As the UAE undergoes one of the largest construction booms in the world, at least half a million migrant construction workers are employed there. Behind the glitter and luxury, the experiences of these migrant workers present a much less attractive picture—of wage exploitation, indebtedness to unscrupulous recruiters, and working conditions that are hazardous to the point of being deadly. UAE federal labor law offers a number of protections, but for migrant construction workers these are largely unenforced.
awesome. something has to be said about dubai's ability to make $ using commerce and tourism. unlike saudi arabs... folks in dubai actually have something going. so lets not lump them with the rest of the dummies here. oil is not the highest contributor in Dubai's GDP. that by itself is a good achievement.
At the same time it is thinly populated and one can drive from one end of Dubai to the other in a few hours. So what it can and cant do.. bears no consequence to rest of the muslim world i think.
Tent villages, our Prophet used to live in a tent. Come the holy month of Ramadan, & u see tents in the vicinity of 5star hotels here, whats wrong with that.
God! You say you live in Dubai? Have you ever met someone who built the gleeing towers you hold so dear?
These are not islamic tents as you invision them. They are slum homes of the many Pakistanis and Indians who live in dire poverty sacrificing their bodies and lives so Arabs can have their vanity and eat it too.
Dubai's decision to prop up sky scrappers is not an easy task for a people who roamed the desert on camel and donkey fifty years ago. It's not brilliance that fuels their quest to hire british designers and pakistani labourers - but desperation. Dubai recognizes how screwed it will be in the future. As a result, it's capital rich but knowledge poor elites pump European pockets and exploit Asian asses to secure Dubai's role as the tourist central of the world. You sure seem proud of that.
Oh really? You're only welcomed and made at home when you get a passport? When did the last Pakistani get a passport? Can I have his/her name and number? I want to check if they live in any one of the tent villages that surround this potemkin sky-scrapper of a village's ever removed and ignorant vantage point.
The skyscrappers you see today are not the work of educated Emiratis. The sheikh's 1994 initiative has nothing to do with it. The companies that build these tall buildings may be named Emirates, Nakheel or Emaar, but their brains and brawns are as British or Asian as ever. The only local input is, as always, capital.
When Japan made towers - it employed Japanese. When America made towers - it employed Americans. When Arabs make towers, they hire a dozen British designers and boat in a few hundred Pakistani labourers. So much for Arab ingenuity.
It is very easy to pop these reports into writing, without even having a solid justification. Lets see here step by step.
The labourers employed here, come here on their own free will, these Dubai arabs, do not go to Pakistan, india, bangladesh, sri lanka, nepal or any other third world state to bring these workers forcibly. These same labourers sell their homes or belongings or whatever they have, to fly in here hoping for a better future. But how can a labourer think of making it big here, where there is fierce competition…??? Not that Im opposed to him having a better life, but the Ministry of Dubai has done various deeds in enforcing strict laws, when it comes to treating these labourers humanely. It is the construction companies, that breaks laws. They are privately run companies. Some of them are from international conglomerates…eg ABB, mitsubishi, samsung(the company which constructed this tower).
So who is to blame actually, yea, very easy for u people to point at Dubai, just coz some reporter/columnist found it easy to blame the government of Dubai.
4years back, Dubai started repatriating all the camel jockeys to Pakistan, & india. Do u know how these camel jockeys came into existence…the balochis used to sell their kids to these rich sheikhs, back in the 80s. What steps did our government take to counter these moves. They shud have boosted the budget of balochistan, but till date, I dont see anything being done.
The richest families of Dubai had second homes in Karachi, & they used to proudly call it home, Im talking arab families, not Pakistani families. They used to go their for summer vacations, until the early 90s, when mohajirs & sindhis erupted in a manner that is way uncivilized when compared to these arabs. You say these people dont have education, but we as Pakistanis (Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore) we did have a lot more, we did come here, & give them the expertise, but what happened, when it came to our own cities…??? Bombings in masjids, caves, killing our own blood, extraditing them without proof to US & UK(one prime example being Moazzam Beig), who was abducted in the middle of the night.
These people had oil only, nothing else, in early 90s, under the vision of Shiekh Mohammed, he ordered the economy to make a smooth transition into non oil revenue, & today several years later, Dubai does not rely on its oil fields. It has an estimated 75years of oil left(1995 figure), but today, it has so many exports other than oil. It is a business hub. Our port Gwadar could have been a million times better, had the balochis, not started fingering. IF only education was provided to every citizen of Pakistan regardless of color & race.
Camel & donkey jokes are history here now, they look good only if they did not have the success & wealth that they have today. They educated each & every citizen equally. Let me give u a very small example.
If a local citizen of Dubai has plans of starting business, he/she can approach the shiekh of Dubai, & he will provide 25million AED, equivalent to approx $8million, to start a business here. They have a period of 15-25years to repay it back.
The citizens of Pakistan, poor ones, still use donkey carts, have we looked at ourselves. Its very easy to make fun of them, but the truth is we, are the butt of these camel/donkey jokes. In UAE, if u kill a camel, it is either jail or a stiff penalty. That is the respect they give these camels, because they still take pride in their heritage. The following pic speaks billions, & it is perhaps the epitomy of Dubai’s success.
Justify me this point, are the western countries only allowed to have skyscrapers…??? Its like US, only we can have nukes, nobody else can.
There are more Mercs & Bentleys per person here, than the US, I think this is what really pisses the rednecks, & yankees a lot. But it didn’t come easy.
^^ besides nodding their heads when European and American designers showed them the buildings, these emirates have done nothing else....
It was European/American designers and South Asian laborers which build these buildings
Puttar...:), there are dubai arabs who are good designers & very good at it too. Dont forget, all this was not possible, if the dubai locals did not take the initiative. Do u even know that EMAAR & Nakheel have invested heavily in Pakistan & india as well, & Im talking billions, not millions. So there u have it, did our governments take the initiative of educating our nation, so that the younger generation could emerge stronger & bold...NO, these people did, & now they are enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Mal1k sahab, I think you summed it up quite a few times when you said "if the West can have it why cant dubai".. and "they have more bentleys and bmws than the west" or something along those lines.
that is their only motivation. no genuine need.
and it would be respectable as an engineering accomplishment of the dubai walay if they actually had built the expertise to make this building themselves, with their own people. Heck make ANYTHING themselves. You mention the nuclear program, to a large extent that is developed and maintained by Pakistanies themselves, and there is a need for it.
This building on the other hand is just another bentley. They can be as proud of this building as you would be of buying a nice new car, cause forking out the money (most of which you happened to find sitting under you) is all you ever did for it.
And dubai is the most respectable of Gulf economies, atleast a portion of their income is not because they're sitting on oil. What is laudable is that partially because of buildings like this they're able to invite non-oil based economic activity. If they can be proud of accomplishing something its that, not some building they paid a guy to make. They're also relatively progressive and more accepting of foreigners compared to neighbouring idiots, but thats a pretty low bar.
But the treatment of foreign workers is widely reported and known. Their working and living conditions are terrible, are regularly denied wages, have few rights, make less than $200/month, employers confiscate their passports and residency permits that restricts their freedom of movement, change jobs, go home or report abuse.
So while they may be commended for their foresight to diversify their economy and turn the desert into an Arab Disney World, they do not treat people equally and actually treat these workers (that make their life more comfortable) like sh!t.
Why Seminole, since when did you become a socialist?
Dubai is merely still in the early days of being a capitalist society, having only industrialised and developed into one about 40 years ago.
Back in the mid 1800s when Britain & America's capitalism was of a similar age, workers lacked rights in almost equal measure. Workers rights can take about 150 years from the implementation of industrial capitalism within a society to evolve.
Just give Dubai the same amount of time to develop equitable treatment for workers that fully developed capitalist societies have had themselves and it will take place in its own due time.
A capitalist doesn't have to treat his workers like pigs. Don't pretend to be at the forefront of technology and society if you want to compare your workers' rights to those of the 1800's. Do they use steam engines to power these skyscrapers?
The industrial revolution has come and gone, you can't claim 19th century ignorance when you want to be a 21st century civilization.
^^ besides nodding their heads when European and American designers showed them the buildings, these emirates have done nothing else....
It was European/American designers and South Asian laborers which build these buildings
So what? The building is in the Emirates and not in Europe/America or South Asia.
It was European/American designers and South Asian laborers which build these buildings
Going by this logic, the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center (massive skyscrapers) in Chicago, should be termed as products of Bangladeshi engineering, since the chief engineer in charge (Fazlur Khan) is Bangladeshi.
Going by this logic, the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center (massive skyscrapers) in Chicago, should be termed as products of Bangladeshi engineering, since the chief engineer in charge (Fazlur Khan) is Bangladeshi.
He came to the United States in 1952 on a Fulbright and a Pakistani government scholarship and ended up grabbing tow master degress in three years and followed that up with a Phd. So when he came to the U.S he came as a Pakistani not a Bangladeshi.
God! You say you live in Dubai? Have you ever met someone who built the gleeing towers you hold so dear?
These are not islamic tents as you invision them. They are slum homes of the many Pakistanis and Indians who live in dire poverty sacrificing their bodies and lives so Arabs can have their vanity and eat it too.
Dubai's decision to prop up sky scrappers is not an easy task for a people who roamed the desert on camel and donkey fifty years ago. It's not brilliance that fuels their quest to hire british designers and pakistani labourers - but desperation. Dubai recognizes how screwed it will be in the future. As a result, it's capital rich but knowledge poor elites pump European pockets and exploit Asian asses to secure Dubai's role as the tourist central of the world. You sure seem proud of that.
Damn straight Dubai recognizes how screwed it will be in the future.
but atleast its doing something about it. Can we say the same for Pakistan? Or is that nation doomed to ****dom? Forget India, even Bangladesh is surpassing Pakistan in ending corruption, increasing education, and improving economy without foreign aid (like America's war for aid program towards Pakistan).
I am proud of that. Cover it up in crude language, or beautiful prose, but its being done. They are securing and improving the lives of their citizens and their future.
Oh, im curious as to how Pakistan treats its laborers? If the laborers so no opportunity in Dubai, than why did it choose to move here?
The Arabs lack a concept of hard work. They find manual labor something that ruins a mans honor, and we all know how much this matters to arabs (minus the Arabs of Egypt, N Africa, and Ash-Shaam).