What is Digg?508 Comments
- gdldude, on 04/07/2009, -11/+391Wow. This story should be a must read for everyone. The current state of Dubai pretty much summarizes the global problem of unsustainable life styles of the big nations and its consequences on the rest of the world.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -8/+262I pointed out that the place was built by slaves on almost every dubai post that came around but I always got dugg down.
Every glittering paradise for the rich is built on the sweat and blood of the poor. - Shayer, on 04/08/2009, -8/+199As a Muslim (OMG U BELIEVE IN SKY FAIRY IN THE SKY LLOLLOL), it’s very interesting to see how Dubai is portrayed by other Muslims. Whenever someone makes the claim that Muslims are backwards and is not compatible with modern times, Muslims will be the first one to bring up Dubai. “Oh look at this city, its proof that Muslims can be modern and whatnot; the beautiful buildings, malls, and other recreational centers’. They will mention the city with pride. If not this city, then the Gulf States in general.
However, as you dig deeper in the situation in Dubai, and the severe abuses, extreme racism, and the hierarchy that exists among the Arabs become apparent (and not just in Dubai, but across the Arab world), and the ridiculous laws, all of a sudden they will be the first ones to condemn it.
But wait, this condemnation is not going to be against the Emiratis or the Arabs (i.e. our fellow Muslims). That would be admitting that Muslims aren’t perfect or that there really is a hierarchy that unfortunately exists in the Arab world and would shatter our warped sense of reality so we can’t expose that, oh no! So who do we blame?
Well, first we try to distance ourselves; “oh in Islam, everyone is equal, so these people…they are not ‘real Muslims’ or ‘this kind of thing exists is Texas (see post above) or elsewhere” and try to justify it. When all of these delusional and apologetic arguments are fully countered we blame...? You guessed it; the EVIL capitalistic MATERIALISTIC WESTERN society of course! *shakes fists* that’s right folks; it’s the Western worlds fault.
Unfortunately, we as Muslims either deny that these problems exist OR blame others to remove ourselves of any responsibility. It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault and we’re ALWAYS the victims. And it’s up to that someone else to fix the problems. Meaning, nothing ever gets changed, at least not in a timely manner. - chris6sigma, on 04/07/2009, -9/+195Incredible article. I'm definitely not setting foot in Dubai.
- UK31337, on 04/07/2009, -4/+188Unbelievable. It's amazing how the glitz and glamour is used to hide the despair and fakeness of it all.
- riazji, on 04/08/2009, -2/+155My brother-in-law(we're Indians) works as a doctor in a government hospital in Dubai.He recently told me an interesting story that happened there.
Since its a government hospital ,they occasionally get patients who are currently residing in the Dubai prisons as well.After treating one such patient ,my b-i-l was mildly interested in how he came about to jail,as he didn't seem like the typical jail patient.He was a Canadian ,in his mid 30s ,who looked like middle management than a underworld thug.He said ,he was hooked on the money that was just flowing in ,and it was his ignorance of the confusing state laws that did him in.He was working for an MNC ,and even by his account ,he didn't have that much to do but he was paid 40,000 dirhams (10,900 Dollars) per month .he was living the high life ,having so much money he didn't know what to do.All his friends and colleagues were investing the money in real estate projects in Dubai ,so that they can double or triple their investment. he decided to to do the same buying many properties and holding on to them before selling them at thrice the price.Everything was going well ,when the beginnings of the global recession started to rear its head.
He had 3 properties ,which he couldn't sell ,as there were no buyers.He had to pay an exorbitant mortgage to the banks every month.Suddenly ,his company said they can't pay him the same way as before cause of the recession.He had to take a pay cut and like it. 'He had to heavily dip into his savings to make the loan payments to the banks ,when he missed two payments in a row ,he got a call from the debt collectors to come to their office.He went thinking they can discuss a plan on how to make the remaining payments or on how he can offload his properties.Instead when he arrived at the venue,the Dubai police were waiting to take him to jail!
Now he has lost his job ,he cant pay back the loans ,he's stuck in jail.And to top it all, he said he has met the most dangerous criminals he could imagine while in there!Poor guy ,he kept saying how can they jail him.Don't they want to clear the debts ,and the only way that can be done is if 'he's on the outside ,he has properties to sell but they aren't allowing him to do that. I guess his Dubai Dream has withered away - cyberdork, on 04/08/2009, -25/+151And this is all new to you guys? GEEZ! This information is all over the web for years.
I guess when you people see some picture of a new tower build in Dubai you say: 'Oh it's so pretty. Why can't we build things like that?" and then you go back playing your xbox or whatever. - Riverduck, on 04/07/2009, -14/+123Given this story, I wonder if Tiger Woods is going to play in the Dubai Open this year. I hope not. Maybe the PGA should force a boycott of all PGA golfers from playing the Dubai Open. This kind of exploitation has got to end.
- silverchrysalis, on 04/08/2009, -1/+100http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did= ...
a friend of ours was imprisoned in Dubai for some time on false drug charges, eventually released but only after massive effort on the part of his friends, some of whom had media contacts in the UK. if they hadn't had that voice, he'd probably still be sitting in jail, all for a bottle of melatonin.
Dubai is an elitist community that is somehow accepted in our times- because of the cool buildings? why? - MMusick, on 04/08/2009, -1/+97VBS.TV this week features a short documentary on Dubai slave labor with investigative footage from the BBC's Ben Anderson.
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=18588612001 - daveandthomas, on 04/08/2009, -2/+85An unbelievable story. Really sheds a new light on Dubai
- strictnein, on 04/08/2009, -0/+79Making money facilitating this, probably.
- MalaysianMafia, on 04/08/2009, -1/+73There IS an Indian consulate in Dubai... What the ***** are they doing?
- Tarantulus, on 04/08/2009, -5/+75you, my freind, are the kind of muslim the world needs more of.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -1/+69Taking bribes.
- merrickx, on 04/08/2009, -1/+64I basically lived amongst these guys for about a month. I slept in a shack with 8 other guys from my team. We could see the compound where there were literally hundreds of workers to a relatively small building. It looked like a prison block. There were several shift changes during the 24-hour day, not two, meaning shifts were probably well over 12 hours. Speaking to some of them they were paid less than a few dollars a day, maybe a week. I have trouble remembering. There have been articles in the past on digg saying that there was some ridiculously large amount of the world's bicycles in Dubai. Just to put the slavery thing into the bicycle perspective... about 99 percent of all the bicycles I saw in Dubai were these workers riding from living compounds to industrial complexes where they worked. The Dubai dry dock was literally a river of bicycles and their riders at 7 in the morning.
- girishso, on 04/08/2009, -3/+61I was thinking that slavery ended in the last century... very horrible story.
- wheezy360, on 04/08/2009, -0/+51It's a very sad state indeed. I was working in Dubai at a trade show for a couple weeks last year and was sad to see it then. Driving down Sheik Zayed Road from my apartment to the convention center in the morning, the majority of the traffic on the roads were large vans over packed with immigrant construction workers, usually all asleep since it was one of the rare times they would be able to.
- andrewlotta, on 04/08/2009, -8/+57This needs to be exposed.
- jorisb, on 04/08/2009, -1/+48Unlikely, Tiger is just opening his own golf course in Dubai. The Tiger Woods Dubai. And it's supposed to become one of the nicest in the world, the amount of water it will use is ridiculous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiger_Woods_Dubai - diggdat, on 04/08/2009, -3/+47This was a great read. Exactly the kind of article I hope to come across. First hand accounts, that end up changing my perception.
- samsmartjr, on 04/08/2009, -2/+42Yeah, because I only make enough money to buy an XBox. I don't have the money to travel outside my state, let alone to a middle eastern nation.
- 23cranberries, on 04/08/2009, -1/+41I grew up in Dubai. 15 years. My advice to anyone thinking of going there is this.
Get in, get rich, get the ***** out. - Bloodwine, on 04/08/2009, -4/+43There have been stories about the Dubai slave workforce over the past several years on the internet. I really don't see how people are surprised by this story today.
- DiggDuggin, on 04/08/2009, -0/+37That is a really interesting story, my friend (that lived and worked in Dubai for a while) was just telling me yesterday a bunch of stuff about Dubai, and we got on the topic of how utterly ***** he thinks the country is right now. He brought up the debt issue, and he told me that people are leaving the country in droves because they have debt but are losing their jobs due to the financial crisis. You literally have guys getting fired, then that same day driving to the airport and leaving their Ferrari's out front keys and all, just so they can get out of the country before spending their life in jail because they can't pay their debts.
- ravis31, on 04/08/2009, -2/+38FTA
"There was a British woman we knew who ran over an Indian guy, and she was locked up for four days! If you have a tiny bit of alcohol on your breath they're all over you. These Indians throw themselves in front of cars, because then their family has to be given blood money – you know, compensation. But the police just blame us. That poor woman!"
I really don't know what to say! - Learn2Think, on 04/08/2009, -0/+36I worked there for two years before moving to US.
The attitude of that British lady is not surprising at all. I experienced it first hand in social gathering and dinner parties.
While one should not generalize. But having said that, there is a HUGE segment of expat population from the west who could not amount to much in their home countries.
They suddenly find themselves in a class system where they are making gobs of money, have to pay no taxes, are treated differentially by the law and have an abundunt supply of cheap labor to lord over and they really start believing that they are God's gift to earth. A friend of mine told me of a British co-worker who said "My hired help is from the same country as you! Fancy that!" :) :)
What was funny was when you would speak to the labor class. They had a whole different perspective on the whole affair. There was one Indian guy (I think from a place called Kerala) who was just great. An uneducated labourer who never went to school but hell of a smart guy who knew how the world worked. He commented that the british loved Dubai because it brought back fond memories of their colonial rule. Arab loved it because now they were a step above their formal colonial rulers. He liked Americans: he thought they were the easiest going and nicest anongst the westerns working there. - ksgant, on 04/08/2009, -2/+36Cool logic! Let's do some more: The a majority of KKK members consider themselves in a religious Christian organization, therefore all Christians are racist, xenophobic white supremacists.
Hey, this is cool! Let's do more: Jeffrey Dahmer was a gay man, therefore all gay men are cannibalistic serial killers! What do you expect from a gay man?
Your logic and understanding of other cultures is COOL! No really. - inactive, on 04/08/2009, -33/+66The Gulf Arabs really haven't changed all that much from the marauding brutal sand bandits and slave traders of centuries ago.
Muhammad of the book of Islam , was a brutal Bedouin like thief that bullied the Jews and slaughtered caravan drivers for fun and profit collecting a mob of would be religious freaks bent on rape and plunder.
The Dubai tribal thieves have just masqueraded their thievery behind glass and steel.
The lapdog Wall Street bankers and Hollywood trash just eat that ***** up - bigdaddysheikh, on 04/08/2009, -3/+36All that glitters is not gold.
I am so happy that this story has finally been published. - OMGIAMTHEMAN, on 04/08/2009, -0/+32I asked a Muslim preacher once what he thought about my trying to work in dubai. he said "almost anywhere but dubai, By God, I fear the punishment of God will rain down on dubai"
kind of ridiculous for you to assume that just because these people profess to be muslims that their actions are consistent with the morals that Muslims are supposed to hold themselves to - WoollyMittens, on 04/08/2009, -3/+35It shows, once more, that corporate giants and the social elite see people as a resource to exploit mercilessly. We're called consumer or employee, but never person. This is how we are dehumanized.
- richmomz, on 04/08/2009, -0/+31Dubai is a real life, brick and mortar Ponzi pyramid.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -2/+30I don't know, but it seems pretty stupid to me that they're building skyscrapers in a climate where the average high temperature is > 95 degrees for four months out of the year. I bet you in 5-10 years average occupancy of office space in Dubai will be < 65%. Outside of oil, Dubai isn't what I would call rich in natural resources; unless you consider sand to be an important resource. Talk about an investment bubble....
- YoWhatDaFuxUp, on 04/08/2009, -11/+39dont forget he was a pedophile too
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six year old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death). Bukhari vol.7 book 62 ch.60 no.88 p.65
Muhammed was 58 at the time they got married - PizzaEagle, on 04/08/2009, -1/+28Why don't the Filipino government, Indian government, Bangladeshi government etc. do something? You'd think they'd care that their own citizens are being imprisoned
- geoken, on 04/08/2009, -0/+26Skiing in diamond studded ski boots?
- richmomz, on 04/08/2009, -0/+26Dubai has become a metaphor for the world's financial problems - a real life Ponzi pyramid built out of bricks, mirrored windows, hubris, and greed-fueled dreams of grandeur.
- captainchris, on 04/08/2009, -0/+26you expect golfers to sympathize with those damaged by corporate and financial exploitation? golf is all about exploiting land, resources and people's money.
- CoD4, on 04/08/2009, -0/+26Protip: nobody cares when you spoil an article
- DevilInPgh, on 04/08/2009, -3/+29You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store - strictnein, on 04/08/2009, -19/+44Holy crap. What's with these worthless comments? (including this one)
- tonyteetime, on 04/08/2009, -4/+29For those that don't have time to read.... Here is the summary of this long story.
This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!" But she is trapped, she says. She got into debt to come here, and she is stuck for three years: an old story now. "I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand." - ripple123, on 04/08/2009, -1/+26if ever bloody revolution was for anything, it is this.
- diggeratwork, on 04/08/2009, -0/+24
""There's a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they're not reported. They're described as 'accidents'." Even then, their families aren't free: they simply inherit the debts. A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting."
Dubai's darker side is just inhumane. - OMGIAMTHEMAN, on 04/08/2009, -2/+26this kind of slavery unfortunately exists all over the world. I see articles almost monthly here in texas about immigrants that have their passports taken away and are forced to work in massage parlors as sex slaves, etc.
- Lazydriver, on 04/08/2009, -0/+23It's not capitalism, it's deplorable exploitation. Capitalism can exist without exploitation to the point of slavery.
- RealJimShady, on 04/08/2009, -1/+23I just got back from Dubai, sustainability definitely isn't their plan. Dubai is one big concentration camp slave-driving, V8 driving, bottled-water-drinking, oil-burning, desalination-plant-loving, rich persons playground. The amount of desalination plants on the road in from Abu Dhabi made me sick.
- inactive, on 04/08/2009, -0/+21The story about Dubai's dictatorship and human rights violations hasn't really hit mainstream media yet.
- pradaaddict, on 04/08/2009, -1/+22That's a horrible story, poor guy. I'm from Canada so I'll let everyone who even so much as ponders moving to Dubai know this story. The lesson is, what the West considers barbaric and uncivilized, they do not.
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