The dark side of Dubai

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

by fiaz • 17 years ago

174 66 17 years ago

independent.co.uk

dawson• 17 years ago

Excellent article and well written. I knew none of this until now! Six months ago I was offered a job in Dubai for a Tech Dir position at a major advertising company; I'm very pleased that I didn't follow-up on that opportunity now.

miked2• 17 years ago

>> Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

Just out of curiosity, is that the same globalized world that the author used to fly there while speaking only English the whole time? Anti-globo self-righteousness, direct to you from the Dubai airport. Nice.

Also, having read the article, I'm missing the "neo-liberal" part. "Medieval dictatorship" (as he himself put it)? Check. No rule of law? Check. No concern for individual rights? Check. No constitution to hinder government expansion of powers? Check.

rw• 17 years ago

> Also, having read the article, I'm missing the "neo-liberal" part. "Medieval dictatorship" (as he himself put it)? Check. No rule of law? Check. No concern for individual rights? Check. No constitution to hinder government expansion of powers? Check.

That tends to be the dominating antagonistic definition of "neoliberalism". It may not be that far off.

biohacker423• 17 years ago

Sort of like jumbo can be used to describe shrimp.

AndrewHampton4• 17 years ago

"neo-liberal" could also be referring to Dubia being socially liberal compared to other Islamic nations.

turkishrevenge2• 17 years ago

No, "neo-liberal" has a very specific meaning and is used almost exclusively when speaking of markets. Just by reading the article, you can see that there is nothing socially liberal about Dubai--I mean, come on, you can inherit debt. That doesn't sound like anything approaching a social democracy.

AndrewHampton4• 17 years ago

The author acknowledges this in the third paragraph from the bottom:

"Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City."

gaius3• 17 years ago

But Libertarians and even Anarcho-Capitalists don't differentiate between a market for labour and a market for good and services.

biohacker423• 17 years ago

You see, people at the political extremes, both right and left, desire control in a deep and profound way.

They hate anything which wrestles control away from their philosophy.

And so they use any crazy/authoritarian/doomed/etc scheme as a straw man to attack liberalism/libertarianism.

Because in their minds, only their control of society will lead to peace and prosperity. Any loosening of their control must lead to doom.

Therefore if it's a disaster it MUST be because it veered off from their philosophy.

But the irony is that both far and left and far right are untied by their desire to control society.

And that's why they can never attack the control elements. They can never blame the disaster on them, they WANT something like that.

They use the failure to attack everything else and just call it an obscure word for too much freedom!

Retric• 17 years ago

All forms of Government = Control

Modern Liberalism is based in large part on the idea that being rich does not make the air cleaner. There are limits on the value of personal wealth and there is little difference once you cross the threshold into extreme levels of personal comfort.

The Right holds dear the idea that rich people can take care of them selves and the goal should be to maximize personal wealth.

Taken to an extreme each of these ideas break down, but IMO the left wing is closer to reality. Granted in the real world we need huge helpings of corruption, stupidity, and hypocrisy, but that's going to infect any form of government over time.

Then there are all the lies such as the republican leadership hating the idea of ever banning abortion etc. And all the liberal "think of the children" reteric that sounds great but is a pointless power grab.

miked2• 17 years ago

Just to clarify on my comment (and the journalist's writing): "neo-liberal" is here meant (clearly by both of us) in the European sense. I.e., as in Classical Liberalism. Pro-free markets and individual liberty and individual rights. Rather different (in many cases, not always) from Modern Liberalism.

adamhowell• 17 years ago

Man, what a mess, it's hard to even find something to say about most of it, but I found this interesting:

"In Saudi, it's hard to be straight when you're young. The women are shut away so everyone has gay sex ... I need to find real gays, so this is the best place. All Arab gays want to live in Dubai."

I'd never really thought about the fact that Arab teens would "go gay" in response to their natural libidos being locked away, but it makes sense.

raheemm2• 17 years ago

This is one of the strangest contradictions in some Muslim countries. And a fundamental reason it exists is because people are too uncomfortable to talk/think about it. It does not help either that their are not too many mediums for those interested to discuss, except for maybe on the internet.

gaius3• 17 years ago

In the West we think of the gender roles as male and female but in the Middle East (and in Ancient Greece in our own cultural heritage) the gender roles are "penetrator" and "penetrated". An adult (or older) male penetrator is not considered homosexual in this culture, nor is an adolescent (or younger) male penetrated. They would say that a homosexual is an adult male penetrated, and only that is taboo.

yardie• 17 years ago

I guess that explains a lot. My wife is Moroccan and she was telling me about gangs of boys preying on other boys sexually. I was thinking man that's fucked up. Who would ever do that but the most twisted, devious minds. Apparently this is common knowledge but unspoken of. Being openly gay is frowned upon.

If you ever see the movie "The Kite Runner" they have a scene where one of the two boys is chased down by the gang of teenagers. Later on his son is also being molested by the same guys, now adults.

sbt2• 17 years ago

I heard about this phenomenon from nato troops in Afgahnistan too. Apparently a woman has to be safely transported abroad if she is seen with a man. A friend who was stationed in Meymaneh told me that he had seen men having gay sex in dark alleys after night, apparently out of desperation. He described it as a not too uncommon phenomenon, although he had only observed it once.

babul2• 17 years ago

This article is coincides with a lot of current UK media attention on Dubai including many programs on UK TV (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jqgww/Panorama_Slumd...)

babul2• 17 years ago

Quick thoughts...

Much of this (debtors prisons [and people fleeing Dubai immediately upon losing jobs and leaving behind luxury cars/apartments to avoid it], modern day enslavement, under-classes [predominantly based on ethnicity] and lack of civil-rights and liberty for most classes) has been publicised for a long time among the ethnic communities.

However, it seems when times were good it was easy for western people to turn a blind eye and what most people saw in the mainstream western media were positive articles about how great Dubai was/would be (due to vested interests?), even ignoring obvious issues regarding Arab law and culture and environment.

Now that the worldwide financial crisis is catching up with Dubai it is good to see these issues being brought out into the mainstream and exposed more openly, but I cannot help but think it is predominately because Westerners themselves are now being affected. Where was the outcry for the Fillipinos/Bangladeshis/etc. in mainstream Western media before?

damienkatz• 17 years ago

You must be a blast at parties.

Tangurena3• 17 years ago

You're right: we didn't care about the Filipinos and Bangaladeshis being mistreated in Dubai - until westerners started getting mistreated.

Yet this very same mistreatment occurs in Saudi Arabia (one of the places I've lived in), and we continue to ignore it. My suspicion is that we need their oil far more than we need justice.

A recent HN thread on Dubai: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=547553

And here is an article by some folks in Dubai that they need to diversify away from oil: http://www.business24-7.ae/articles/2009/4/pages/05042009/04...

jonas_b2• 17 years ago

I don't mean to condone the modern slavery in Dubai in any way, but isn't it telling about the conditions in Bangladesh and the Philippines that people volontary leave them to go to the UAE and be treated like dirt.

nir• 17 years ago

From the article it seems the foreign workers are given false information before coming to Dubai, and then their passports are taken (and/or payment withheld) so they can't leave.

Tangurena3• 17 years ago

A larger part of the problem is that the prevailing custom in that part of the middle east is that contracts are not binding on the natives. They're binding on the foreigners, but there is nothing you can hold the native to. Furthermore, the Arabic language version of the contract is the prevailing one, and the foreign language version is meaningless, should it end up in court.

habibur• 17 years ago

Would like to add that paying $2/day is not mistreatment. Mistreatment is promissing someone $200/day and then paying him $150.

We very frequenty mix up slavery with low salary job. An artist being contracted by a label company for $5 million is a slave of some form. The person who works for $5 / day but has the freedom to choose to work or not is a free man with all his wills.

If there is a demand for $2/day workers and there is a supply for $2 workers, not allowing it because the goverment is not happy with it seems mistreatment to me.

Everyone should have a free will and everyone should have the right to work at any rate.

My view.

raheemm2• 17 years ago

Dubai has its problems, but it is far better than many other countries where the natural resources are exploited for the benefit of a select few and the masses are left in extreme poverty. They are smart enough to have figured out a way to shrink a 100 year development cycle to 30 years without massive oil resources. I am sure they will figure out a way out of their current challenges as well.

StrawberryFrog• 17 years ago

I am sure they will figure out a way out of their current challenges as well

What makes you sure of that?

dschobel2• 17 years ago

Debt at 106% of GDP.

Wealth entirely based on combination of oil and slave labor.

Unsustainable water supply situation.

I don't see much cause for optimism.

Dilpil• 17 years ago

Was that sarcasm?

mallipeddi• 17 years ago

Whatever the article mentions is more or less accurate. Also it's the same anywhere else in the Middle East. I've a friend (Indian origin) who grew up in the Middle East. He has lived in Dubai and Muscat (Oman). His father worked as a finance manager for an American cola company (hint: it's not Coca-Cola).

Roughly this is how the society is organized:

1) Arabs - first-class citizens - dumb, don't like to work, but often hold 'mudira'/'manager' positions in companies. They don't have college degrees but they hold senior-level positions in companies and are uber-slackers :)

2) Western expats - they get paid huge expat salaries and in general live in a world of their own (read: huge gated communities where typical restrictions in a Muslim country don't apply - alcohol, women, etc). There's very minimal interaction between them and the Arabs, or the Indians, or the Filipinos.

3) Educated immigrants from poorer countries (mostly from Indian sub-continent) - They do most of the work which their Arab bosses are not interested in doing or incapable of doing.

4) Construction workers/other physical labour - mostly immigrant workers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and other poor countries.

The western world seems to acknowledge this problem finally when their people are starting to suffer due to the economic crisis. This is how Middle East works and it has been like this for a long long time.

Middle-east is one place I won't move to even if Google offered me a job there.

plinkplonk2• 17 years ago

"Middle-east is one place I won't move to even if Google offered me a job there."

I won't move there for any amount of money. Life isn't worth living the way one has to live in the ME (I am Indian, I hear many horror stories). I'd rather go be a Somalian pirate or something like that.

kirubakaran• 17 years ago

I'd rather go be a Somalian pirate

You say it like it is a bad thing! Many people would love to be a bad-ass Somalian pirate.

g__g2• 17 years ago

I'd rather go be a Somalian pirate or something like that.

I read somewhere that the conditions in Somalia are so bad that becoming a pirate is the most sought after career option for young men. They believe that even European jails would be better than living in Somalia. OTOH if you don't get caught/killed, you live like a king. bunglows, booze women!

Tangurena3• 17 years ago

I'm not sure if things have gotten worse, or if I've become more aware of things as I get older.

I'd modify your list to be a little more finely grained (although this might be more KSA specific than other Arab countries):

1 - Members of the royal/ruling family/clan/tribe.

2 - Arabs (Sunni)

3 - Arabs (Shi'ite)

4 - White collar expats (westerners and what you point out as educated immigrants)

5 - Blue collar workers (muslim)

6 - Blue collar workers (infidel)

Our family has lived in the middle east (at various times, my father worked for Saudi Aramco and what is now called Honeywell), and the stories seem to be getting worse over time, both in the slacking-off of the natives and the abuse of the menial labor. The money is very lucrative for western white collar workers, but I'd have a hard time collaborating with the abuse.

Part of the problem is that the locals don't feel that they're bound by any contract they sign (and the Arabic language version is the definitive one, in any case). Consequently, foreigners tend to get the dirty end of the stick. The stories of workers getting shafted are quite often the results of this.

astine• 17 years ago

It strikes me that with the huge imbalance between natives and foreigners, that there is a power imbalance just waiting to be exploited.

netcan• 17 years ago

Much better list. But isn't it missing Arab foreigner/immigrants/refugees category? Including 2nd or 3rd generation residents? 4.5?

Also, is a list the best way of describing it. #3 & #2 (to an extent) are often a lot poorer then #4. I assume you are referring to rights rather then financial position.

ztravis• 17 years ago

"Also it's the same anywhere else in the Middle East. "

The Gulf (oil-rich) countries are not the entire middle east. Things are very different in the Levant, North Africa, Yemen, Persia,...

Not that what you say is not true in Saudi Arabia or the UAE but it's an important distinction to make... these are cultural and economic problems particular to certain countries, not to the Middle East as a whole, or to all arab countries.

shaddi• 17 years ago

I think the problem is most pronounced in the Gulf states (KSA, Kuwait, and south of there). I spent a couple days in Dubai on my way back from visiting family in Jordan, and it felt like a whole different world; supposedly it's all "Arabs" but culturally everything was vastly different. That's been my experience interacting with Arabs from other Gulf states as well (Yemenis are crazy...). I suppose it has something to do with the fact that these countries have crap tons of oil money so their citizens don't have to pay for anything (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, etc are not oil states).

It's not totally fair to call the "Arabs" the top of the pile. It's more like whoever is a citizen of that state: be it Emiratis or Quataris or whatever. There's a definite hierarchy of "Arabs" depending on what country one's from, and in my experience it's not so much who's higher up, it's who's farther from the bottom and thus more difficult to fire.

I'm not going to argue that it's not a shitty situation for the servants. I know that there is some hired help that is treated fairly, paid what was agreed, and is free to leave if they so desire, but I can't speculate on what proportion that is, and further my experience is primarily in Jordan. In my short time in Dubai, it was pretty obvious that the opulence of the town could only exist by taking advantage of its poor. I guess if you live there the only way to live with yourself would be to ignore that, as this article shows so many do.

About your last comment, I don't think I'd be that harsh about the middle east. It's not all bad, really. The Gulf States IMHO are pretty f'd up, and I don't think I'd want to live there, but the "Levant" region really has a lot to offer, having not been messed up by ridiculous amounts of oil money.

alecco• 17 years ago

  > but the "Levant" region really has a lot to offer

You lost me there.

scorpioxy2• 17 years ago

Since when is this kind of language acceptable on HN? You just insulted an entire race....including myself.

I urge you to reconsider your views on Arabs. I really wouldn't want anymore false info spreading about us. If i could down-vote, i would.

plinkplonk2• 17 years ago

"You just insulted an entire race....including myself."

I am suspicious when people pull the "race card" so let me quote the original post (I didn't write it, I am just a bystander)

I quote

"Roughly this is how the society is organized:

Which part are you objecting to? Are you saying that Saudi Arabia (which the OP seems to be talking about) is a race blind meritocracy and the Arabs (a) are not on top by virtue of being Arab (b) they work harder than anyone else (c) most of them have advanced college degrees and/or are more educated than their subordinates (d) they don't hold senior positions or (e) they aren't slackers but are very hard workers? [ which is the same as (b) I guess].

You'd contribute more if you explained which of these many assertions is the "false information" you object to.

The key point the OP seems to make is that there is a very stratified society the strata depending primarily on race and not hard work or educational qualifications and that being an Arab allows you to occupy the highest layer without any other qualifications necessary.

Are you saying this is not true?

My friends who work in the gulf tell me the same thing, so I am curious (and eager) to hear a counter opinion.

asciilifeform• 17 years ago

See if you can get a hold of this book:

"Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism‎" by Mike Davis, Daniel Bertrand Monk. (http://books.google.com/books?id=TQRoAAAACAAJ)

The chapter on Dubai is excellent.

TJensen2• 17 years ago

I was in Dubai a couple years ago and could not figure out how it could possibly be growing the way it was. They really do a good job of putting on a face to the world. I was working with a British expat who lives there, and he couldn't stop gushing about how great it was, to the point that I thought it might be an interesting "life opportunity."

I'm really glad I didn't take that opportunity. I remember seeing the buses with the blue-coverall-ed construction workers. This article put that trip in another light, that's for sure!

sbt2• 17 years ago

It's possible to grow quite quickly if you put ethical scruples aside and take advantage of a large pool of what is effectively slave labor.

A middle eastern friend explained the situation: "we just stepped off the camel and into the mercedes." It took Europe quite a long time to reach the level of civilization it sports today, but there's no reason to repeat the mistakes and not learn.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

OK, so the guy at the beginning of the article knows that he will go to jail if he doesn't pay his debts. Then he alerts the government that he is in debt, and gets arrested. WTF? Why did he not leave the country before the government was notified that he was in debt? If he is a UK citizen, I doubt he would be extradited for that. Even if he was, I think it would be easier to fight the extradition in a UK court than it would have been to pay off the debt in Dubai.

Am I missing something?

gaius3• 17 years ago

Am I missing something?

    he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was 
    surprised. We got into a little bit of debt." After a year, 
    she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

menloparkbum• 17 years ago

I read it as he thought he was getting a bonus which would cover the debt, but it didn't cover it. The government was notified automatically about him leaving his job.

jrockway2• 17 years ago

But couldn't he have asked before quitting, or have quit from somewhere "safe"?

binarycheese• 17 years ago

Back in Moscow, there used to be a lot of Students from UAE and Saudi. They were very rich (free scholarships), always drunk, never went to class and refused to graduate (even if they could) because they didn't want to go back home.

dschobel2• 17 years ago

Isn't there some international treaty which forbids companies from dealing with other countries/companies which use slave labor?

It can't possibly be that companies are left to police themselves... can it?

TJensen2• 17 years ago

I don't think this would fall under a treaty definition of slavery. The people are not owned, they are not bartered as property, they just have zero rights.

gilesgoatboy• 17 years ago

what do you mean the dark side? it's all dark. fake money, wild overspending, draconian laws against drugs and sex. next up: a provocative look at the dark side of killing babies and eating them! you thought it was just a harmless hobby, but oh no. oh no. turns out those babies are high in cholesterol! gasp!

christofd• 17 years ago

nice.

sho• 17 years ago

I have an old associate from uni who was arrested and detained in Dubai on a tourist visit, for carrying Melatonin, an over-the-counter sleep aid. He was locked up for a month in a filthy prison, strip searched, forced to give urine samples and sign documents he did not understand, and was finally only released after intense media pressure. His name's Cat "Diz" Le-Huy, if you want to look up the story.

I'm never going to Dubai. And I don't have much sympathy for the expats there either - ignoring basic dignity of others, spitting on their whole inheritance of liberal democracy and hard-won human rights just to make a quick buck. The whole place can disappear back into the sand as far as I'm concerned.

Before that happens though, after reading that article I sure wish I could drop a few planeloads of small arms into one of those worker prison camps first, for a very abrupt and entertaining demonstration of reaping what one has sown.

wenbert• 17 years ago

I think it is worth mentioning that most Filipinos who go to Dubai are college graduates.

hc• 17 years ago

this is the sort of thing that always happens when someone sufficiently unprincipled realizes just how superficial the majority of people are, and decides to exploit it.

dubai is windows vista.

The dark side of Dubai

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