No, I'm worried about ignorance - where one of the more liberal and prosperous places in a misgoverned region gets negative press and lots of places deserving of negative press do not. This creates skewed views of the world for people who don't travel.
Liberal ? Asians in most Gulf countries including Dubai are treated like dirt and the labourers are almost modern day slaves. A lot of them have their passports taken away by the employer forcing them to stay in dubai.
Edit:
Excerpt: "Once they arrive in the United Arab Emirates, migrant workers are treated little better than cattle, with no access to healthcare and many other basic rights. The company that sponsors them holds on to their passports - and often a month or two of their wages to make sure that they keep working. And for this some will earn just 400 dirhams (£62) a month."
Relative to the rest of the Middle East, yes, absolutely, by leaps and bounds.
> Asians in most Gulf countries including Dubai are treated like dirt and the labourers are almost modern day slaves.
This is also true in their native countries. The poorest Indian laborers live bad lives at home or in Dubai. They go to there because, in theory, you get paid 2-3 times as much for similarly bad conditions as back home.
> A lot of them have their passports taken away by the employer forcing them to stay in dubai.
This shouldn't happen, and it's criminal when it does happen. Hopefully they crack down on it and throw people in jail that do that.
That all said - yes, it's still one of the most liberal places in the Middle East.
> This is also true in their native countries. The poorest Indian laborers live bad lives at home or in Dubai. They go to there because, in theory, you get paid 2-3 times as much for similarly bad conditions as back home.
Not true. A lot of them were cheated. Dubai government turns a blind eye to these practices.
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From the guardian article:
"All of these men are part of a huge scam that is helping the construction boom in the Gulf. Like hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, they each paid more than £1,000 to employment agents in India and Pakistan. They were promised double the wages they are actually getting, plus plane tickets to visit their families once a year, but none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.
"They lied to us," a worker with a long beard says. "They told us lies to bring us here. Some of us sold their land; others took big loans to come and work here."
Since the recession hit, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."
This is all supposed to be illegal. Employers are meant to pay on time, never take your passport, give you breaks in the heat – but I met nobody who said it happens. Not one. These men are conned into coming and trapped into staying, with the complicity of the Dubai authorities
Dubai government turns a blind eye to these practices.
This is the real problem. Consider:
none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.
This contract would not be enforceable in the United Kingdom (and probably the US, but I don't know how much common law the US applies to contracts) whereas Dubai's legal system doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the people it should be protecting the most (I admit, perhaps it shouldn't be.. I have a rather liberal Western viewpoint).
>none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.
Only two of them knew how to read? Now, whose fault is that, Dubai's government, or India's? If so much of India's population is illiterate, they're screwed wherever they live, be it Dubai or Japan.
Vietnam's literacy rate is over 90%. India can surely do better.
Is this like the time you threw the paralyzed kid into the ocean and then blamed her drowning on her parents for not teaching her better car dodging skills?
i can't fathom how you interpreted the basic statistics presented in the article. do you think the enslaved migrant workers are a representative sample of people from india? do you think only 2 people from india can read??
In making the pro-Dubai argument you seem to consistently do so by letting it clear fairly low hurdles. (paraphrasing) "More liberal - relative to the middle east", "its better governed - then Laos".
Trying to just be better then the absolute worst is a rapid path to mediocrity. Perhaps, considering Dubai's lofty goals, its fair to compare it (as the author does) to something a bit more progressive?
People always say mean things about the Soviet Union, but in comparison to North Korea, a factory worker in the Stalinist era had a great degree of personal freedom.
In my experience, Dubai hardly ever gets bad press, certainly not a disproportionate amount of bad press compared to other countries. This is just journalists doing their jobs. I don’t see the problem.
The U.K. Papers www.independent.co.uk and www.guardian.co.uk often have quite interesting stories on Dubai, but their stories aren't really from the standard political perspective.
The Independent and The Guardian are two fine newspapers. They generally run interesting and intelligent articles, often covering stories that you don't find in other newspapers or media outlets.
Exactly. They would be considered by some (or all?) to have a leftwing slant and therefore be tainted somehow. They are considerably to the left of most American papers for example.
Bear in mind the U.S. has two main political parties; the right-wing one, and the even more right-wing one. The U.S. papers simply can't afford to be centrist or leftist.
The U.S. has two main political parties: the left-wing one in perpetual power, and an incompetent left-wing one that still thinks they can get the outcomes they want through elections (they can't; progressive civil servants run the show).
> "I think the majority of the world is basically hostile to ambition and wealth and achievement."
> "Want more, build more, do more, get more, be more, have more, live more.
> More. And no apologies."
i think your reaction to this article has little to do with concern about ignorance, and much more to do with having critical eyes turned on the profound failings of unbridled "more".
I do find the state of journalism in covering nations to be pretty haphazard and ignorant. I think a lot of people feel that way.
But beyond that, dude, you comment about me a lot, like way more than seems sane and reasonable. And it's always similar - an out of context quote, and a snarky remark or some psychoanalysis like this you just did.
It seems trollish at this point - I can't stop you, but it'd be good if refrained from doing it in every unrelated thread on here. It lowers the discussion level.
Hey, a place where women are dressed in burqas, have to be escorted, have a separate section in the bus and the metro is not considered liberal. Free trade != liberalism
A few women wear the niqab, and quite a few more dress in low-cut tops without drawing a second glance.
There is a women-only 1/2 car on a long metro, ie men are prohibited, but women can use any car they want.
Women don't have to be escorted and can drive alone without a second glance.
Alcohol is widely available in hotel bars and liquor stores, although you have to show a liquor license indicating you're not Muslim in the liquor stores.
So yes, for whatever faults, it is the most socially liberal place in the region.
