To think that people who admire Dubai's low crime rate often miss the fact that it's partly due to nearly 90% of the population being temporary workers?

[Carla786]

Some people might remember a week or so ago on AIBU there was a thread about whether the OP should move to Dubai. Many posts praised the low crime rate & compared it favourably to UK.

I was critical of this for several reasons. Checking facts later, I realised that nearly 90% of Dubai residents are Expat workers or migrants who've held in a restrictive system (the kafala system has been strongly criticised for being essentially indentured servitude, and there have been reforms but it still seems concerning).

It's unsurprising crime, especially violent crime, would be low when most people are either temporary expats or people who've likewise been sourced specifically to come and work (and are held in a punitive system), and whose families often depend on the remittances they're sending back.

Obviously the harsh criminal code in Dubai (though there have again been some recent reforms) plays a role, but the population makeup alone makes comments on Dubai's superior morality/crime control etc very questionable.

I myself think policing and crime need serious reforms in the UK but people comparing it to Dubai favourably are comparing apples to authoritarian oranges.

Getting cheap domestic help is not a measure of how happy a country is.

Why do you think the two are in anyway correlated?

Is this to me?

We lived there. I was freelancing, but DH earned a lot. We had a glamorous apartment, a driver and domestic help. It was absolutely awful. The climate is awful, the environmental cost of aircon and water desalination alone is scandalous and the token efforts to change it are pure greenwashing, the press is heavily censored, the cheap domestic help is at the cost of significant exploitation, it’s a superficially Western-friendly dictatorship which increasingly oppresses even its own citizens who toe the line, and Sheikh Mohammed is a thoroughly dangerous man.

We left.

OP.

To OP.

No I think it is purely down to the fact that Western people cannot handle a Middle Eastern country being safer, more prosperous and better to live in than their ‘precious’ Europe or America. It really hurts their superiority complex to see minorities surpass them.

I know some (white) people who lived in apartheid South Africa and they also had an absolute ball. Of course it's lovely being the privileged group in a society built on discrimination and exploitation of other people, as long as you can live with yourself.

I find it disgusting you are comparing a prosperous and civilised nation like Dubai to a backward, colonial failed entity like South Africa. That is literally disgusting and you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

So are you saying that high levels of immigration actually lead to less crime? You should let Reform voters know this

@Holluschickie well I must admit when we lived in Copenhagen there was no cheap domestic help there ( although formal childcare settings were reasonable) but it frequently wins one of the happiest places to live and yep lifestyle very good ‘if’ you can afford it . Same is true in Dubai - my friends H went out to work and envisaged saving an awful lot due to the tax situation - it didn’t work out that way, they spent an awful lot keeping up with the joneses and whilst they quite enjoyed it short term realised they were no better off overall, as were not on a high benefits ex pat package - schools were pricey, rents high, healthcare not cheap , food not cheap ( or that good) which kind of took away the benefits of zero tax . It’s clear if people are paying next to no tax then one way or another virtually everything else will be loaded up cost wise, same true in Switzerland, Singapore etc -

I guess it is if you don't think of the 'domestic help' as actual people whose happiness counts. Which appears to be the view of people who think that it's lovely to live in Dubai because you can have live-in servants for a pittance.

The whole place is fake. Total hell hole. I wouldn’t go there if you paid me.

I am not Western by origin, and as I say, spent many years in one of the Gulf states, not dissimilar to Dubai. There was a very clear hierarchy, even among higher earners.
Local people
White people
Anyone else.
Obviously those at the top of ladder were happy.

I live in a Gulf country and have been here for 12yrs now and I can tell you for an absolute fact everyone rubs along very nicely here no matter their skin colour.

Why should white people be at the top of the hierarchy in a middle eastern country? Do you realise how racist that sounds? Good on them for prioritising their own people over rich white folks who want to emigrate and live in communities wholly separate from everyone else.

You have missed the point. But I am not surprised. I am not saying white people should be at the top.
I am not white.

They’re not being racist, they’re explaining how the system actually works.

They’re right in pointing out that there is a cultural hierarchy. They’re not saying that white people should be at the top, only that, in practice, they often are. The same kind of hierarchy exists in Dubai: locals receive the main benefits and priorities, which makes sense, but there’s still a clear ranking where white people often sit at the top. You try and shoot someone down by labelling them a racist instead of taking a moment to understand the point being made.

I think it's fair to say that that poster isn't exactly trying to open their mind to understand criticism of UAE...

As someone who lived in the area for 13 years (Abu Dhabi and (mostly) Oman) I’d say you can’t possibly compare such things as crime rates.

A civil engineer friend of ours (in Oman) was once arrested and locked up for a couple of nights, because the local police thought he was taking too long to get certain road works finished!

(Though TBH I’ve often thought that wouldn’t be a bad idea in the U.K…).

In general Oman was a very expat-friendly country, though - as long as you knew what was expected and conformed to (perfectly reasonable) local expectations. We thoroughly enjoyed our many years there.

I think you’ve misunderstood that poster’s point, which is that the people at or near the top of the hierarchy will be happy. Though increasing numbers of Emiratis pushing for democracy are being harassed, imprisoned or having their passports confiscated. And don’t forget that two of Sheikh Mohammed’s daughters are under house arrest somewhere in one of his many properties, despite overseas public outcry, and that his former junior wife, despite being a Jordanian royal, lives in fear of her life of him in the UK, and the UK high court ruled that her children were at significant threat of abduction by their father.

The UAE is also a former ‘colonial entity’ — it was Portuguese- and Dutch-controlled, before Britain took over, and the Trucial States were a British protectorate until the invention of the UAE in 1971. Whether you’d see it as a ‘backward, colonial failed entity’ probably depends on your idea of what ‘success’ looks like.

The United Arab Emirates are their own thing, completely self determining and showing the west up in every way. It’s a marvellous place, a true vision of what multiculturalism is capable of, so I am not surprised that some (possibly Russian backed?) detractors are wholly invested in smearing the place with completely unfounded accusations.

So odd. Why would I be a Russian backed detractor? Anyway MN can confirm I have been on this site for some 20 years, albeit under different names.

We will have to civilly agree to disagree that Dubai is a haven for multuculturism. Not while they are still using indentured labour to build their posh palaces.

And as I said, many countries are far worse than Dubai, which is why migrants flock there to support their families. But those countries are not held up as ' marvellous places'.

At least in Britain the minorities aren't near enough enslaved and are treated the same as citizens.