article on Dubai

Was in Dubai last November and I thought the article wrote about everything I would have written. Workers who strike simply get locked up for three weeks and then get kicked back to India or Pakistan withjout hundreds of dirhams in back pay (and back home the moneylenders you probably borrowed a couple of grand from are after you. It makes stuff like Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" almost bearable. The article in the Independent is quite good at showing how there is actually a strict apartheid in Dubai based on your relation to the means of production. Pakistanis and Indians do 12 hours a day six days a week and on their day off sit by the rooadside in the desert near their absolutely insanitary camps watching the 4 x 4s driving around (they care not allowed to own vehicles and anyway you can only have newish cars in Dubai so they could never afford one). Above them come the Filipino servant class who are just slaves (their "owners" hold their passports), then the long established Indian commercial class who provide lawyes and accountants as well as including some very rich merchants. The Whites from anywhere in the world (who don't have to have visas unlike the others) are also stratified from fairly casual jobs like singing in the bars to big executives in gated communities.

The whites include quite a few who can see what is going on (and Rottweiler is right - this is a microcosm of global expolitation but run in such a way that is it like something out of Aldous Huxley. It is absolutely sickening but the Whites have to kepe their mouths shut or else they get evicted (as they do for many misdemeanours or simply just going broke. It has taken a long time for the world to wise up to this place abut as you can see their are institutional reasons why the censorship works (plus all the endorsements from twats like Michael Owen etc). It is no accident that the crisis has forced this "fairy tale" to be exposed since the Maktoun's had to flog off a huge share in Emirates airlines to Abu Dhabi whilst we were there and sicne then have had to go capi i hand for more extended loans. I a tempted to say the whole thing is built on sand!

It is alsoan ecological nightmare as they water every single plant in the place with its own little water suppply (which is more than the building workers get) fed in a pipe down the middle of the motorway.

The bit that struck me most inthe Independent story was the question of shit. They have built the whole place without a sewage system.Every set of flats has its own septeic tank which have to be emptied regularly. But there is only one place the tanker drivers (always Asian) can deposit their waste and have to queue for days (sleeping inthe cab in front of big red tanker full of shit. So just befoer we went the drivers found they could open the manhooes to the clean water drains and put it down there. I wanted to swinm inthe sea (sicne shopping malls are not my idea of entertainment) but everyone warned against it as those who had recently had either got obscure respiratory problems or headaches or skin rashesand burns. And tourism is supposed to be one of the triple pillars of the economy.

Some of the people who post on the Independent also confirm this (in between the tossers who are in denial). I could go on....