Dark Side of the Dubai Dream--We all live in Dubai

Monday in the Independent, Johann Hari published an expose on the shocking inequality of wealth and freedom in Dubai. He profiled a Canadian Expat whose husband fell into debt after being diagnosed with a brain tumor and was imprisoned in an Arabic-only trial. She now sleeps in her car, waiting for his release.

More shocking is the treatment of the foreign laborers building Dubai. They come to Dubai through recruiting services that promise high wages, often selling their family land or inheritance to pay their travel expenses. Upon arrival their passports are taken. 300,000 are kept in un-airconditioned facilities without plumbing just outside of the city, and paid subsistence wages to work in 140 degree heat. Emiratis and expats train themselves not to look at them. They are the invisibles of Dubai.

The expats in Dubai--Canadian, American, and European gloat about the non-stop party and the exhilarating freedom of not having to do their own housework. One expat referred to it as an "adult Disneyland." The Expats have seas of maids and servants from Africa and Southeast Asia. They come from agencies as well, have no access to their passport, are paid a pittance and often beaten when they fail to please their employers.

There is something ugly, revolting even, about living, partying, feasting with such inequality right before one's eyes. We wouldn't have a foie gras and brie picnic in the park in front of the homeless, or plop down next to one on the street and munch down a stake sandwich. Yet it strikes me that Mr. Hari's chief critique is simply the proximity in which all of this inequality occurs. This begs the question, how much distance is enough? And to some degree isn't Dubai simply an instructive microcosm of the world in which we "civilized" people reside? How better people are we really that we enjoy our decadent meals out of the view of the poor. How much better are we than the Emiratis because the sweatshops that make our clothing are overseas?

It is true that Dubai is not a Democracy. It is clearly less free than the civilized world. Dissent is stifled completely. Those who speak out face having themselves and their families blacklisted--without the possibility of employment.

But if we are more free and Democratic, then we have choices Emiratis do not. What does it say about us that we choose to live in this world benefiting from the same inequalites we find so revolting when they're viewed up close in Dubai?