I remember being collected from the airport and within minutes speeding through the glittering nighttime streets of the Middle East's supposed Shangra-La. Amongst the giant buildings on either side of me, I thought this was unlike anything I had seen before.
Dubai is indeed unlike any other city on the planet. The breathtaking architecture, the incredible wealth and the wonderful diversity of people living there overwhelm any visitor. Posh clubs and five-star restaurants are just the beginning. The world's tallest building, the world's only seven-star hotel, the world's largest indoor ski resort and more. Then there's the fact that the government levies no income tax. No wonder Westerners have flocked there to set up shop. For awhile it seemed like Dubai had the perfect model for business and like it was the leading contender for the world's banking and financial center.
That was then. This is now. I began hearing stories from friends living in the region of Westerners whose fortunes had been lost in the economic collapse, driving to the airport in their Ferraris, buying one-way tickets back home, leaving everything behind forever. You could go to the parking lot of Dubai's airport and see hundreds of Italian and German sports cars abandoned there because their owners' desperation to leave the city. See, there is no bankruptcy law in Dubai, so when you are unable to "pay-up," there exists no process by which one can remedy the situation. Instead you go to jail. Besides not wanting to go to jail in Dubai (not a nice place as it were), there is no reason to stay in place where the cash flow has dried up.
But Dubai's financial woes are common knowledge. The Independent published an article today by Johann Hari that brought to light something I have been talking about for a long time. See, after my night out in Dubai, the light of day revealed what Sheikh Mohammed probably doesn't care for anyone to know. Here's what Hari says,
If you go there with your eyes open – as I did earlier this year – the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.
It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.
In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.
They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.
What Hari is describing is the classic debt trap. Trapping these people and making them invisible is all by design. Human Rights Watch calls it slavery and so would I. And it is slavery on a very large scale. Only 15% of the population in Dubai are native Emirates. Some are foreign businessmen and women. But the vast majority are poor immigrants who left their home country for something better and found something much worse.
Hari mentioned that embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the Indians alone. What he doesn't mention is the astronomical suicide rate among these slave laborers, literally working all hours of the day and night. I have witnessed poor Sikhs from northern India working on the Burj Dubai at 3am, who told me the same thing: they were all there for their families. It is likely they will never see them again.
In the words of an old professor of mine, "Dubai was built on the backs of slave labor, and no one pays attention." The wonders of Dubai can distract you from the slaves in distinctive blue jumpsuits. But like with anything bright and shiny, the luster wears off eventually. And right now, Dubai is looking pretty shabby.
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