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!

Never been to Dubai. But expat friends of ours have just found out that their next posting is Dubai. In my friends words "who wants to live in a place where the British lower middle class descend to experience having wealth and class?"

I live in Dubai. I love the place. I don't understand why people that have never visited feel the need to slate it so much.

Young boys do not ride camels as one poster said they use robots now as it was deemed too unsafe for humans to do it. The place and the rights of the workers has changed massively.

Once upon a time the migrant workers lived 12 to a hot tin box with no air con. Now they have to have a/c as a minimum. Still not paradise for them but a damn sight better than it was.

In the UK if you find yourself homeless you can't get a job to support yourself, there is a huge drugs problem, a legal system that simply does not work, child abuse, illegal workers being kept in hideous conditions... Need I carry on?

No place in the world is perfect, the UK included. I'd love it if someone could enlighten me as to where they go on holiday that is perfect.

You do not get put in prison for being raped. I really wish people would do their research. The case that is being referred to is one where a female got drunk and was raped. She did not have an alcohol licence so she was put in prison for being drunk without a licence. For 24 hours. Her attacker was brought to justice far quicker than he would have been in the uk. Within weeks he was behind bars and will serve a very hefty sentence. Dare I ask how many months years he'd serve in the UK?

DeepPurple, the ban on child jockeys was only introduced in the mid 2000s because UNICEF kicked up such a stink that the UAE powers that be were afraid it would damage tourism.

Not some kind of moral awakening on behalf of the authorities, who would otherwise have happily continued trafficking in Pakistani three year olds and forcing them to live in horrific conditions, often sexually abused and half starved by their trainers.

The boys who were 'liberated' by the introduction of the robot jockeys were supposed to have been repatriated and compensated, but large numbers went unaccounted for, and were never returned home. I came across suggestions of mass graves in the desert, and rumours of child jockeys still being used at more obscure tracks, only who was going to break that story - a censored press? A police force where all the high up positions are in the gift of the royal family?

I doubt you are actually congratulating the UAE on the demise of the child jockey...?

I also take comfort in the fact that there is very little crime. If a drink driver injures someone they will get a very severe prison sentence, not the rap on the knuckles that you would in the UK. There is barely any violence - the violence that occurs is usually from British tourists.

There are no drugs. Again, the penalty is very severe.

Women do not get stoned and do not get treated badly. In fact, any official building has separate queues for woman and separate waiting areas. They get served first.

There are rules that seem very outdated but are there as respect for the culture. No kissing and cuddling in public for example. Easy enough not to do though right? Cover shoulders and knees in public. Everywhere is air conditioned so it actually gets a little cold.

Maids that have worked here for many years tend to own several properties in their home country. Sure, there are plenty that are mistreated but most are treated well by their sponsor families.

I'm not congratulating anyone Larry. Just stating the fact that it doesn't happen anymore. People trot that out at every opportunity and it is simply not true now.

Deep, there are many, many documented cases of women imprisoned for 'extramarital sexual activity' when they have been raped. The Norwegian woman who was 'pardoned' recently got a longer sentence than her rapist.

The crime statistics depend on what counts as a crime. Yes, there are far fewer burglaries/property crimes because the underclass is kept out in labour camps in the desert. There are huge numbers of largely unreported crimes of domestic violence against maids, not protected by labour law, by their employers. This is just a much a 'crime', it just happens not to concern you.

And you are being naive indeed about the drink driving issue. In virtually any circumstances, an Emirati driver will get off lightly, no matter what he or she has done. I knew of endless instances where an Emiratibdriver was clearly at fault, but the witnesses vanished, the CCTV mysteriously got wiped, the foreign driver was told no such car number existed, even though police at the scene logged it.

CuChullain - calm down dear... ;-)

I did not say that I loved Dubai - I said that it had problems but that imo it is better to try to change things as a resident and from an informed viewpoint rather than make snippy remarks from a safe distance. I actually do think that the tax status of ex pats gets people's backs up, based purely on reactions of friends and former colleagues, which is what the OP was asking.

Irrespective of your views or those of anyone else on this thread, Dubai and the UAE as a whole is booming, and that state of affairs will continue. I believe it is possible to live here and be a responsible citizen, for the reasons explained in my previous post. It's a shame that not everyone does this.

Like it or not, the future is in the East - there are much better ways to influence and shape the way the region develops - hopefully into a more liberal and tolerant society - than simply sticking one's nose in the air.

Women do not get stoned and do not get treated badly. In fact, any official building has separate queues for woman and separate waiting areas. They get served first.

If you can't see why that's treating women badly

Lady Lancaster - we are talking about the UAE, right? If it was Saudi, you might have a point. Women are not stoned here, can drive, own property etc. As someone said upthread, we are given preferential treatment in queues etc. But thank you for illustrating my earlier point about people's lack of understanding so perfectly :-)

In the workplace, I have seen fewer examples of egregious sexism here than I did in the City. Sorry if that does not conform to your world view.

Wilson - how is it treating women badly? Muslim women do not like to wait with men when they are unaccompanied so they have a separate area. They are served first so they aren't kept waiting. I'd say it was unfair on men rather than women!

Deep - I totally agree. Many of these responses do not take into account the different culture of the Middle East and the role that women play here. Most Emirati women I know would tell me exactly where to get off if I suggested they were somehow oppressed or subjagated by men. Why assume that our culture is "better"? It's their country!

It is patronising and othering, and the whole "served first" thing smacks of women being shunted out of the way as quickly as possible.

Someone on another forum once described Dubai as being "the Trafford Centre with sand dunes". That's really stuck with me. One of my oldest friends went to live there with her stuck-up abusive wanker of a husband, and since she's become a card-carrying stereotypical ex-pat and a full-time cheerleader for her adopted dictatorship. She is now openly racist and has this irritating habit of talking about things like Harvey Nichols shops and jazz festivals as if they are some special, wonderful thing only available in Dubai, when you can get all that in Manchester.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/10188514/Videomaker-arrested-after-filming-UAE-official-beating-driver.html

This is a classic Dubai case, which happened recently. An Asian van driver knocked his vehicle into the car of an Emirati senior official. It doesn't seem to have been serious in that no one was hurt, and neither vehicle was badly damaged. The Emirati punched and hit the Asian driver repeatedly at the scene, and was filmed doing so by a bystander, also Asian.

Only after the video went viral did the police trace the Emirati and charge him with assault. He will almost certainly pay a small fine, period. But - this is the good part - the bystander who filmed the evidence of the assault? He's facing two and a half years in jail for 'invading the official's privacy' and defamation.

Yes, that case is disgraceful (although I am not sure that the van driver's ethnicity makes a difference?) I don't think the consequences for the Emirati are clear, as yet, but I doubt he will escape with only a fine. There are strict rules concerning privacy here - filming someone without permission is treated very seriously. In this instance, we might think that the end justifies the means, but the laws under which the passer by is being punished have not simply been plucked out of thin air.

Young - that's exactly it. I don't think any Arab women you would meet here feel that they are some sub class. They would be offended at the suggestion!

TheSmall - you can see it as trying to get rid of women first or that they are not expected to be kept waiting. It's the latter. Before Dubai found oil, women were seen as the backbone of the family. They held the family together whilst the men went off pearl diving for months on end. They are very well respected within their families and they are looked after. Yes, they do have little say in money matters or who they marry but that is typical of the Muslim culture the whole world over.

As a woman who is sponsored by my husband, I need his permission to get a driving licence. However, if it was me that had got a job and he hadn't then I would be his sponsor and I would have to give my permission for him to have a licence. It's not a man/woman thing but a sponsorship thing. I think this is often misunderstood.

Some expats here are very shallow and are here for the money and the shopping. Some are just normal folk who happen to live/work here. Same as there are superficial people in the UK.

Lady - speaking as an ex UK Police officer, I think you will find that a vast proportion of women the whole world over wouldn't report rape. Especially inter marital rape.

A typical British woman will be assaulted 27 times by her partner before reporting it for the first time.

Yay for British women!

Yawn, here we go again.... Nobody was imprisoned for being raped. The law requires anyone consuming alcohol to be in possession of a licence. The woman in question did not have a licence, therefore she broke the law. Don't fancy an Emirati prison? Don't break the law. Especially by getting as blotto as this woman seems to have been.

FWIW I don't agree with the law, nor would I condone the introduction of a law to this effect in a country of which I was a citizen, but (lather, rinse, repeat) it's their country and whilst we can (and should) try to positively influence and foster the creation of more liberal rules, it is not our place to tell them they are uncivilised and barabaric, which seems to be the undercurrent of a lot of the posts here.

Bollocks to being "the backbone of the family". That's not rights, it's just massive responsibilities disguised as respect and esteem. Without financial independence and autonomy in personal relationships, it doesn't add up to much. Not really.

I wouldn't go to a place where if I was raped I would be arrested.

The only thing I can liken this thread to is people who are vegetarian on principle but who think it is perfectly acceptable to buy leather shoes etc.

Dubai might not be perfect but trying to justify not going there but going to countries like Sri-Lanka as ok because they are poor is bollocks.

Fair enough, if you only want to travel to country's with impeccable human rights records (although I fear your travelling options will be somewhat limited) but it is the height of hypocrisy to issue santinmonious comments whilst consuming goods from and travelling to other countries where people are treated in a less than ideal manner.

Young, the Norwegian woman was given 16 months for extramarital sex, perjury and drinking alcohol without a licence (the way that virtually every tourist in a Dubai hotel does but to which the authorities turn a blind eye unless its a matter of trying to smear a rape victim).

The perjury charge was after she claimed her statement (which she said was in Arabic and which she was coerced into signing without an adequate translation) was not what she had actually said.

And yes, I think the ethnicity of the three men in the video assault case is the crux of the case. I will eat my hat if the Emirati goes to prison.

Well said Bear.