Friday, November 21, 2008

The Dubai desert dream: it's not all fireworks and Kylie By John Arlidge

Thursday night's £15m launch party of Dubai's latest resort, The Atlantis, on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island in the Gulf, is enough to make recession-weary, sun-deprived Brits want to pack their bags and head for the United Arab Emirates. But despite the spectacular launch, complete with a million fireworks and a guest list that included Kylie Minogue, Dame Shirley Bassey, Robert De Niro, Janet Jackson, Denzel Washington and Lindsay Lohan, life for ordinary expats is not quite so glamourous. Indeed, the attitude towards the ex-pat population borders on derisory.

Eighty per cent of Dubai's population is made up of expatriates, including Europeans, Australians, South Africans and Americans, but the majority comprises labourers from Asia.
Brits living and working in Dubai number 100,000. Foreigners - rich or poor - are all classified as"guest workers" and, as such, enjoy few freedoms and little protection.
There is no parliament where they can make their voice heard, no political parties, no elections, no free trade unions, no minimum wage, no charter of human rights, no right to trial by jury, little consumer protection and no free press. Thursday night's £15m launch party of Dubai's latest resort, The Atlantis, on the man-made Palm Jumeirah island in the Gulf

"This is a feudal society," complains one local."Sheikh Mo," he says, referring to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, leader of Dubai's autocratic government, "is the lord of the manor and everyone else is a peasant of sorts." Dubai has got away with mixing the medieval and the modern by playing its trump card: cash. By paying westerners fat tax-free salaries, it knows that however much they might whinge in private, they will not rock the boat.
The problem for Sheikh Mohammed is, the bribe is no longer working. Dubai is getting very, very expensive and wages are failing to keep pace with inflation.

Its currency, the dirham, is pegged to the dollar. As the greenback has weakened, so has the dirham, making imports more expensive and forcing up prices. advertisement
Officially, inflation is around elevent per cent but locals say the real figure is double that. When it comes to rent and property prices, they say, the rate exceeds 30 per cent - if, that is, you can find anywhere to live at all. The price rises have sparked riots by construction workers, which have delayed major residential projects. Chuck in chronic traffic congestion, worsening pollution, limited cultural attractions, complaints about the poor build quality of the homes that have been built, and rising crime - notably the shocking rape of a young French boy by three two men, which, critics claims, local police tried to cover up - and many argue that Dubai has gone from being an adult playground to a congested, polluted, soul-less, risky place.
Leslie Davies, who left her IT job in Maidstone two years ago to join her boyfriend, Jason, a personal trainer, is fed up with the daily grind.

"When I first arrived Dubai felt so easy. Things worked. It was cheap. Now it's like: ‘Whoops, I swallowed your salary!' And, oh, check under your car in the morning, why don't you?" she adds, referring to the first heightened terror alerts in the UAE earlier in the year which sent a chill through Dubai's expat community. The white tribe of Arabia abandoned England for Blingland in search of sun and tax-free fun. Terrorism wasn't part of the deal. Nevertheless, to some, the reaction of the likes of Davies is laughable.

One local resident says:"Did she never stop and think that she's in the Middle East, not Happy Valley?" He has a point. Dubai has some decidedly iffy neighbours and has suffered terror attacks before - notably a petrol bomb attack on a western hotel. The money and men behind the 9/11 attacks in New York passed through Dubai. "When terrorists need a place to meet, they head to Dubai," US News and World Report noted recently. John Cassara, author of Hide and Seek, a book on the financing of terrorism, says: "All roads led to Dubai."

For those who have decided to make Dubai their home, they can at least enjoy a a remarkably tolerant attitude towards westerners from their Muslim leaders.
Christians can build their own churches and worship freely, alcohol is available, women can dress how they wish and do any job, foreigners can own freehold property, prostitution is tolerated and, while homosexuality is not, ‘Brokeback Mountain' is available to rent in Blockbuster.
As Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, boss of Emirates airline and uncle of Sheikh Mohammed, likes to say: "We are half-way between East and West."

But at the back of their minds, skilled foreigners have always had a nagging doubt that Dubai tolerates them as a necessary, temporary evil - it needs western expertise to fuel its growth - but, in fact, values them little more than the construction workers who build skyscrapers and earn as little as $10 a day. The sense of unease grew recently when one local official questioned the number of foreigners moving to Dubai, saying:"I'm afraid we are building towers but losing the Emirates."

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