I do feel a little bit ashamed, but I’m sure the other western nations are well represented there too. The article mentions some Australians who don’t exactly sound very nice, for example.
I’m going to resolve to not just nod politely the next time a fellow Brit starts going on about how great Dubai is, though. I’ve always thought that it sounded like a weird and creepy hellhole.
It does seem weird. A city of glistening behemoth buildings trying to out-do every other city, using more water than any other city in the middle of nowhere trying to justify it’s existence with unsustainable growth and ridiculously huge malls, inside snow skiing, etcetera. It’s a little surreal. And in the Middle East, no less. With slave labor, too. Crazy.
All bickering and such aside, who actually read the article? I did, and it’s disturbing. I was just studying Dubai in a Geography of the Eastern Hemisphere class I’m taking and a far rosier picture was painted for us. It’s weird and disturbing to think what would happen to this place if a viable alternative to oil was suddenly discovered and rushed to market, or if their desalinators broke down - or there was a regional drought wherever they import water from (they only store enough water to last one week), or if their slave class decided to revolt . . . The city just seems so delicately perched on the precipice.
I read it…and even if half the shit in there is true it’s certainly disturbing, particularly for the reasons you mention. It just doesn’t seem sustainable in the long term. What does Dubai offer people in economic times like this? Tax free spending for the unaffectedly wealthy?
In June of 2005, while I was living in Dubai, I was on holiday in Uganda. A fire at a power plant shut of nearly all electricity in Dubai except for a few hospitals which had generators. Within an hour all the buildings were too hot to be comfortable so everyone jumped in their cars and drover around with the air conditioning on. The traffic is bad as it is…
Care to elaborate? Or is your point that Dubai is as much on the leveraged edge as any other major metropolis?
I’d say it’s much more so. 115 F. and water only available from desalinization plants. If electricity was lost, Dubai would quickly revert to a village of some few thousands, or even hundreds. New York, London, Damascus, Beijing, et al, would still be major metropolises.
That alone should be a worrisome potential outcome for those that choose to live there. At least foreigners with money and a passport can leave, right?
Just that when it is 45° C outside, no air conditioning quickly makes things unlivable. That has only happened once, but it showed how much infrastructure is needed. Places in the US would be in the same situation. As it was, I was in a mosquito-infested airport in Uganda, waiting for my Emirates flight home to Dubai.
At night it is not much cooler near the coast where the humidity is high.
Sure - you can leave whenever you want. One night we were having pizza at about 10 or 11 and decided we’d take a 2 day holiday to Kuwait the next morning. Walked home, went online and bought tickets for a 7am flight, called to reserve a 4:30am taxi (we flew out of Sharjah) and left.
Tax free earning is the draw.
What do most of the ex-pats work at whilst in Dubai?
Finance, Construction Engineering, Consulting, Management… not too much oil stuff as that is all in Abu Dhabi. I am in software, but have my own business so I can live anywhere.
And is the article accurate in that many formerly well-heeled engineers, consultants and the like are now jobless?
Yes - it is a bit like Las Vegas in that a bigger boom results in a bigger collapse.
JFC. That was harrowing in the extreme. Thank you for posting that, FoieGrasIsEvil.
That facade is terrorizing in its self-enforcing power. People are afraid to see, I suspect, because admitting the truth would mean admitting they’re fucked. Nevermind the costs, ignore the future, just believe in the Miracle and all will be well.
What really gets me is the apathy of foreigners there, people raised in supposedly free and “enlightened” Western environments:
What the fuck?!
Granted, it sounds like the author specifically cherry-picked the worst offenders for the article, but even at a more impersonal level, the very existence of Dubai’s significant expat population, corporate chains, tourists, visiting celebrities, etc. suggests at least passive acceptance, if not outright embracement, of what seems to be a giant, gilded sand castle built by blood.
I’m forced to agree with neuterciv2day, though. Dubai’s hardly the only place. I’m reminded of similar tales about South Africa, North Korea, Olympic China… or America, or capitalism at large… 
What the hell are we headed towards?
P.S. Re: FoieGrasIsEvil’s explosion at sailor – what was that about?! He merely asked about your (admittedly strange) thread title. Did that really warrant such hostility?
I apologized earlier upthread. I was drunk, having migraines and had a hissy fit over what amounted to nothing. And got warned for my troubles, too.
Dubai is a far cry from China, North Korea etc. But there is a large underclass… as there is in many countries. America’s south was built on slave labor and even as recently as 1960 had serious segregation.
These people come voluntarily, and the real issue is timely payment and living conditions. Our gardner in Dubai was from Pakistan and was much better paid and treated than the laborers in this article.
The reaction of the expats is unusual - I never met anyone that came for the servants. There are a large number of (mostly British) expats that come out to Dubai because they can’t find work in the UK and sometimes become “big fish” in Dubai to a level they could never achieve in the UK.
I’m not sure if it’s different in other countries, but according to that Dubai article, it’s not just they were paid late and working and living in miserable conditions, but that they had no recourse. Once lulled into the city by false promises, they were stuck. They had their passports taken away, no money, their consulates would not step in to help… does the rule of law there offer no way to sue or otherwise force the employers to pay what they owe? My only experience with this is in the US, where you’d basically have to file suit (I think) and if you’re too poor and unconnected to do that, you’re basically SOL. Same thing there?
Usually the government will step in and force them to return the worker’s passport (without which the consulates can’t help). It is a minority that are forced to surrender passports - it is illegal in the UAE to do so.