To not get why people hate Dubai so much?

[Cutitup]

What is there to hate?

I think it's a great place to have a holiday. Great restaurants, great service, fab shopping and spa treatments.

I do understand the problems of domestic and construction staff being exploited but this is not a problem unique to Dubai. I just don't get the vitriol, the 'it has no culture' etc.. I say get out of the bitter farm and play with the hay!

What about Singapore? Built on migrant workers like Dubai and maids often treated badly. Anyone been there?

Bear, not everyone has to like Dubai.

There have been many posts detailing why people don't like Dubai.

Not liking Dubai does not make one a hypocrite, jealous or a racist.

It is ok for people to have different views to yours. I am that your need for validation of your choice is leading you see those of a different viewpoint as wrong.

I have been to singapore and had the offer to live there a few years ago

all the trappings some (not all) ex pats love, housemaids, nanny, great shopping, spas etc it is not the life i want i just does not appeal

i was not keen on singapore but it is more diverse than Dubai though i agree it has a bad record for treating migrant workers badly but it is not purely built on that

Tasmania It is normal for many countries that actively try to attract expats for one reason or another (e.g. they don't have enough qualified people themselves, and people would not necessarily want to move there without compensation) to make do with someone who would not have been good enough in their country of origin

Agreed. Tends to happen when you exclude 50% of human beings in your country from the employment market.

Would I be able to hire a car and go for a little drive, exploring the area, if I went to Dubai?

Would I be able to go out running on my own without wrapping up as if for winter?

If not, it sounds worse than not being on holiday, and I won't go. I can get good restaurants and spa treatments anywhere.

One thing you can do in Dubai is watch top class horse racing. Unfortunatley, connections to the Saudi Royal Family have become tainted by recent massive drugs abuse in racehorses, and threatened to withdraw their "support" of British racing in retaliation. I can't support that either.

I can therefore see no reason to visit Dubai.

dione I have never said everyone has to like Dubai and I do not require validation for my choices at all. I have visited Dubai frequently and will continue to do so.

Please can you point out anywhere where I have said other people's opinion is wrong?

I am asking why some people find it so necessary to slate it without offering a reason why other places are not singled out in such a fashion.

The only answer seems to be that Dubai is rich, therefore by definition that must mean poor countries can behave as they please because they can't afford to do otherwise and that is not an opinion I agree with.

I agree with LesMissAbs.

Almost everything that Dubai prides itself on is available in other places (shopping, spas, indoor ski resorts, horse racing, restaurants) with better human rights records. If I wanted to go to historic mosques and bazaars, I would visit Istanbul.

For the record, I don't like the sound of Singapore either, or Bahrain.

I don't holiday anywhere that makes me uncomfortable because of human rights infringements that are impossible to legally challenge. I stick to countries that show attempts to legislate according to principles of equality and that tolerate protest and challenge.

Dubai like others fails on all counts.

Dubai has made enormous progress in the welfare of its workers. When he was first there, my father was shocked by an incident on his site. A truck full of labourers arrived, and they were getting out of the truck rather too slowly for the liking of the resident engineer. So this resident engineer climbed into the cab - it was a tipper truck - and raised the back, so that they were all tipped out onto the ground.

In the old days labourers were transported standing up in the back of open top trucks. Now by law it is not allowed to ferry them around in this way - they have to have seating and a roof. But there is still an awfully long way to go. Outside their villa a year or two ago, my father saw some labourers employed by the municipal government no less. They were digging a trench in the sand to put pipes in, and, had the trench collapsed, they would have suffocated. My father called the municipality and insisted that escape ladders were put in.

I have to agree that there isn't much culture there. Somebody has mentioned the concerts and art exhibitions that take place. How many of these are exhibitions of local work? How many Emiratis attend them?

In fact, the Emirates is doing its best to erase much of the memory of what life used to be like. Look at photos from the time, and you will see that the majority of people wore loincloths, rather than the white robes that many locals now wear, and they didn't live in nice Arab towns in the shape of the Madinat shopping center, they just eeeked out a rather miserable existence.

*Agreed. Tends to happen when you exclude 50% of human beings in your country from the employment market.

Would I be able to hire a car and go for a little drive, exploring the area, if I went to Dubai?

Would I be able to go out running on my own without wrapping up as if for winter?*

Lots of local women work in Dubai - the Government is trying very hard to get more women into the workforce. The obstacles come from husbands / brothers / fathers, rather than from officialdom, but things are changing for the better.

And you would be able to do both of those things in Dubai - the very thought that you couldn't is ridiculous. Perhaps not in Saudi.

Nonsense Bear. What you are indulging in on this thread is spectacular Whataboutery, as opposed to rational argument. Places are slated all the time. The OP asked a question about Dubai. People gave their answers. No one has said that poor countries (or rich countries) can do what they please.

I find your insistence that people divulge personal, real life info on this thread very strange.

If you actually read the OPs posts you would see that her point, like mine, was about why it was singled out above all others.

I hardly think it is requesting deeply personal information to ask which countries a person lives in and travels to.

Do you have anything to add to the thread or have you just come to have a go at me?

It isn't singled out above others. As posters have said, they wouldn't be happy in Apartheid South Africa either.

Do you need to know where everyone who has disagreed with you lives/spends their holidays? Are only those who live and holiday in Nordic countries allowed to hate Dubai?

I am surprised that Dubai gets so much tourist trade - as far as I can see, everything that it has is available better elsewhere, although I love the restaurants.

It is a place where some expats can have a great life, even if the population explosion there is making it worse and worse. The time taken to get from say, Jumeirah to the other side of the creek gets longer every year. I dread to think what the traffic will be like in a few years.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike the place, although some of the ones on this thread are bollocks, like the thought that women can't go running without being wrapped up like the michelin man. I regularly see women running around Safa park in T-shirts and running shorts.

However, said running around Safa park is a good example of the greed and profiteering on the place. It used to be a pleasant job - around the outside of the park, not actually going into the park, just around it. Now they are introducing a toll system, to make people pay for their jog.

www.panarabiaenquirer.com/wordpress/dubai-safa-park-track-salik-toll-system/

I can virtually guarantee that a poster who said they were going to Dubai would get a far harder time than someone going to South Africa, Malaysia or Hong Kong.

Dubai is singled out, very few people on here have denied that.

Oh, and of course i don't need to know where everyone who disagrees with me goes on holiday but i do think it is rather pertinent when being criticised for my choice of holiday destination- surely you can see that?

Dubai is in the press more than many other Gulf countries, therefore people think about it more and are more likely to comment on it than worse but lower profile cases.

I don't remember the outcry against this for example ever reaching the levels of outcries against Dubai.

Granted, Saudi doesn't usually issue tourise visas, let alone market itself as a holiday destination, Mecca pilgrims aside, but I often wonder why there isn't more outrage against the goings on in Saudi Arabia.

I didn't realise that Dubai was hated so much. I do wonder at the virtiol, there are plently of places in the world that have less than perfect records.

I lived there from 1999-2005, worked as an IT consultant/engineer in a fairly male dominated industry, had my first son there, returned to work. It certainly is not perfect, but where is. If I can address some of the points made

1. The kissing in public thing is a not really true. I daresay there is some law about modesty, but I frequently kissed DH in public and almost always held his hand when we were out at night. Funnily enough, it i very common to see men holding hands, as a sign of friendship. Homosexuality is not looked on kindly, at least in theory. But there are gay club, as my visiting gay friend explored. TBH, it's like most things in Dubai, if you are a little discrete about it, they don't give a shit, but if you wave it in their faces they feel that they have to 'do' something. Same thing for sex outside marrage. We had a large number of friends who were co-habitating and it was not an issue. But they did not shout from the rooftops about it either. And they weren't all white either.

2. Confused by the being arrested for rape charge - appears to be a 'new' thing and certainly does not correspond with my experience/lknowledge and appears to be contested... I certainly would not condone, but I had never heard of it

3. The construction industry is far from perfect in it treament of workers. It did improve even in my time there and H&S improved too. There was a strike which was largely hushed up and which the police broke up, rather roughly I believe. While I do not condone this, I can't stand on my hobby horse after Thatcher's treatmen of the miners not so long ago. Additionally, the conditions for the construction workers in the UK were grim not so long ago, but McAlpine turned out to be a Lord. I think the point that the UAE is a new country is very relevant. That is not to say that bad treatment is ok or should be condoned, but let's not get all prissy, given our own history.

4. It is most certainly tacky in places. I worked on the original Dubai Marina plans which is pretty tame compared to the newer projects. But there are also ome lovely, tasteful places to go. And there is culture if you are minded to look for it. It's a lovely place for kids

5. You would have to be nuts to go in the summer.

6. My DH was often offfered work in Saudi and my job, by merit of being underwritten by UK Govt, meant that I was asked on many occasions to work in Saudi, even though as a woman engineer, it would not normally be allowed. All of which we refused, as I do believe that life in Saudi is grim. But I don't feel that I was selling my soul in Dubai, or that I was not respected. I earned more money than DH for a while, at least until I had my son and went back part time initially, but that's not limited to Dubai surely?

Anyway, bit of an essay here, but while not perfect, we enjoyed our time there. It is not equal, certainly not. But many of the people, from India, Sri Lanki etc were able to work and send money home to their families, earning more than they would have at home, which is exactly the reason we were there: to earn a bit more than we would have at home. And UK would deny entry to most of the people.

there are outcries about Saudi

how many people go to saudi unless it is for Hajj and a few working there

there is plenty of resentment against saudi from other arab countries is not often discussed on here unless it is in relation to the treatment of women, Dubai is as it is a popular holiday destination is

and Malaysia and Hong Kong and are different cultures to Dubai there are not filled with 5* hotels and exclusive apartments blocks for one set of people and for the other set cramped, dirty hovels

Most of my Brit colleagues who had been based in Riyahd made swift requests to be relocated to Dubai after snipers starting stalking the Western compounds ad a few westerers were shot, including one of our guys. Never made the papers either.

DH used to go on business and hated it.

If I had gone on a business trip to Saudi I would have had to say in a woman's hotel and not allowed to even sit in the lobby for a coffee, with or without my male collegues. Fuck that.

I do think that there is still a lot of confusion between the UAE and Saudi.

how many people go to saudi unless it is for Hajj and a few working there

Well, yes, I said exactly that. I made the point that there are almost no tourist visas issued.

But people are treated much worse there than in Dubai, yet the outrage is much lower. I often read on here things like "I won't set foot in Dubai", rather than "I won't set foot anywhere in the Gulf".

I appreciate that there isn't much that anyone here can do about Saudi. After all, the UK economy relies so heavily on selling them weapons. But I would like to see the problem discussed as pertaining to the Gulf as a whole, so that people who don't know much about the Middle East realise how widespread the problems of poor treatment of people are.

Same thing for sex outside marrage.

Considering that most nightclubs in Dubai are full to the brim with prostitutes, it really isn't the case that there is no sex outside marriage. I know several cohabiting unmarried couples there.

It's all very well getting all smug and self-righteous about the lack of culture, the lack of history etc, and the fact that they are building all these huge, fantastical, ostentatious monuments to excess by exploiting workers from poor countries and treating them not unlike slaves in mnay respects, but do you think we'd have St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey or indeed any of Europe's revered architectural triumphs if we hadn't done exactly the same thing a few hundred years ago?

Indeed. Do many people turn down the prospect of DisneyWorld and The Wonderful World of Harry Potter due to a moral stand against Florida's Death Penalty?

Actually, we are currently trying to resist the nagging from the kids but only because I don't want to endure the hell of Disney. Tempted by Harry right enough!

if saudi/oman/other golf countries countries were a popular holiday destination we would hear the same outcry

the fact is how likely is it that I or many others on here would get the opportunity to go there where we could and some do can go to Dubai anytime. and i guess soon abu dhabi where there are similar issues regarding migrant workers but it is becoming a popular destination

I don't think people hate Dubai that much. Most people in the UK, for instance, go about their daily life without even thinking about Dubai. Of course there are worse places to live.

It's just that taking into account the dodgy human rights record and the lack of reason to go there apart from shopping and bling*, many people aren't enthusiastic about the place when asked.

*Even on this thread, nobody has really come up with a good reason to be enthusiastic about Dubai, just suggested that other places are worse.

It's a bit like arguing for Southend by saying it's not as bad as Blackpool.

I do find it intriguing that the Dubai haters haven't actually said where their holiday destination of choice is- only where else they wouldn't go.