| License plates |
[Feb. 16th, 2008|09:44 am] |
More license plates went up for auction recently:
"Number 98 in ‘F’ series raked in Dh2.4 million after intense bidding by eager buyers at the 55th auction of distinguished car number plates organised by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) on Thursday." (Full article here.)
As to why such interest in plates: “It is all about competition and status. I have been a regular in these auctions for quite some time now. Having good numbers on our cars is a special thing for us and is a matter of pride and prestige,” quipped a UAE national who declined to give his name.
I posted earlier about a dh 11 million plate sold at auction, proceeds going to charity. (No such altruism at this auction, apparently.) My question still remains -- how did license plates and mobile numbers become status symbols? There is nothing inherently compelling about these things. It would be interesting to know the origins. |
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| in ta hindi |
[Nov. 30th, 2007|11:35 am] |
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A friend from Dubai was just here with me in Brooklyn and was talking about an Emirati friend of his he works with. This fellow told him, "you know what we say when we insult each other? in ta hindi (you are indian)." I just thought that was hilarious. The question for you, dear reader, is to what degree is this comment true? If true, it is a funny (though sad) commentary on the social hierarchy in Dubai. Would it be fair to say that no matter what heights an Indian has reached in Dubai, he is still "just" an Indian? |
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| Guardian UK article |
[Nov. 9th, 2007|10:58 am] |
Hello new and old readers. I haven't posted in a while, and since many of you will have come here via Monday's Guardian article, "You must come with us" (Nov 12), it is time now to make amends and recap. That article is a polished version of a post I put on this blog right after my stay with the fellows in white. You might enjoy the comments at the end. The (presumably) locals who posted anonymously did so with incredible vitriol and bile. I was amused; my wife was not. In any case, the comments from these people are very interesting. My January 8 post got interesting reactions too. The blog was originally intended as a log of my research and living experiences while I was there. Some of it is funny (my first discrimination experience in Dubai), some of it is not. You might find it a useful waste of fifteen minutes. Or you may just find it a waste of time and cyberspace.
Anyways. I am a sociologist at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. I did research in Dubai last summer/fall on expatriate workers in Dubai. I'm working on a book now that examines how professionals and lower level workers make their way in Dubai. I focus especially on professionals born and bred in Dubai. Unlike in western countries, merely being born in Dubai grants you no rights of residency, let alone citizenship. So these people are on the same visa situation as other workers who come in tomorrow.
The book is going to be called "Iron Chains, Gilded Cages: Expat Workers in Dubai." It is a critical examination of the living and working conditions of workers high and low. The book is not a gratuitous slam on Sheikh Mohammed (Sheikh Mo as he is often affectionately called in Dubai), or on the administrative apparati, or even on my friends in the secret police. (On the contrary, I think American secret forces could take a lesson in manners from these fellows.)
Every adult expat in Dubai is there by choice. For professionals, they can lead the good life -- no shortage of bars, clubs, restaurants, outdoor activities. Household help is cheap. Many people I hung out with lived in the US or UK, but went back to Dubai because the living is easy. Professionally, most people told me the opportunities for advancement, and the pace of advancement is much greater than in the US, UK and even India. For laborers, even with all the horror stories, there is still the promise of the good life at home being sponsored by hard living in Dubai. Live in an all-male world in cramped quarters, often filthy quarters, but that will build the house, buy extra land back in India or Pakistan. Or so the promise goes.
That's the carrot. There's of course a stick. Which is, lay low. No politics, no criticizing the Sheikh, no drugs, no worker agitation. Maids being beaten, construction workers not being paid -- put up with it quietly or leave. Any resistance to the state, and you get deported, which is the worst thing really that can happen to an expat. People do of course end up in prisons for all sorts of crimes. There are stories of a jail for political prisoners near the airport in Abu Dhabi. It's probable that nasty things go on there (it's autocratic rule after all), but doubtful it's anything like Iran, Syria, or the US. But in the end, it's deportation I would say that people fear above all else.
The UAE is a country that, surface-wise anyway, pays lip service to being Islamic. Legally prostitution and alcohol are not allowed (by law to drink you are required to have an alcohol permit, which few people have). But these are freely available, even during Ramadan. In fact, me and my friend Wilbur were struck by how prostitution seemed to be even more intensified during Ramadan, since the clubs didn't play music, there were no distractions from the work at hand. I bring this up as alcohol and prostitution are very big attractions for expats of all stripes and religions. These twinned vices are part and parcel of the success of Dubai, and go some ways to explaining Saudi's lagging, even though their population is huge and should be a boom site. But not many western expats especially would want to live there.
Dubai, in short, is a dizzying experience. Consumer culture is excessive even by western standards. The good life is the goal; western notions of "rights" are dispensed with -- who needs the right to vote when you can live like this? Worker exploitation is the norm. The state has the power and money to nip it, but they do not. Why would they? And if these workers are not willing to do the work, there are millions more who are willing to come and take their place. The wonders of globalization find their perfect expression here. The world's tallest building (glitzy) contrasts with the world's largest labor camp (squalid). Welcome to Dubai. |
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| Congratulations. |
[Jun. 16th, 2007|06:40 pm] |
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To Mr Khouri of Abu Dhabi who has purchased at auction license plate number "7" for dh 11 million. This complements his earlier purchase of plate number "5" for dh 25 million. "I am happy since this is for a good cause," he said. I'm baffled by how license plates and mobile phone numbers became things that people spend incredible amounts of money on. Any ideas? |
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| Not banned |
[Jan. 8th, 2007|04:25 pm] |
(note: updated January 18 to include more responses.)
I got a letter recently from the top echelons (THE top) of the Dubai police. They basically say that I'm not banned, and am actually welcome back. So for those of you who like to say nasty things... be careful. Your government thinks I'm not so bad. So you'd better fall in line, otherwise that could be seen as criticizing the royal family -- a big no no! So stop being disloyal to your country!
Recent comments:
Subject: get a life
"you sound like a begger who goes on and on about his losses.
Go fix your problems in your country of origion who allow such exploitation in their own country then shed the light on other countires.
Why arn't you living in that country? I am sure they failed to provide you with the things you found in the USA. So did these labourers. The difference is they don't have a degree that will take them to the USA, they can't make enough money in India so they do better here.
GEt a life, I am sure our men in white had a good reason to nail you. You sounded fishy the day you announced your stupid project on the UAE blog."
Subject: shut up
"be thankful that its the dubai police u were dealing with and the fbi or cia.. u would definitely have been held (without charges) for ever or may be even killed
be thankful that u atleast got out alive from dubai....
dont spy for US government....sad thing is that u do not know that u are spying..."
Subject: Loser.
"Why can't you get it. You left your country of origion because it has lots of problems that send people like you and others to the UAE and other countries who are willing to give you according to what you have.
Why don't you go interview people in India and find out why your people are leaving the country in the first place to countries that "mistreat them" by offering them a job rather than none.
Why talk about Dubai when you come from a place that has mega problems. Go write a book on that and we will all read it.
An please stay in punjab. We really don't like attracting jerks who make money from filth."
Subject: royal in my a***
"and by the way, the closest you can get to royal, is the toilet tissue papers brand royal."
...
To these and other like-minded bloggers I say, change your tune, or be guilty of treason. You're criticising the wise decision of your government. And insulting the royal family. Bad anonymous bloggers! |
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| laptop no mo' |
[Nov. 20th, 2006|10:56 pm] |
So just got word from the computer repair guys. Apparently, my friends in white took out the hard drive and messed up the track pad. Basically, they took a computer and gave me back a paperweight. That's just wrong. When you have as much money as they do, at least replace the laptop. That would have been classy. If you're still reading, fellas, that's a macbook pro you can get me. Don't be cheap.
But I must emphasize, I'm the sucker here. They had me sign a receipt saying I received it in "best operating condition". I should have haggled. |
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| Men in white |
[Nov. 20th, 2006|07:26 am] |
Looking around at stuff online, and found a bunch of references to Amn al-Dawla, or, the state security department. Now we can put a proper name to my favorite fellows. But they don't have a place in the Dubai police organizational chart. Thought that was interesting.
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| Coincidence? |
[Nov. 19th, 2006|04:00 pm] |
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The American channel ABC showed a highly critical 20 minute piece on its news program 20/20 two days ago. Human Rights Watch last week released a report highly critical of Dubai's exploitation of construction workers. My guess is that both were doing their research last month, around the time my friends in white came to visit. Coincidence? |
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| Five guys in white come to my door, and I get a new iPod |
[Nov. 11th, 2006|02:00 pm] |
[Note: I have edited this entry (originally posted November 11) a bit for language (though not content) after a couple of people, rightly, took offense at some word choices and tone. Normally I would say piss off, but given that my goal here is to tell a story, it does me no good if people get hung up on things other than the story itself. So I edited those parts I thought needed editing.]
What happens when five guys come to your door wearing dishdash, the long, white robe local Emirati men favor, pressed neatly in fine fabrics with lovely cufflinks? I found out the day before Id. Followers of this blog know that I have been doing interviews for four months now on expats born and brought up in Dubai. Apparently, so did the secret police. And they decided to do something about that.
On October 22, 12 hours after my wife and 14-month-old son arrived, five guys in dishdash and one lady cop show up at my door with a court order to search and confiscate. The one lady cop means that they knew that my wife was there. That they showed up at my friend’s place, where I had only been staying for three days, and the fact that they showed up a little more than a day before I was taking a flight to India means, as a duty officer at the US consulate told my wife, that they were keeping very good tabs on me.
So these fellows come in, with a court order written in Arabic with a red seal stamped on top, take my laptop and iPod, backup CDs, written notes and printouts. They search the apartment fully. You must come with us. My wife says she and our son will come too. No. We will bring him back in half an hour. (Haraamis, lying the day before Id. Shame, shame.) Can I leave my mobile since my wife has no phone access where we are staying and doesn’t have a mobile? It is not allowed. Can I at least write down some phone numbers as she doesn’t know anyone here? Yes. I write two numbers then one of them huffs, “no more numbers!”
So off we go, in a Toyota Highlander 4x4 with the sport stripes and excessively tinted windows, to the main, massive police HQ in Deira. We approach from airport road, make a right to the side gate. Once through this gate, one of the secret fellows tells me, actually motions me, to put my head down. We wind up and up a ramp until we arrive at secret police HQ, an oasis of bougainvillea and other lovely hanging vines and plants. I’m taken to a room where the questioning begins.
My interrogators for the next 13 hours or so were two locals (this day for me was a bonanza of interactions with locals!) – one in his late 20s, skinny with jaundiced skin and no front teeth, one in his mid-late 30s, short and chubby with jowels like a chipmunk who claims to have studied in Russia. The latter played the role of good cop, while the former was bad cop. Apparently their secret police training consists of watching bad American cop movies. I immediately asked/demanded of good cop whether the US consulate was informed. He lied (haraamis!) and said they were. I know he lied because the US consul told me he was not informed.
The questioning was mostly a time pass. Bad cop started filling out a massive dossier form, which for the next nine hours both would write in Arabic details about my family’s migration history, my educational history from pre-KG to the PhD level, details about my work history, etc. Every now and then they would interject with the real questions: why did you come to Dubai? Who is funding you? Why are you asking so many questions? Why are you doing interviews? Why are you asking so many questions about locals? Who said you can come? Why did you come to Dubai?
I answered their questions slowly, calmly, not getting agitated. They didn’t like my answers. But my answers were irrelevant. Obviously they had already decided I was a nuisance or a threat and I had to go. But first it seemed they wanted some kind of admission of guilt from me, which I was not prepared to give. Maybe they should have resorted to physical violence to achieve their goals? I was a little annoyed they were not violent, did not even threaten violence. They were not even particularly rude. They never raised their voices. They gave me no cause to really be afraid. Mostly I was just bored. They could have at least been a little menacing, if just to ease the boredom.
While they were going over my data, the two cops shuttled back and forth to the interrogation room (an unused, quite nicely-sized room, though not fully furnished). They were coming from another room where I imagined a team of Emirati intelligence experts poring over my research materials alternately sending bad cop or good cop back with written questions to ask me. These were variants of the same questions above. And I would answer the same way. And they would not like the answers no matter how I paraphrased the answers to their paraphrased questions.
Now as for funding, I have a Fulbright fellowship, which is funded by the US government, and is handled through the US State Department (though they exert no pressure upon individual scholars). I don’t say this to boast, but to give a relevant detail. When I was swept up by the secret ones, my wife went into action, going to a nearby hotel to call the US consulate. When she told them how I was taken away by the men in white who didn’t show ID, and that I was a Fulbrighter, the ambassador apparently became “pissed off”. The ambassador and consul general were on the phone for over nine hours before they were able to locate me and arrange for my release. They are very protective of their Fulbrighters and don’t like it when they are picked up by secret police and held without charge and without their being notified. The secret higher ups told them I would be released by the end of the night.
It was around the time that the ambassador received my release guarantee that my interrogators stopped with their questions and left me locked in the room for over two hours. After which the chief came.
Chief was all business. After saying salaam – with an oddly effeminate, weak handshake, not at all what you would expect from hyper-masculine, patriarchal Gulf Arabs – he got down to business. I shot first asking if I was being charged. He snarled, rather irritated at my impudence. We can hold you for 48 hours without charge. As this is a country more of rules and edicts, rather than “laws”, and since they were the secret police, they probably could have done anything they liked. Except that someone high up ordered me released. Anyway, chief said the research you have been doing is creating divisions in UAE society and we will not allow it. You are asking too many questions about locals and nonlocals. Why do you ask so many questions? So we are keeping your files. We will return your laptop after we take away the relevant files. Also your iPod. These we will give you back tomorrow. We will contact you. You will also leave on the next available flight. (Good cop told me later it would be fine for me to take my already scheduled flight to India the next night.) Do not return through Dubai; you are banned and will be arrested if you try to return. (There was no actual ban stamp in my passport; they are secret police, they have their own “rules” and ways, I imagine. I will not be going back to Dubai to test whether or not there is an actual ban. Unless it is at the personal invitation of Sheikh Mohammed.)
There was a time gap between when chief told me to leave Dubai and between when I was to be released. Good cop stayed with me for most of this time. He was chatty and maybe thinking that I was going to write stuff anyway, and was trying to put a cheery spin on things. He said I hope you have enjoyed Dubai, well, this is not enjoyable, but I hope the rest of your stay has been productive and enjoyable and that you represent Dubai positively. Huh?
Well, my discussions with him were very productive, and actually made my stay with my local hosts worthwhile for me. It was my only indepth interview with a local. Good cop attempted to clarify the labor and residency laws for me, even allowing me to write down some notes. He told me much about the kinds of dissatisfactions many locals have with expats and the importance they have been given in Dubai, and he gave me an interesting insight into how intelligent Dubai intelligence is:
I have doubts of your funding. What do you mean? I told you I have a Fulbright. No, I think it is someone else. Ok, who do you think? I think it is “the Jewish”. Why would the Jewish be funding my asking questions of people? I do not know, but I think it is them. Ok, who else? I think maybe the CIA… Now, ok, it’s one thing if your average Emirati in the café (you won’t find them on the street) thinks that the Elders of Zion are building shopping malls to destroy local Emirati culture, but the people who are supposed to be intelligence should show some sign of intelligence. But they didn’t. Maybe good cop was just saying this stuff to throw me off. More likely he believed it. Sheikh Mohammed should really look into the quality of the public servants in his secret police.
So that was that. They put me back in the backseat of the Highlander with the 60% tinted windows to take me home. I was provided with two 4 oz. containers of water placed on the seat. After thirteen hours of questioning with no food or water. (Though to be fair, the driver, when he pulled over because bad cop had to come find us because he forgot to have me sign a receipt for my passport and mobile phone, bought me a Vitamin C drink. That was nice of him. I threw it out when I got back to the flat.)
The next day, a shady police guy calls and says he will come to my flat and give me back my laptop and iPod. I say, uh, I don’t think so. We will meet somewhere public. At 8 pm, he calls me and says come meet me in Lamcy Plaza mall. And come alone. My wife did not like that. But I figured what would they do now? So I went.
I call him from the ground level. Where are you? Standing next to the guy dressed like a chicken. Come up the escalator. I hesitate to do this because I cannot see him. But I go. Halfway up I think, oh, this is such a bad idea. At the top I make to immediately turn around but he calls to me from the Starbuck’s. Come here. So I go. There are two of them; one talks, the other does not. Neither shows me ID; in fact talking cop says we do not need to show. After some awkward, uncomfortable small talk with him and his partner, silent cop, I sit down to write out a receipt for equipment received in “best operating condition”, even though my ibook does not turn on, and when I do turn it on in the flat, the hard drive and operating system have been wiped clean. My iPod has been replaced by a new 60 GB video ipod. My guess is they could not figure out how to delete the files from the iPod, so just kept it. I wish they would have given me a new macbook pro laptop to go with my new iPod. That would have been classy. But they did not. Talking cop tells me that next time I come to Dubai he will show me around, be my tour guide. I say, uh, I was banned, remember? He says I know nothing of this.
Now, most of my material had been backed up and sent home, so why they thought I would not be able to write my book, I don’t understand. What they also didn’t understand, which I tried to impress upon them, is that taken in full, the book was going to paint a pretty positive picture of Dubai. But these fellows were obsessing over details; they were not big picture guys. They also had no idea what Fulbright is. Which may be a problem for them, because Fulbright is a bilateral agreement between the US and other states. The US sends scholars to country x, and country x in turn sends scholars to the US. Basically, Fulbrighters are considered by the embassy to be a special class of nonofficial American representatives to be protected by the host country. As I said above, the ambassador was not happy at my detainment. Maybe somebody’s head will roll – right off his body? (It could happen – this is after all a kingdom.) Again, these are not really the types I would want running my intelligence.
What kind of intelligence? They were obviously not police. The logical assumption is CID, the UAE’s version of the FBI. But a guy who knows about such things told me he knows someone very high up in CID who told him I was not with them. This fellow felt that it was SSD – State Security Department (or something like that, I don’t recall exactly) that picked me up. That’s some impressive paranoia really high up. And it is counterproductive for what Sheikh Mohammed is trying to accomplish for Dubai. My guess is that there is factionalism in his court, and this one faction acted without the knowledge of those closer to the Sheikh. How else can you explain why and how they could do something that the US consul explained to me threatened to turn into an “international incident”, which could prove to be embarrassing to the Sheikh, more embarrassing than the small ethnography I was working on?
I had my own paranoia, so the embassy arranged for us to be driven to the airport at 1 am in a light armored vehicle. Cool. This fellow took us as far as the customs desk and remained until our flight took off, staying in touch with me by mobile. I called him when I cleared customs, he called me as I waited for my flight, and he had me SMS him as soon as the plane took off and the landing gear went up. I was trying to be sly with my phone on the plane, hiding it under a stack of papers. My wife shook her head at my sad attempt at being slick (hanging out with the SSD guys rubbed off on me), as the light from my phone was quite bright and extended a few feet in all directions in the darkened plane. In any case, we got off fine. Though our luggage did not arrive with us. Odd given that it was a direct flight, and a short one at that. My wife is convinced they wanted one last look at our stuff. Hmmm.
My time and interactions with these fellows has changed the focus of the book, from what I was originally researching, second-generation expats born or brought up in Dubai. Likely the book will now take a much more critical turn, linking these workers with the hyper-exploited construction workers, with the trafficked women in the sex trade, with the three year old camel jockeys, with prize-winning thoroughbred race horses, with greed, with rapacious rents, with an absurd caste-like system that rewards locals for a good choice of parents and punishes housemaids and low wage workers for daring to come to Dubai to work. Because the development of Dubai integrally links all of these. Fear and work and sex and money in Dubai. How’s that for a title? |
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| Adieu |
[Oct. 21st, 2006|08:01 am] |
Well my friends,
My time in Dubai is coming to a close. Wife and child are due to arrive at 20:35 at DXB. So I have 8 hours to fiddle around. We spend two days here, then off to India for a few weeks, then home.
My research is over (at least face to face interviews in Dubai), I no longer live with the two filthies, I don't have to deal with the scummy landlord illegally subletting for monstrous profit (I'll have a tell-all posting on that when I clear Dubai airspace which also goes to Dubai Municipality Housing Division). I'll still be posting, so don't forget to come back. As I start going through all the material, issues will pop up we will need to discuss. |
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| Should expats be offered tenure, or are they disposable? |
[Oct. 1st, 2006|11:18 pm] |
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Bill and I had an interesting exchange before he left on the state of the raised-in-Dubai expats. I posted it to the uae community blog here. The comments were very interesting and certainly worth a perusal. Your two cents, dear editors, are of course greatly desired and appreciated. |
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| Au revoir, Wilbur |
[Sep. 26th, 2006|01:04 am] |
So William has returned to NYC. He left me with the order to do my work until my wife comes. His coming gave me the wonderful excuse to rent a car and go to Al Ain, Hatta, Aqah, Abu Dhabi – places I likely would not have gone to on my own. So there is that.
One small thing stands out in my mind right now. On Friday we went to the Shakespeare Café that was written of highly in Time Out magazine. It is in a tall building, very modern, on Sheikh Zayed Road. The café itself tries for an old time-y charm that it flirts with and doesn’t quite get. It annoyed Bill as he found it thoroughly inauthentic, and just plain wrong. I applauded the effort (though doily hats on the chandelier arms seemed just downright dumb to me), making the counterargument that any hundred-year-old country inn in Vermont is also inauthentic. By that I meant that while the building may be old, and lovingly restored, it is in essence a recreation, an imagination of something that was. But what was is gone, and any effort to bring it back is no different than having a Shakespeare Café in Dubai. We compromised a bit and agreed that there are degrees of the ridiculous – that while a country inn may be nothing more than a historical recreation, it is reasonable within context. And Dubai has no context for the historical, so its trying for things historical just doesn’t work. But I thought it was fine anyway. He was just annoyed the waiter took away his last piece of toast. |
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| An Arab city |
[Sep. 23rd, 2006|11:53 am] |
So we went to Cairo for four days to visit a friend and check out the scene. I was immediately struck by the fact that Hindi is not the lingua franca, and English does not get you very far.
We also watched people get struck. One woman in "Islamic Cairo" (the "old" city I guess) got hit and immediately whisked away. Another guy as we were going to the airport on the way back almost went through a windshield. I almost got mowed down as well. They have lanes for cars there, but don't believe in them. Their cars are smaller and can fit three to a lane. To cross the street is like playing the old video game "Frogger" -- too many people lose though.
Air pollution is also atrocious. Bill was overcome by fumes a few times. You could feel the particles in the air, like grit on your teeth.
But the pluses of Cairo waaaaayyy outweigh the negatives (though it would make living there difficult.) It is a beautiful town, with lots of gardens, cooler climate, nicer people, better and cheaper food than in many other places. We took boat rides (feluka) on the Nile at sunset. We had places to walk to, interesting architecture to see and things to do in the day other than go to malls.
We of course did the mandatory trip to the pyramids. We went on horses so instead of going through the tourist entrance from the KFC, we go over the sand dunes and then there they appear. It was something. It was the first time I really rode a horse, his name was Mona Lisa, and our guide had me riding really fast and I didn't fall off. He also said my name has variants, so he gave me a choice -- Sikke or Seekoo. I chose the latter. When he wanted me to ride fast, he yelled, "yella, Seekoo!"
I will post pictures, but can't now because of the computer speed. Maybe when Bill leaves and I have some more time. As it is now Ramadan, I will have a great deal of time to wait for the computer to do what it does.
A little more in the next post... |
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| Billy Bob and border crossings |
[Sep. 12th, 2006|05:14 pm] |
So my friend Bill came out from Brooklyn to have a nice holiday. We've been doing some of the low end Dubai things, little of the high end save for the mandatory mall tour. Couple of days ago we took the rental car out of town for the first time. Went to Hatta and saw the traditional heritage village. No one lives there; they live in modern village. We drove around a locals' neighborhood. It was somewhat crowded like in many villages around the world, but nice new corollas and mercedes and land cruisers sat in the car ports, unlike most villages around the world. The traditional heritage village contained many buildings that are created to look like what buildings and rooms of some bygone traditional era would like. I'm not sure what that era is -- the time immemorial era? We then went looking for the famous Hatta rock pools which the lonely planet guidebook insists you can get to by car, but the local guy at the traditional heritage village insisted you need a 4x4. He was of course right. After driving around for an hour and a half we found the road, but could only go about a km before turning back. we stopped though to climb a beautiful looking "mountain" (more of a molehill I think). It was basically scree and we got only a short distance up before deciding that it wasn't the greatest idea. So we stopped, took pictures, and went back to the car. I would post the pictures (they are lovely), but the time it would take on my ibook G3 would be too much. (You can google much lovelier pictures than mine, or wait til I get home to our badass iMac intel dual processor turbo charged with an overhead cam.)
After coming close to sunstroke, and Bill getting serious sunburn (I am resistant to such things), we decided to make our way to the Sandy Beach Resort Hotel (they are very generous in giving themselves that label) in Aqah village, north of Bidiya, north of Khor Fakkan, north of Fujairah. We did not know this leg from Hatta would involve six border crossings, paying 50 usd for Omani insurance for the car for the maybe 20 km of Omani land we actually drove on, and three hours of driving for no more than 100-150 km. But, whatever. We liked Oman, especially the nice Omani store guy who gave us free Cokes and directions. He was very sweet. We would have liked him even if he did not give us free Cokes. He liked that we were from New York.
We eventually made it to the beach, overlooking Snoopy Island. We watched some bad movies on cable (I have no tv, so that was something), ate some cheap pita bread and cream cheese, tried to go to a Bollywood club but it was closed (maybe the girls went back to school?) Went over to the Le Meridien resort next door where Bill bought designer knockoff sunglasses at a premium price. We watched part of the Arnold Schwartzenegger vehicle End of Days with an all-star cast, but it sucked so we went to sleep.
Come morning we swam, worked on our tans, and went snorkeling. Bill burned quite badly, but his tan is looking lovely now. Though still burnt. We saw lovely fishies, saw a large sea turtle, and Bob saw a 6' reef shark. Then we left.
On the way back to Dubai, we stopped at a fantastic, homey, Iranian restaurant, Omar Khayyam, near the Great Mosque roundabout in Sharjah emirate (I forget which town). I had gone there with friends the last time I went to see Snoopy. For Bob and me, I got us three orders of lambchops. It took us a while to work through them, but work we did, and did well.
We left and stopped at the Sharjah Desert Park. There wasn't much desert. But there was a great animal house with many snakes (we know how many ways me might die now), lots of rats and gerbils and foxes. There was an open vista where we were enclosed that had two ostritches, flock of pink flamingoes, herd of ibex and a herd of oryx. We thought that was it (cuz that viewing station doubled as the park's restaurant where I got a Red Bull otherwise I would have plowed the car into the guardrail on the way home), but then there was a cheetah, couple of hyenas, and a leopard in their open air enclosures. they could see the other animals, and it looked like they could just jump over the moat that separated them and eat the ibexes or oryxes if they so pleased. Maybe they didn't please.
Bill of course left his sunglasses at Omar Khayyam, so we returned, stopping at the Sharjah something or other memorial, a big phallus off the highway where we took the nice desert pictures that we could not at the desert park. It was a big roundabout with nowhere to park. Drive around it and go. So we did. Got the sunglasses, made our way back, then spent over an hour and a half in traffic in Dubai. Of course we griped about it. We read an article in a magazine here about how expats just complain so much even though or maybe because life is so easy here, so many conveniences. So much complaining with so easy a life, the author argued, makes these expats mediocre. We have been trying to stave off mediocrity ourselves, but it's not that easy. We will try.
We're off to Cairo in a couple of days to visit a friend and see a real Arab city, and not just a reasonable facsimile thereof. |
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| Are Muslims raised in the US assimilated? More than you think. |
[Sep. 4th, 2006|02:11 pm] |
In an earlier post on the UAE community blog, John Chilton pointed to an article in the Washington Post questioning whether Muslims in the US were assimilated. As someone who studies Muslim assimilation in the US, it kinda pissed me off. I wrote a response I sent to the WashPost and to NYNewsday, but since they will never see the light of day, I figured I'd just post it on my blog since it's written...
In the August 27 edition of the Washington Post, Geneive Abdo wrote a piece entitled "America's Muslims aren't as assimilated as you think.”
The title alarmed me – should I be afraid of these persons who are not assimilated? Does that mean they don’t like NASCAR? Can they sing the “Big Mac” song? It must be true, then, that there are sleeper terrorist cells among these “unassimilables.”
Well, having studied assimilation among American-raised Muslims with foreign-born parents for the past seven years, allow me to point out two common perceptions of American-raised Muslims, and explain their non-significance:
1. “There seems to be an increase in religiosity among American-raised Muslims, even to the point where many are more religious than their parents.” I have also noticed this in my research. I have found it to be more prevalent among the younger part of this group – ages between teens and early 30s – than among their siblings in their 30s and 40s. In part, this is a matter of numbers (less Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s), and that being Muslim just wasn’t “cool” or acceptable in the 1970s and 1980s – an important point, as anyone who has gone to school in the US knows how important it is to not be among the downtrodden geeks or freaks of one’s high school. The trend toward increasing “Muslimness,” in terms of religious behavior and identity politics, is a function of the multiculturalism of the 1990s, and was there long before September 11, though of course it spiked as a result of events that led to backlashes against Muslims here. Today, as there are more Muslims, and more tolerance of difference in general in schools and beyond, “Muslimness” is more openly adopted as an identity than ever before.
So, ok, there is an increase in religiosity. But what does religiosity in itself tell us? Well, what does it tell us that people in their teens and 20s go to church or synagogue? That kids have Bible (or Islamic) study sessions (or halaqas) that they lead and run on their own? Does that make these kids less American? Does it mean they will have a propensity to go out and bomb abortion clinics? Of course not. On its own, religiosity does not tell us much about the assimilation patterns of individuals.
2. “Many Muslims are only hanging out with other Muslims.” Yeah, true enough. But let’s not miss the contextual point: multiculturalism since the 1990s has made it ok to take pride in your ethnic-religious heritage. For example, the proliferation of Muslim Students’ Associations on campuses is paralleled by an increase in all sorts of ethnic organizations on campuses. Anyone who has been in a high school or university in the US in the past 20 years can easily see that. This in itself should not be surprising. When Asian American students hang out amongst themselves in pool halls, or black students in all-black fraternities, does that indicate a lesser degree of assimilation, of being less American? Of course not.
Part of the reason there are misconceptions about American Muslims is the tricky (sometimes dubious) way many people in the press use (and abuse) the term assimilation. They use part of the meaning of assimilation – cultural assimilation, or acculturation – to stand for assimilation in full. But assimilation, at least in its technical sense, refers to moving into the “mainstream” in terms of education, occupation, income and residence, as well as acculturation. Well, American-born Muslims have high levels of education and income, work in offices just like everyone else, and live in mixed neighborhoods. (As for neighborhood segregation, there are fully separate orthodox Jewish neighborhoods with their own institutions – who will call them “unassimilable”?) So yeah, American Muslims are assimilated, even if some do not fully acculturate, or only partially acculturate, though many are fully acculturated.
A lot of religious Muslims who are assimilated have even de-acculturated (a term I am coining to indicate that while their knowledge of rap music and “The Simpsons” is probably extensive, they actively reject other trappings of “being American.”) Ok, what does that tell us? Does it mean that they are more likely to be sympathetic towards terrorists, or be terrorists themselves? Again, my answer is, in itself, this tells us little. Replace Muslim with Mormon or Evangelical Christian or even Zionist. In many ways, some of them de-acculturate just as some Muslims do. Tell me truly, what conclusions do you draw about that?
Muslims are assimilated. Some de-acculturate. But they’re American all the same. |
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| Cultural distance, or lack thereof. |
[Aug. 28th, 2006|11:47 pm] |
When I did research for my dissertation nine years ago in Hyderabad, India, I hung out a lot with Muslim guys in their 20s and 30s. And a lot of them pissed me off. They were constantly badgering me with questions about sex. Some of these were innocent, if moronic, questions, like, is it true that you can have sex at the airport? I can easily have sex with white women, yeah?
Others though fell into a greyer area: you’ve had sex haven’t you? (Sometimes in a nice way, sometimes not.) You’ve fucked, haven’t you? (Not nice, with harsh emphasis on the word “fucked.”) I would often skirt around the question, saying no, trying to duck and dodge. Change the subject. But they would come back to it. Even a “no” wasn’t doing it for them. They had decided because I was American I was a degenerate and they wanted to know all the salacious details.
I’ve mostly forgotten the sometimes embarrassing, sometimes annoying conversations. But I was reminded of it the other day when the guy at the supermarket I hang out a lot with asked me about sex in a hushed voice, almost embarrassed. Then the obvious hit me. With the exception of this friend, there is hardly any cultural gap between the people I’ve been interviewing and hanging out with in Dubai and people of this immense mythical monolith we often call “The West.” In my interviews here, sometimes sex and dating come up, sometimes not. I rarely ever bring it up directly on my own. Sometimes obliquely I will, but usually if it comes up, it’s the other person that brings it up. (Not that sex is the key concept of culture, but I bring it up because sexual norms are often key differences between cultures.)
In Hyderabad, especially in the inner city area where I lived and mostly worked, sex is the great taboo (among Hindus also). Their knowledge was scant, their experience was nil. Which in itself is not such a big deal, except that they did not know how to approach the topic without being heavy-handed. Not so here. My initial gander is that this has to do with a generally more cosmopolitan sensibility here. In Dubai, even if you have never left the place, even if you went to a parochial all-Indian school (as opposed to an international school), the cultural flavor around you – in the air so to speak – is international and cosmopolitan when it comes to a great many things. Not so in Hyderabad. While you do have your people who have traveled and worked abroad, the ones returning are coming having absorbed none of the international flavor they may have been exposed to in Dubai, in Riyadh, in Kuwait or in Melbourne. Or alternately, they may have lived the life, but compartmentalized it to operate more “properly” in this (still) very conservative social environment.
Note: I am speaking specifically here of the old city, not in the more forward moving parts of the new city. I break it down like this because, not to be too reductionist, I think there may be a class element here. The lower middle class parts of the city are still very conservative socially. Contrast this with Dubai. The people I have been interviewing are nearly all middle, and to a large degree what we could consider upper middle class. They are much more open in the outlooks to lifestyles and difference than the folk I am talking about in Hyderabad. At least half the people I’ve interviewed have gone to school and worked in the West. Even the ones who have not lived or traveled abroad have a similar outlook, though maybe not to the same degree. The way that I interact with people in Dubai is pretty much the way I interact with people back in New York. There’s an ease of communication I have here that I did not have in Hyderabad.
My point in this post is not to bust on Hyderabad (though my examples do give that impression), but rather to use the idea of cultural dissimilarity I felt in Hyderabad to explore the idea of cultural similarity of Dubai with the West. Why? To make the point that Dubai is not this mystical, exotic, Middle Eastern city. It does not have a thousand years old culture weighing in on the present. While Islam is important to some degree here, Dubai has at heart a modern, capitalist materialistic culture and atmosphere that is pervasive. And given that there are visa considerations – work or leave – this outlook takes on that much more weight. Also, and now I’m going into more speculative territory, this cultural scenario may add to the ability of people here to pick up and leave. So you have the uncertainty of the visa situation, combined with the fact that they already “know” the West even if they haven’t been there, makes it very easy for them to not just leave, but to go back and forth – Dubai to US to Dubai to Canada to … As one person I interviewed put it, we are truly citizens of the world. And having the ability to negotiate different cultural scenarios makes that kind of mobility that much easier. |
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| Interesting encounter #2 |
[Aug. 12th, 2006|05:19 pm] |
So went to a swank Japanese place last nite. Packed with lots of the brown early in the evening, then many of the white start to show. The karaoke is going full tilt and all the brown are chiming in to the words of "Hotel California" (gross). I say to my friend, "why are your brown so white?" [It was mostly his friends and others.] He says to me, "why don't the white mix with the brown?" Fair enough question. [Though rude; never answer a question with a question.] I say to him, "let's find out." There was a group of white dancing right next to us, so I tapped this white girl on her shoulder and she pulled back and gave me this horrified and disgusted look. My friend said to me don’t do that, there's going to be a fight. I didn't push it.
I went over to this younger Indian woman, and said ok, interpret that for me. She said well, people here are very cliqueish, and they just want to stay with their crowd, and yeah, it does often boil down to brown and white. But, she said, girls have to put up with a lot of unwanted touching from guys here. Ok, I get that. But this is a swank place. Does that make a difference? Was her look then one of you're a nasty brown fellow don’t touch me, or you're a stranger don’t touch me, or you're a nasty brown stranger fellow, what the f**k do you think you're doing touching me? I couldn’t really ask her further so I guess I’ll never know.
Your task here is not to interpret this girl's look of disgust (it could also be I did not meet her aesthetic criteria, but based on what the guys she was with looked like, I don't see how that's possible.) We can't get inside her head. But rather, your assignment is to say if you have had experiences like this play out in Dubai, either as the one causing the look, or the one giving the look? How do you interpret that? |
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| pics, but not mine |
[Aug. 10th, 2006|05:26 pm] |
As you may have noticed, I have not posted any pictures. This in spite of buying a new camera before I left. Oh well. So until I take some decent pictures (I have some, but they're lame), check out these people's pictures.
http://www.true-dubai.com/ |
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| More on transience. |
[Aug. 2nd, 2006|01:44 pm] |
As I said in my last posting, it’s becoming clearer to me just how much people view Dubai as a pitstop even as they see it as home. Initially I saw this as an intellectual puzzle, much as one views the latest crossword or sudoku (suduko? Soduku?)
In any case, I have had my taste of this in the six weeks I have been here. One friend who was my initial entry into Dubai, he left for Brooklyn. (He’s now Dubai-in-Brooklyn.) Another friend who was my other entry into Dubai is leaving in a few weeks. Many of the people I have been interviewing are here for finite periods. A South African flatmate is leaving in a few weeks – his six-month posting is over. I came home the other day to find this impressively tall Turkish guy introducing himself to me outside my bedroom. The middle-aged white guy who had been living in his room – who I had only seen once and briefly spoke with and who didn’t even offer his name [rude much?] – had disappeared. Poof.
Disappeared (or poof) is a good word I think for the expats who are here short term – six months, six years. Like me, their roots are shallow, if you can call them roots at all. (Though not for all, this of course is a variable.) They work, they eat, they drink beer. When they leave, how do you even know they were there? (Or to branch in a more philosophical direction, when anyone dies, how do you know they were there to begin with?) I imagine you only exist through the memories of others, and now, perhaps, blogs. (Ok, hardly an original idea.) So the short-term expats, if they are not making “deep” friendships (one woman I interviewed said she noticed friendships tended to be of a shallow nature, especially because of all the coming and going), when they leave, they leave no trace.
Is the same true of those who have invested their lives here, parents here for 30+ years, kids born, brought up, working here? If (when) they leave, is it any different? Another woman I was talking with told me of a friend of hers who left for college and didn’t come back to work. Her parents left, many of her friends left. So when she comes back, she comes back as a tourist. And her visits get fewer and farther in between. Are they the “disappeareds” also?
Of course anyone can disappear from a place – I’ve done it many times from many towns. But your “home” is usually a different story. People of course pick up and leave London, Tokyo, New York, Hyderabad – parts of families or whole families disappear. But the ratio of leaving to staying is less. Here, the ratio of leaving to staying is much greater. What’s striking here is that not only must all expats leave (again, in theory, and in practice), but they must disappear. There is no trace of them left. (How many expats are even buried here I wonder?) And of course the legal structure dictates and absolutely requires it. Not only are you expected to go, you are expected to disappear. The only way to know you were even here is indirectly – another building gone up, another ad campaign completed, another… Who was responsible? Some expat. (Yeah ok, locals of course contribute. But if the expat population in Dubai is 80% [conservative estimate], then we can assume at least an 80% likelihood that the work was done by an expat.)
So then, home (Dubai) legally is not home, and for many in practice is not home, though for many it is. But in any case, for most of the people I’ve interviewed, leaving home, disappearing, is something that, like it or not, they will do. They’ll go and perhaps call some other place home. Or decide that “home” is an overrated concept.
This ties in with the recent insistence of the government (I think of GCCs in general) to insist that expats are not migrants, but temporary labor. The distinction is crucial. Migrants have a stake in a place; temporary laborers do not. And the labeling becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you’re temporary, you do not invest – financially (except for entrepreneurs), socially or otherwise – in the place. Migrants on the other hand, given a sense of permanency, while maybe still seeing that place (Philippines, India, etc.) as home, will invest in this place, and their children even moreso. And that, especially for the government here, is an issue. Yes, please, do come and work and make money – we both benefit. But don’t stay. Staying, the possibility that the expats will stay, brings up questions: Will we be overwhelmed in numbers by these people if we grant them some kind of permanency? Will we be overwhelmed culturally? How will this affect the balance of power, the structures of privilege? All difficult issues to grapple with. To maintain the status quo, the expats have to be maintained at a distance. And the easiest way is for them to, in the end, disappear. |
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