things are in the world, trying to hide the truth. “Although His Holiness the Baima Osei has been dormant for many years, incidents of a similar nature have never been far from the public eye. Just like the current Sheikh of Dubai, he is investing 500 million US dollars in artificial intelligence, construction, electric vehicles, tourism and financial technology, which is quite like “never stop until you are surprised”. After the eyeballs were drawn and a whirlwind of public opinion was stirred up, who actually paid the bill for whom?

Excessive Worship of Authority

Whether it is the current “Sheikh of Dubai” mystery, or the Holiness Baima Osei scam, in fact, can not avoid the so-called title, high economic and social status of the worship of people – worship of authority is a relatively common social mentality, in the heart of the depths of almost everyone more or less some worship of authority complex. However, if this kind of complex is overdone, it may create an unhealthy atmosphere in the society. For example, when one hears about a “prince” or “guru” somewhere, he or she will flock to him or her without doing any research, and with the support of the official authorities, the public, who are seriously lacking in information sources, will be deceived.

If a person worships authority too much, he will easily become a superstitious believer in authority, and then imitate it and follow its example. This is not uncommon in Chinese society, which worshiped the emperor nearly two years ago. It is for this reason that all kinds of “guru” scams are emerging in China nowadays. Social psychologists have pointed out that society itself is a form of imitation. One of the rules is that people of low status tend to imitate people of high status. In other words, authority becomes an easy object for people to imitate, especially in times of excessive authority worship. This is known as the “Imitation of Authority Effect”. Fraudsters use this effect to fool people by packaging themselves through authoritative figures.

If we want to see through the nature of the scam, the core of the scam is to “get rid of the charm”. “Disenchantment” is an important concept put forward by sociologist Max Weber, which was originally used to describe the process by which people continuously remove from their life practices the knowledge and ethics of religious worldviews and ethics that are of a witchcraft or superstitious nature. The disenchantment of the world is also an important judgment made by Max Weber on the process of modernization. For China in the process of modernization, the “disenchantment” of authority has not been completed thoroughly enough.

In a country or a society, people are always prone to accept certain concepts and believe in the existence of certain phenomena, and there must be a social psychology behind them. Putting down the filters and worship of authority, high economic and social status, titles, etc., requires the whole society to reach a consensus and continue to improve the quality and judgment of all citizens. More importantly, the official government, which represents the authority, needs to be more self-respecting, and strictly examine the facts of all kinds of news and set a good example of “getting rid of the charm”.

Article/Editorial Department (Sameway Magazine)

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