I've spent a bit of time in Dubai. It's not quite what the author makes it out t...

gnosis · on Nov 30, 2009

Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your personal experience is indicative of what's going on in Dubai. You're the one who sounds out of touch.

Have you even gone to interview the workers slaving away to do construction on Dubai's skyscrapers as the author of this article did? Have you seen where they live? Did you interview any of the people who had their passports taken away?

This was a throughly researched article, while your experience amounts to just your friend's project management firm and an acquaintance's girlfriend. Maybe project managers have it good in Dubai, but how does their experience compare to the rest of Dubai's workforce?

And what about the water quality problems they're having after dumping their sewage in the sea? What about the lack of freedom of speech addressed in the article? Or the fact that being gay in Dubai is illegal? Or the threats of Islamic radicalism? Or the impact of the falling oil prices and Dubai's debt economy?

There's so much in this article you seem to dismiss with a wave of the hand by saying other countries have their problems too. They certainly do, but that doesn't excuse or explain what's going on in Dubai.

lionhearted · on Nov 30, 2009

> Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your personal experience is indicative of what's going on in Dubai. You're the one who sounds out of touch.

I want to put this down in a way to further the conversation. "But after reading that article, I just don't believe..." - that statement. You read a news article - I've read many too - and you feel educated enough to make a judgment on my personal experiences including very upper class people, Western skilled workers, and some poor people who were maids, sanitation people, etc. After reading a news article, you feel confident to make a judgment that someone else's firsthand experiences are not indicative of how things actually are, and that the person is out of touch.

> There's so much in this article you seem to dismiss with a wave of the hand by saying other countries have their problems too.

No. That's not it at all.

I don't think people realize how bad poverty is. So when you read that someone worked 12 hours in terrible conditions for $800/month, that sounds incredibly horrible. But people don't realize that when a meal at a cafe costs 22 cents, a bus ride costs 11 cents, a giant bag of rice costs less than a dollar - well, then $800 goes a long way. I've spent time in third world countries. Most people who get righteous when a story likes this comes out, haven't. $800 goes a long way in the third world.

Some people pulled themselves out of poverty by working in Dubai. I'm not talking about the up and up people. Some poor people pulled themselves out of poverty in Dubai. Bad things also happened there, but good things happened too. That doesn't dismiss some terrible things, but the article ignores some people who literally turned their lives around there.

gnosis · on Nov 30, 2009

  > > Sorry. But after reading that article, I just don't believe your
  > > personal experience is  indicative of what's going  on in Dubai.
  > > You're the one who sounds out of touch.
  >
  > I want to put this down in a way to further the conversation. "But
  > after  reading  that article,  I  just  don't believe..."  -  that
  > statement. You read a news article -  I've read many too - and you
  > feel educated enough to make a judgment on my personal experiences
  > including very  upper class  people, Western skilled  workers, and
  > some poor  people who  were maids,  sanitation people,  etc. After
  > reading a news article, you feel confident to make a judgment that
  > someone  else's firsthand  experiences are  not indicative  of how
  > things actually are, and that the person is out of touch.

It was more a judgement of your description of your personal experience than the experience itself. Clearly, no one has access to your personal experience, so they can't judge it directly. But we can judge what you tell us (compared to what the author of "The dark side of Dubai" article tells about his personal experience).

  > > Have you  even gone to  interview the  workers slaving away  to do
  > > construction on Dubai's skyscrapers as  the author of this article
  > > did?
  >
  > Yes.
  >
  > > Have you seen where they live?
  >
  > Yes.

Then why didn't you mention it? Why did you start going off about how good project managers and stewardeses have it in Dubai instead of talking about the people interviewed in the article: the workers slaving away building the skyscrapers and the people who've had their passports taken away? Do you dispute the accuracy of what the author of the article has written about them?

  > I  don't think  people realize  how bad  poverty is.  So when  you
  > read  that someone  worked  12 hours  in  terrible conditions  for
  > $800/month,  that sounds  incredibly  horrible.  But people  don't
  > realize that  when a meal  at a cafe costs  11 cents, $800  goes a
  > long way.  I've spent time  in third world countries.  Most people
  > who get righteous when a story likes this comes out, haven't. $800
  > goes a long way in the third world.

First, the article mentioned people were making £90 ($147) a month, not $800 a month. Second, Dubai is not a third world country, so I really doubt the workers are spending 11 cents a meal. According to http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of-li...

"An individual expatriate will spend around 500 euro on food and other grocery items every month. Costs of food products are especially high... Water is generally expensive all across the country... Dubai relies mostly on imported food and drinks, which explains why they are also more expensive."

The monthly cost of food of 500 Euro is about $750, more than 5 times the monthly wage mentioned in the article. Of course, the typical slave worker probably isn't going to be eating food that's as expensive as that of your typical Western expat, but I doubt they'd survive on $10 of food a month, which is what three 11 cent meals a day totaled over a month would amount to.

Then there's the debt that the slave workers get in to to just have the opportunity to work in Dubai. The article quotes it as £2,300 ($3,772), which would take 25 months to work off at the $147 per month salary, if we don't count the cost of living in Dubai (which would make repaying the debt even harder).

Finally, there are the dangerous work conditions, physical violence, and the non-payment and delay of salaries that the article mentions, which would literally put the workers' lives in jeopardy. That doesn't exactly sound like the opportunity of a lifetime, even for someone coming from the third world.

  > Some people pulled themselves out  of poverty by working in Dubai.
  > I'm  not talking  about the  up and  up people.  Some poor  people
  > pulled  themselves  out  of  poverty in  Dubai.  Bad  things  also
  > happened there, but good things happened too. That doesn't dismiss
  > some  terrible things,  but the  article ignores  some people  who
  > literally turned their lives around there.

There will always be exceptional people who can overcome some of the worst adversities. This article wasn't about them. That's true. The author chose to mostly focus on the less exceptional, and more representative people in Dubai, and nothing you've said has proven the author of this article did anything less than a stellar job at researching and describing his chosen subject.

lionhearted · on Dec 1, 2009

I understand where you're at and I respect it - bad things happened in Dubai and should be addressed. When I came in and commented, there were lots of sentiment against Dubai. Heck, there's "Fuck Dubai" comment at +12 right now. So I knew pretty well that if I offered a perspective that the article isn't representative of everything happening there, there's a good chance it wouldn't be well-received. The reception's actually been a little more positive than I imagined it would be.

So why do I write it? Well, after traveling a lot of the world, I don't think it's so simple and black and white. Some horrific stuff happened in Dubai? Yes. Mark it down. Don't forget it. Work to change it. But does that make the place completely morally bankrupt? I don't believe so. A lot of lives have been saved and aided greatly there. This is of course not simple, black and white, with us or against us, good or evil type thinking. Bad stuff happened there. Good stuff happened there. The article didn't mention any good stuff and made it seem like it was all really bad stuff. So I offered my own experiences.

But is there bad stuff there? Oh yeah. And let's not forget that. Someone gets promised a 500 euro salary, then gets paid only 90 euros? Wow, that's criminal and sickening. The people that did that should have very bad things happen to them. But yet, I'll still write in that I know firsthand people who had their lives changed their, including unskilled laborers that made a hell of a lot of money. I've done a bit of blue collar manual labor in my life. It's not enjoyable, it's hard, but it pays very well for unskilled labor. There was some of that happening in Dubai, and it offered a lot of opportunities that helped a lot of people.

I knew a girl and her sister who were Sri Lanka, whose parents came to Dubai as basically house servants. I'm not sure what the father did - maybe landscaping? - the mother was a maid. But their daughters were able to go to decent schools and were on their way out of poverty. There's stories like that too. The article paints Dubai as a hell hole filled with callous people, blinded to human suffering by their own greed. Yes there were bad things there, that ought to be changed. But the world is not simple, black and white, good and evil, with us or against us. A lot of good happened there too.

You seem like a nice and considerate person, and I think you and I are fundamentally on the same page. I came in to voice an opinion that seemed like it would be unpopular, because it seemed worth it for people to think about. Cheers and thanks for having a conversation with me.

asher · on Dec 1, 2009

Thank you, Lionhearted, for gently bringing some maturity and perspective to this thread. Dubai is an amazing and special place, not to be dismissed lightly and put into some prefab category.

A friend is working there now. He loves Dubai because it rewards hard work. He finds the pace faster than in the US. More buildings going up, more vision, more investment, and less red tape.

I hope that whatever economic problems Dubai has will soon be resolved. And I trust that over time Dubai will solve some of the problems which annoyed this author.

tptacek · on Nov 30, 2009

We already have the article, gnosis. This person has actual experience. His comments add to the discussion, over and above the article. No matter what I think of Dubai or the journalism in this article (respectively: BAD and GOOD, FWIW), you're not contributing much here.

gnosis · on Nov 30, 2009

And what did you just contribute?

aquateen · on Dec 1, 2009

His contribution is pointing out your non-contribution.

brown9-2 · on Nov 30, 2009

The opinion piece was written before doing any research or interviews, the research and interviews were set to tell the story.

I'm not sure how you can make this claim. Do you have knowledge of the chronology of the author's events as to when she wrote the article and when she performed the numerous interviews - with both sides - in the article?

The author doesn't care about the good.

I think that the author's point is that there is no good if the country/economy/system is built on the back of what amounts to slavery and fraud. That it doesn't matter how much "good" has been done if these abuses took place as a part of manufacturing the "good".

lionhearted · on Nov 30, 2009

> I think that the author's point is that there is no good if the country/economy/system is built on the back of what amounts to slavery and fraud.

I don't mean the big buildings - I mean the author doesn't mention all the good that happened for a lot of workers that came to Dubai with no other options, were treated relatively did well, did hard work but were paid extremely well for it, and went from being poor to being upper middle class in their home countries after their tenure was over.

> That it doesn't matter how much "good" has been done if these abuses took place as a part of manufacturing the "good".

The author didn't make an attempt to get the average wages, or how the process works on average, or how widespread any abuses are. She didn't publish anyone's account who came out well in Dubai, and there's many. She didn't write about the people who, by working in Dubai for a couple years, made enough to live very well in their home countries, buy property, send their kids to good schools, and get their families out of poverty. That happened too. That's the good I was referring to.

crux · on Nov 30, 2009

I think you're missing the point. The general argument here is: we're all aware of the accounts of those who have done well. Dubai was up until recently quite obviously prosperous. I have no doubt that the stewardesses of Emirates Airlines were doing marvelously. But if the lowest stratum of Dubai suffers these conditions, then the prosperity of the Emirates Airlines stewardess is blood money.

pyre · on Nov 30, 2009

I have to agree. If the backbone of Dubai is built on slave labor than all of the people higher up (whether they came from poverty in Southeast Asia or an affluent background in the West) are building their wealth on the backs of those slaves. Good for some stewardess from China taking her family from rags to riches. But all of that money that she made was only possible because people were suffering horribly at the bottom of society.

From the description of the conditions that those workers are in, I would rather be homeless and dumpster diving for food in a Western country.

raganwald · on Dec 1, 2009

almost all airlines and cruiselines pay much less to people from China, the Philippines, etc, than they would to someone from France or Australia.

That surprises me. That isn't how it works for any of the airlines flying out of Canada, that is illegal here. The US has much more relaxed laws than we do, and a number of issues with respect to African Americans, but I'd be more than a little surprised if that was standard practice there.

What about European airlines like those flying out of England or Germany. Do they pay less to Chinese flight attendants? My guess would be that if they were legally able to work they would receive the same pay in countries like Germany and England. Am I mistaken?

I'm curious.

astrec · on Dec 1, 2009

Here's how it works (roughly):

  AU based airline flies route between SYD and BKK.
  Airline reduces capacity of SYD crew base.
  Airline declares BKK a crew base.
  Airline pays BKK cabin crew local rates.
  BKK cabin crew staff SYD->BKK->SYD flights.
  Profit.

DannoHung · on Nov 30, 2009

The measurement of "some" is always important. The degree to which it's passed off as "just the way things are" is also important.

The exact nature of "good" is also worth considering. People getting boned over in the name of curing cancer is different than people getting boned over in the name of acquiring real estate or building luxury homes on artificial islands that will collapse into the sea in two decades.

pyre · on Nov 30, 2009

> I've heard about the abuses - there are some and it's horrible - but it's not indicative of the way most people are running their businesses in Dubai.

The government seems to be complicit in these abuses, so it's a good idea to support the government just because there are some people not committing abuses?

> A mentor of mine from England headed up a project management firm there. The workers under him made 20-40 times what they could make back home in South Asia, in places where the malnourishment/literally-starving-to-death rate is sometimes 30%.

So... because some people are making a lot of money it's ok for others to suffer... ? Does what your mentor does/did in Dubai somehow negate what is happening to these other workers?

> An acquaintance of mine who worked in Dubai had a Chinese girlfriend who was a stewardess on Emirates Airlines. Emirates is pretty incredible in that they pay the same amounts to their staff regardless of country of origin - almost all airlines and cruiselines pay much less to people from China, the Philippines, etc, than they would to someone from France or Australia. Emirates pays everyone the same. The acquaintence's Chinese girlfriend bought one house every couple months back in her home province in China on her wages. Her family was becoming incredibly wealthy.

If the wealth of Dubai is build upon the backs of slave-labor, then she is raising her family out of poverty with 'blood money.' She is knocking others down in an attempt to lift herself up, though indirectly.

> A company taking someone's passport and changing their contract is really horrible fraud, a horrific crime. But that's an indictment of the whole society - this kind of nonsense happens in the West too.

It is if the society decides to ignore it. It's not necessarily what happens in a society that should define it, but how a society reacts to these events. If this 'nonesense' is happening, and the people in Dubai are happy to turn the other way and pretend it doesn't exist, is this somehow acceptable behavior? I'm sure there are plenty of people there that are willing to ignore such abuses because they are making so much money.

> Take South Korea and the United States - a common story is a girl gets promised high paid waitressing/hostessing job, gets sold into slavery. This is a terrible thing, and should be stopped - but does that mean that United States is running on slave labor? No. A few bad people is not an indictment of an entire society.

How common is this though? Point me to data/articles/etc on this practice. I somehow think that these South Korean slaves are being sent into the 'sex trade' or becoming 'slave maids.' While this is nothing that should be ignored you would have a hard time making the case the a society is 'built' or 'based on' sex workers or maids (as opposed to maintenance/construction workers).

> For a lot of very poor people, Dubai helped pull their families out of poverty. The did some amazing things there. Those things won't be mentioned in a piece like this. People who would be living on subsistence farming in China build houses and manage property after working in Dubai. People from Sri Lanka, India, and Eastern Europe can support their whole families and save money after working there for a couple years, in places where there is no opportunity and everyone is literally starving to death.

I've already mentioned it, but it bears mentioning again. If this wealth is built on the backs of slaves, these people are (indirectly) throwing others under the bus in an attempt to improve their lot in life.

> The author doesn't care about the good.

I think that the point is that the good needs to out-weigh the bad. If 1 in 5 people coming from poverty in a 3rd world country 'hit it big' in Dubai while 4 in 5 people end up in deplorable working conditions with no chance of escape, is there really a point to mentioning that there is 'some good' happening?

> The opinion piece was written before doing any research or interviews, the research and interviews were set to tell the story.

You have no evidence for this, and at this point you're just making baseless accusations as a way to somehow bolster the point that you're trying to drive home. Please don't try to back up your argument by making unfounded statements.

No offense, but you're also failing to realize that you're railing on an 'opinion' piece while offering in return nothing but your own opinion based on anecdotal evidence. You can't use your own anecdotal evidence to disprove someone else's anecdotal evidence except in specific cases (i.e. you went to the same 'slave worker' camp at around the same time but the conditions were vastly different).

> There's some bad stuff there? Oh yeah, absolutely. There's bad stuff in the USA too

No offense, but from the description of the working/living conditions of these people, illegal Mexican immigration workers in th USA that are held 'captive' by their employers have it good.