Australian Islamist Monitor

Behind the opulence and dizzying skyscrapers of Dubai, is an exploited army of migrant workers living in squalor. All around, a city of labour camps stretches out in the middle of the Arabian desert, a jumble of low, concrete barracks, corrugated iron, chicken-mesh walls, barbed wire, scrap metal, empty paint cans, rusted machinery and thousands of men with tired and gloomy faces.

 

A migrant worker gets a haircut at a labor camp in Dubai. Several years of protests, mostly over unpaid wages, peaked in March 2006, when hundreds of workers went on a rampage.

I have left Dubai's spiralling towers, man-made islands and mega-malls behind and driven through the desert into the heart of Mousafah, a ghetto-like neighbourhood of camps hidden away from the eyes of tourists. It is just one of many areas around the Gulf set aside for an army of labourers building the icons of architecture that are mushrooming all over the region.

Next to a heap of rubbish, a man holds a plate containing his meal: a few chillies, an onion and three tomatoes, to be fried with spices and eaten with a piece of bread.
In a neighbouring camp, a group of Pakistani workers from north and south Waziristan sit exhaustedly. In the middle of the cramped room in which 10 men sleep, one worker in a filthy robe sits on the floor grinding garlic and onions with a mortar and pestle while staring into the void.
Hamidullah, a thin Afghan,earns about 450 dirhams ($A184) a month as a construction worker.
How is life? I ask.
"What life? We have no life here. We are prisoners. We wake up at five, arrive to work at seven and are back at the camp at nine in the evening, day in and day out."
The dozen or so men sit on newspapers advertising luxury watches, mobile phones and high-rise towers. All are part of a huge scam that is helping the construction boom in the Gulf… they each paid more than 1000 ($A2559) to employment agents in India and Pakistan. They were promised double the wages they are actually getting, plus plane tickets to visit their families once a year, but none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.
"They lied to us," a worker with a long beard says. "They told us lies to bring us here. Some of us sold their land; others took big loans to come and work here."

Guest workers in a dormitory building, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Once they arrive in the United Arab Emirates, migrant workers are treated little better than cattle, with no access to health care and many other basic rights. The company that sponsors them holds on to their passports - and often a month or two of their wages to make sure that they keep working.

A group of construction engineers told me, with no apparent shame, that if a worker becomes too ill to work he will be sent home. "They are the cheapest commodity here. Steel, concrete, everything is up, but workers are the same."

In a way, the men at Mousafah are the lucky ones. Down in the Deira quarter of old Dubai, where many of the city's illegal workers live, 20 men are often crammed into one small room.

A couple of miles away, the slave market becomes more ugly. Outside a glitzy hotel, with a marble and glass facade, dozens of prostitutes congregate according to their ethnic groups: Asians to the right, next to them Africans, and, on the left, blondes from the former Soviet Union. There are some Arab women. Iranians, I am told, are in great demand. They charge much higher prices and are found only in luxury hotels.
Like the rest of the Gulf region, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are being built by expat workers. They are strictly segregated, and a hierarchy worthy of previous centuries prevails.
At the top, floating around in their black or white robes, are the locals with their oil money. Immaculate and pampered, they own everything.

Under the locals come the Western foreigners, the experts and advisers, making double the salaries they make back home, all tax free. Beneath them are the Arabs - Lebanese and Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians. What unites these groups is a mixture of pretension and racism.

Down at the base of the pyramid are the labourers, waiters, hotel employees and unskilled workers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, the Philippines and beyond. In the middle of the day, during the hottest hours, you can see them sleeping in public gardens under trees, or on the marble floors of the Dubai Mosque, on benches or pieces of cardboard on side streets.

These are the victims of the racism that is not only flourishing in the UAE but is increasingly being exported to the rest of the Middle East.

"We need slaves," my friend Ali, an Iraqi engineer, says. "We need slaves to build monuments. Look who built the pyramids - they were slaves."

On a sandy beach near the Dubai marina, a couple are paragliding over the blue sea; on the new islands, gigantic concrete structures stand like spaceships. As tourists laze on the beach, Filipino, Indian and Pakistani workers stand silently watching from a dune, cut off from the holidaymakers by an invisible wall. Behind them rise more brand-new towers. (source)

With top destination Emirates having a Viennese theme, there are no shortage of applicants wanting to do the invitation waltz with marquee organiser Judy Romano but not everyone gets to twirl. Romano cites her criteria: "Top-tier gold frequent-flyers in the Skywards club and celebrities that fly Emirates. And ones that are gracious, behave well and talk to other guests. Everyone is equal in Emirates." (source)

Increasingly, the Melbourne Cup seems more like a day for celebrities, models, sports stars and CEOs to be pampered and fawned over in the most lavish settings possible.
The Birdcage is like a burgeoning gated community. And like all gated communities, allows only a certain kind of person inside… several marquees are multi-storey, and one has four levels and features a curved bridge over water features. The exterior of this marquee is meant to bring to mind the Doge's Palace in Venice.

The airline Emirates reportedly spends $2 million on its marquee. This works out to about $2800 per guest.
The politics of envy is apparently a big no-no these days, so I'm sure the commentary of envy is frowned on too. But with the Birdcage culture growing more excessive by the year, it's time to call this what it is: obscene. The marquees, in playing games of one-upmanship, are indulging in an odious kind of extravagance porn. (source)

Theme Austria, one of the airline’s premier destinations
Visuals Walking into this marquee will be like walking the cobbled streets of Vienna. Part of the marquee will be an authentic Austrian kaffeehaus (cafe) complete with custom-made wallpapers and a grand piano played by pianists from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. There will be a sweeping staircase and chandelier. There will also be a cable-car bar. The facade will feature a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and the summer terrace will be inspired by Salzburg, with fresh wildflowers cascading over the balcony. ..the menu will be Austrian-inspired. ..beef goulash, beetroot and apple noodles with smoked trout, and decadent kaiserschmarren (emperor’s pancakes) with stewed plums. (source)

Despite some token cost-cutting, the Austrian-themed big top of Emirates will come alive with the sound of clinking and clicking when the first influx of celebrities gather for Derby Day on Saturday.

Emirates trimmed its budget from $1.25 million to $900,000, but it was hard to spot any signs of subdued extravagance with the baby grand piano, imported $20,000 Swarovski crystal chandelier and replica golden statue of Johann Strauss taking their places yesterday.

With truckloads of Moet and a small army of celebrity chefs serving up miniature morsels in what remains Australia's most lavish corporate knees-up, despite the economic uncertainty, it may be a case of eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet. (source)