Shocking article on Dubai

[huugh]

This is very eye-opening article, please read it:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 64368.html

[FLYBYU44]

I read through about half of it so far, will finish it when I have time. Wow, I never thought it was like that there. Thanks so much for posting.

[Sequimite]

This story will be repeated in Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia,

Dictators with big oil revenues have used it to enrich themselves and buy off the population. The worldwide recession is producing cracks and as viable alternate energy is developed and/or the oil runs out, these countries will experience massive unrest and ultimately, revolutions.

[dialex]

Thanks for the link. Most instructive.

[clovisc]

i've known about this for a while. i hate to see the working class exploited and mistreated.

[Piet.S]

Good article, thank you.

[dialex]

i've known about this for a while. i hate to see the working class exploited and mistreated.

Speaking of... did anyone see "Zeitgeist"?

[Praxis]

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

Going to add it to my files for the next time I teach a history of business course.

[Slick]

Just today I watched a show on cable about the "Dubai Miracle". The show obviously predates the recent global meltdown.

I have one comment about the very recent request from Dubai that their creditors give them months of relief from repaying interest on their insane debt.

It seems to me Dubai is insolvent and in keeping with their harsh laws someone should go to prison as a debter.

I suggest the country's ruler should be held to the same justice he affords to others.

Just saying...

[Piercieve]

This story will be repeated in Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia,

Dictators with big oil revenues have used it to enrich themselves and buy off the population. The worldwide recession is producing cracks and as viable alternate energy is developed and/or the oil runs out, these countries will experience massive unrest and ultimately, revolutions.

Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeed

[Toad310]

its' just a matter of time until the radicals go after that place, just wait.

[A.P.F.]

I am reminded of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[Joshua J.]

Just imagine if someone left the gate open for 300,000 dissatisfied men to go ransack a city.
That's an army right there, not even a small one.

[Farmer Brown]

Why are you guys behaving as though this is the first time you've heard about this?

The Saudis have been doing this to outsourced unskilled labor (construction workers from the Indonesia / Malaysia / Philippines) for at least the past two to three decades. Never mind that the two former countries share the same faith, Islam. Confiscating their passports was routine! The guys typically came from such impoverished backgrounds and were either too scared or too undereducated to know what to do.

I still remember what one of my acquaintances told me - something he found out during a business trip for Electrolux in Saudi Arabia some 20 years ago. The average outsourced Computer Tech from the Southeast Asian region was salaried something around $970 (U$) monthly. The average unemployed Saudi bum, on the other hand, was entitled to $1100 - for nothing!

I won't go into further detail, but they're pretty racist as well... Different country of origin, identical prequalifications, guess who gets the better position / salary.

They're a culture of slavers. That mentality, up to this day and age, remains unchanged.

Whoever thought up the phrase "Greedy, barbarous, and cruel" got it right (Lawrence of Arabia, anyone?).

I apologize in advance if any of this is too inflammatory... But hey, this degree of naivete regarding Dubai? Give me a break.

[A.P.F.]

Well, I guess that I must be naive because this is the first I have heard of such despicable behavior. I knew the Saudis were elitist, but I had no idea of the contempt they hold the rest of the world in. :mad:

[The Deacon]

Why are you guys behaving as though this is the first time you've heard about this?

The Saudis have been doing this to outsourced unskilled labor (construction workers from the Indonesia / Malaysia / Philippines) for at least the past two to three decades. Never mind that the two former countries share the same faith, Islam. Confiscating their passports was routine! The guys typically came from such impoverished backgrounds and were either too scared or too undereducated to know what to do.

I still remember what one of my acquaintances told me - something he found out during a business trip for Electrolux in Saudi Arabia some 20 years ago. The average outsourced Computer Tech from the Southeast Asian region was salaried something around $970 (U$) monthly. The average unemployed Saudi bum, on the other hand, was entitled to $1100 - for nothing!

I won't go into further detail, but they're pretty racist as well... Different country of origin, identical prequalifications, guess who gets the better position / salary.

They're a culture of slavers. That mentality, up to this day and age, remains unchanged.

Whoever thought up the phrase "Greedy, barbarous, and cruel" got it right (Lawrence of Arabia, anyone?).

I apologize in advance if any of this is too inflammatory... But hey, this degree of naivete regarding Dubai? Give me a break.

+1

Find it hard to believe anyone would assume Western laws and standards would exist in an Islamic nation, as that Canadian ex-pat claims to have believed. Call me a cynic, but I also have to wonder how, when times were better, she treated her maid.

The article made only the slightest, most oblique, reference to the sex trade involving young boys and girls alike.

The Islamic fundamentalist extremists allow Dubai's hedonism to go unpunished for one reason and one reason only, money. Just like businesses in other places pay "organized crime" for protection, Dubai contributes heavily to the war chest of Islamic terrorism. The day that cash flow stops, the Burj Dubai will come down.

[Doc Pyres]

Good article huugh, thanks.

[bh49]

huugh,
Thank you for posting this article.

+1

Find it hard to believe anyone would assume Western laws and standards would exist in an Islamic nation,

+2