Dubai/UAE - where did you think you were?

[WhyamIinahandcartandwherearewegoing]

I’ll preface this by saying I wish the best for anyone out there, working or holidaying. I hope you are and remain safe.

but do people go there with next to no concern for where in the world it’s located? Do they pay no attention to news or the general geopolitical situation, it’s hnot exactly a secret.

are we really that dense that most people don’t look past the bling, the weather, the tax perks, the bloody influencers?

What 'white western superiority'?

I wouldnt set foot in America either due the human rights issues.

What point do you think you are making, if at all.

Even IF the penalty for holding hands was death…that’s another country and their sovereignty and if you respect THEIR law and culture, you’re going to be fine. What kind of bizarre hubris makes someone think “ewwww don’t agree with these laws! Not going to conform! Idiots!”

I haven’t the energy to get nuanced so expect to be picked apart and blah blah blah, but on the “legalisation” of rape…do you know how shit rape conviction rates in this country are? What’s the actual difference?!

I’m not sure most (UK) people on here think current US is a good example? But also, it’s not a race to the bottom. We should highlight abusive attitudes to women everywhere, surely?

I perhaps over prepare, I have over 20 pages of notes so far for this summers holiday

I don’t go on holiday unless I have an extraction plan worked out & an extraction team on standby.

Loads of people visit the DPRK, but I guess their tourism is seen as high brow and we just like to sneer at the lowbrow influencer destinations?

Dubai is usually deemed safe from war breaking out, no matter how close to Iran, we still holiday in Europe despite Ukraine. Turkey and Cyprus close to Syria.

Hard agree with this post. So many think the moral superiority of countries is so binary.

People live there, it’s not about influencers, tax dodges, bling or the sunny climate for goodness sake - some people were born there.

Well, I think the fact that 92% of the population are expats speaks for itself.

Your post (and the one you quote) makes no sense given this thread isnt about how great America is in comparison to UAE.

In fact America wasnt even mentioned until that poster mentioned it.

You mean immigrants

I don't like the people who boast about moving to Dubai to escape tax (this isn't all the people over there). And Dubai/the UAE does have some pretty bad human rights violations that are worth criticising on their own terms. And their own role in destabilising and probably finding a genocide in Sudan.

But Dubai/the UAE isn't actually responsible for what's happening right now with Iran. It's not because of their human rights violations or karma. It's because of regional instability being caused by a man in a country well out of reach of Iran's ballistic missiles. So it feels very unfair to finger wag Dubai or people living there for not realising America was going to start shit and avoiding a whole region. You could make the same charge at British people moving to Scandinavia the way Trump is ramping up the rhetoric re Greenland. Or British people moving to Poland/Lithuania the way Russia is acting.

Also while America is out of range of Iran's missiles the UK isn't. One very good reason (other than the fact that it's illegal/immoral and crazy) for the UK not to get involved in the shitshow/let the US launch attacks from UK airbases is we would then be at risk of having ballistic missiles fired at us. So its not really fair to criticise UK people in the Middle East for not realising they could be affected by instability there. We all could be. It's a small world, no where is completely safe and the reason we can think of the ME as being less safe than elsewhere is partly a result of our own/American meddling.

Well, this is Chat…so we’re chatting…about how the OP and PPs made conversation on doing due diligence before moving to a country, moral standards and so on.

I think you’ve missed my point. I very much doubt 92% in the UAE are ex pats. As I said, Dubai is just a city.

If you read my post what I said was My DH comes from Dubai, it’s just a city within the UAE. He was born in the UAE I never said he was born in Dubai.

I agree about the moral issues with Dubai
But the posts on this thread almost seem to conflate moral standing with safety and that not how it works. A country could be really lovely and have really good civil rights and get bombed. Or be constantly causing trouble but be safe. It feels a bit like "they deserve it for having poor human rights" but that's not how it works. Plus those same mistreated maids and builders are also probably worrying about the missiles flying overhead.

What's that got to do with mostly British women (not all of whom are white) being concerned about women's rights in Dubai? I'm not American, although I'm white, and I'm bloody horrified by what's going on in the USA as well. We've banned anyone under 18 from getting married and decriminalised abortion here.

Oh come on OP. The 'Middle East' is not one generic place. 20 years ago you could have had a very safe, lovely holiday in most countries in the ME. In fact when London was suffering riots people I know who are based in the ME were terrified about how unsafe the UK is. The Gulf states are very safe places to be traditionally in terms of war. As PPs have pointed out crime is also very low. The idea that anyone could have predicted say a year ago Trump would be attacking Iran right now is nonsense- of course it was a possibility but never thought to be a realistic one. Also in case you haven't noticed the UK itself is under attack along with many European countries by the Russians, albeit not through traditional methods. You need to wake up if you think the UK is a perfectly safe place to be sitting.

I completely agree

With all respect, I don't think the 'women only 'carriage ' is for women's safety. More to.do with the culture there.

I can’t see the attacks in Dubai as predictable or as payback for their appalling human rights record or their influence on other horrific conflicts. The uncomfortable truth is that there have been and will be unpredictable clusters of instability and consequence that last for decades, as a result of current policies. So much of the current situation in the ME is connected to previous American choices. Much of what is yet to come will only be obvious once it has happened.

The holiday issue is pretty separate though, and while desperately uncool, there are plenty who exclude all destinations that represent worse human rights than we have. I wouldn’t ever holiday in so many places including Dubai, India, China, the aforementioned DPRK, Turkey, Maldives etc. people get really sneery because it’s so easy to pick apart ethical choices and there are very few who have exemplary ethical lives in all areas but holidays are actually a pretty easy target for ethical choices.

Wikipedia calls them expats!

@Loopo out of interest - sorry to sivert the thread - why is the Maldives on your banned list? Environmental reasons?

You know it's a desert right?

So?
They are immigrants.

@persephonia

Also while America is out of range of Iran's missiles the UK isn't.

Yes it is.

somanychristmaslights · Today 19:42
How far do you go then? Plenty of people go to Turkey and that’s next to Syria, Egypt is next to Israel. Canada is next to America. The list goes on and on

Indeed. South Korea is next to North Korea; Romania, Slovakia, Hungary & Poland are next to Ukraine; Kenya is next to Somalia.
It’s odd that posters are crowing that anyone choosing Dubai for a holiday should’ve known it would be dangerous