Living in Dubai, which is officially by recent statistics one of the most expensive cities in the world, is truly a unique experience. And unique in both senses of the word, good and bad, positive and negative. This city has been developing in a rocket speed, but seemingly this rapid development is a double-edged sword. Every single day, hundreds of Indian and South Asian construction workers are being brought in the city that it is gradually becoming an Indian colony, the only difference is the Indians have not militarized Dubai. Even the other emirates which are trying hard to catch on Dubai's "achievements" will also be in dire need of such workers. Nonetheless, even though the Indians are the "actual builders" of Dubai's giant real estate projects, they are the least class of workers to get paid well. An Indian construction worker, who is spending God knows how many hours in the worst conditions and under the killing heat, is in many cases not getting half the salary of a usual office administrator. Alas, billions are being announced for on a daily basis in terms of giant towers shooting to the skies, but the only pennies are getting wasted on those poor Indians and the like.
On a side note, and speaking of the billions that a normal mind cannot fathom being spent on such projects, it is very interesting to see that only a fraction of these piles of dollars are considered for developing the Arab mind. Although there are a few scholarship plans that take care of that topic here and there, we still need some very serious initiatives to be started in cooperations with reputable Arab and Western organizations and universities. We really need to exert some honest and serious effort in that field and catch the rest of the world in terms of getting our Arab youngsters to "think, evolve, and act" as the slogan of a liberal American college says.
4 comments:
Hello, nice to meet fellow Syrian expats. I think the points you are making are very valid. I had trouble in the recent past reconciling myself with the unequality, unfairness and the barutality of the market here. I think it's easier to look at it at the micro level and realize that each one of those you've mentioned is better off here (otherwise he/she would be expected to leave, ain't it?:)), it's really that simple, we come from different places, it's because that we converge here at these stark levels of disparateness that the overall picture becomes hard to swallow.
Excellent post, I encourage you to keep blogging!
Thank you dubai jazz for your comment. Well, they might be better off in here, but it's very obvious how this class of workers is being exploited. I look at them everyday and ponder the different reasons and stories of every single one of them.
Nice blog ..
Its kindda hard to read the english posts though ..
Rather than having them in one big bulky chunck of words... Can I humbly suggest that you braek your English posts into a few paragraphs? :) - same as your arabic translated one.
Keep up the good work.
Suggestion welcomed, and will take it into consideration in future posts. Thanks for advice moryarti :)
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