The Dark Side of Dubai
April 8th, 2009
This is a riveting account of “The Dark Side of Dubai.” Dubai is crumbling in front of our eyes, given the economy, but it was apparently never a paradise to begin with:
“The thing you have to understand about Dubai is – nothing is what it seems,” Karen says at last. “Nothing. This isn’t a city, it’s a con-job. They lure you in telling you it’s one thing – a modern kind of place – but beneath the surface it’s a medieval dictatorship.”
[...] There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here.
Warning: if you start reading that article, you will read to the end. And it’s long.