AirBender

What can we do..........I am seriously short of ideas...........

co durham boy

Try and improve things or better things on what you have influence over , worrying about what is not in your control is futile in this part of the world .

Back in 1999 one of my workers had a serious accident in Abu Dhabi . He was hit by a heavy truck whilst discharging concrete and the truck shattered his left leg .

Back then health insurance was in it's infancy for those who were at the bottom of the food chain . I paid for the operation out of my own pocket as the company wouldn't sanction the cash , without that operation that boy wouldn't have walked again .

I was less than pleased with my boss at the time but it hammered home to me what a callous inhumane twat he really was and he was a Brit .

I get a letter every year from that guy and his family asking about my health and my family and that was 13 years ago .
I was in a position to do something which was the right thing to do at that time.

My mother still has all the letters which go to her address and it reading them reinforces the good in the world after you put up with so much shite out here in The Gulf .

auzdafluff

Oh how appropriate.

http://www.panarabiaenquirer.com/wor...our-camp-rant/

scrubbedexpat141

I love this quote from his Mrs;

Miss Anne Thrope

Or there's this.....

http://findingabudhabi.blogspot.com/...tarianism.html

(Avoiding a hyperlink as I've discovered some of you struggle with those)

Meow

Lots of little things.

We cannot change the system out here, but we can improve the days of some individuals. Pay your maid, cleaner, gardener a decent wage and pay bonuses at Eid and Christmas. Tip people for decent service. Smile at the man in the petrol station, at the checkout, or who packs your bags. Tip them too.

When there are collections for labour camps (especially then the men have been abandoned without pay) make a donation. Give your old clothes, books and furniture to charity or to someone you know who will appreciate them (Our gardener is the best dressed on the street in my husband's old Paul Smith shirt!).

It may sound simple but the little things, being kind and considerate, do make a difference.

scrubbedexpat141

Well written because it was in danger of saying "Don't bother".

Meow

Oh my. Do people really not have any idea how cultures are different and are actually surprised when those less fortunate do not behave as they are expecting? When I read things like this it does make me wonder about people's motivations. Is it to genuinely help others, or to make themselves fell better and brag about it?

A little thought goes a long way...

Miss Anne Thrope

Absolutely and my intent in posting this was definitely not to provide an alibi for people doing nothing...

Norm_uk

The West has been turning the page on human rights since the Victorian era when WE first banned slavery...

No other civilisation has come so far in terms of equal rights for women, different races and freedom of religion. No one else explores their dark past as much as we do either. Ask an Arab about the 1400 year Arab-African slave trade or the genocide of the Hindu's in India which lasted longer than the British rule there and killed upto 60million people - a number no other conqueror can get close to...ask and you'll be lucky to find one who admits to these things let alone affirms they have turned from them.

N.

Norm_uk

That goes against what was happening. The Empire was becoming more tolerant, more open. We banned slavery before anyone else, we introduced votes for women while still an Empire. The main reason we gave it back was the lack of will to keep it. The argument of money is nonsense - Empires can squeeze money and resources if they want to continue.

The truth is Britain should be remembered for how she gave back her Empire rather than how she attained it.

N.

Norm_uk

Often that's true and I agree. At the very least we could try to support companies and businesses that treat their workers better couldn't we? We could raise awareness and help with charities that help these people too.

What grates me is how rude expats are to staff who are clearly underpaid, treated badly and not trained properly. Make criticism constructive, give a tip for people who clearly try and be polite - they are judging us as much as we judge them...I can tell you Brits have a terrible reputation in this country as rude, arrogant drunkards.

Let's be polite, friendly drunkards instead

N.

Boomhauer

I really don't see it as baiting him , unless asking a blunt no beating around the bush question is baiting. I can't imagine how one could spin his comments on slavery as anything but a negative. Unless ofcourse Hari did a James O'Keefe / Breitbart and edited the conversation to portray a disengenous or outright false representation of the Khaleeji fellow's comments.

I know some expats like to rag on Hari but in sum of things he is right. Sure he embelished , took some journalistic license etcc..but that was probably because he was trying condense and get across the general gist of the situation , all within a newspaper article.

Hawass is an egotistical media whore. One of the reasons I got annoyed with Discovery is because it turned into the Zahi Hawass channel. All this though does not take away from Hawas's academic qualifications and the consensus that slaves did not build the pyramids.

Khaleejis have been like this for millenia, they aren't going to change unless forced to. They have had plenty of time to practice humanity. Why do they need more time or velvet gloves to simply get them to treat other races as human? These are very basic human rights, it's not like one is asking them to permanently accept millions of refugees.

If they can preach (Islam) about morality and righteousness then they dam well shoud know how to treat people. They invented a religion that preaches to others on how they should live/act, so it is only fitting they face pointed criticism.

Keeping quiet and not exposing to the world means they get away scott free. The victims's story needs to be told, just like: the extermination of Native Americans, Nazi crimes, WW2 Japanese atrocities, Imperialism, Black slavery, SubCon caste atrocities , Suharto's genocide in East Timor etc..; all needs to be told, not swept under the rug.

I don't have blood on my hands because I did not support , engage in or even give tacit support for slavery / genocide.

Saying that exposing their wickedness will make them stubborn to change allows them to effectively get away with it , i.e. not be saddled with a tarnished reputation and the victim's suffering goes unnoticed. If Nazis, , Imperial Japan, American colonists & European Imperialists can be criticised then so can Arabs. Why should Khaleejis get special dispensation? They criticise the West and Israel for treatment of Muslims and Palestinians . If the shoe was on the other foot, i.e. they were treated like Asian labourers, they would be screaming to the whole world of their situation and would want people to pay attention to their plight.


I know there are some decent locals but the culture as a whole doesn't care, because if the majority gave a dam, it wouldn't exist.
I left in the mid 90s at 17 years of age . Back then I didn't really pay attention to world issues, humanitarian issues etc.. so was not able to directly help any labourers.

OleJanx

And let's not forget that what is now the U.A.E. used to be known as the Pirate Coast, and to be honest the morals of today's citizens hasn't evolved too much, either.

Miss Anne Thrope

You make a lot of valid points, certainly worth some thought. Thanks for engaging like this.