The other day I went to the "labour camps" on the outskirts of Dubai to see for myself. I had a hell of a time finding them, mostly because every so-called investigative reporter didn't bother to mention exactly where the camps were (and you'd think they would if they are really trying to reveal to the world what goes on..) So I'll start by fixing their error, in case anyone tumbles upon this via google: I have found two camps. The larger one seems to be in Muhaisnah 2, also called Sonapur (but not written on the map as such). It is directly east of the airport, just south of Emirates Road (E311), and just southeast of the Al Qusais neighborhoods. It's a huge block surrounded by a wall with barbed wire fence - you can't miss it. The second I've found (though I went through at night, and thus I don't have any photos to post) is in the Al Quoz Industrial Areas (I believe in both 2 and 4), on both sides of Al Marabea Rd (D65), in between the actual factories.
I should preface the rest of this by saying that I'm no expert or journalist. I didn't talk to any of the workers living there. I felt bad enough just being white going around with my camera snapping pics of how shitty these people's lives are. If I were an actual reporter maybe I would have tried to get an interpreter and do interviews, but people have already done that - so google it. Instead, I'm posting this from a personal perspective, some personal reflections, some personal photos. I don't know how these people's lives really are (though I am certain that they are not anything resembling "good"), but I can give an honest vision of what I've seen here so far.
What becomes quite obvious after being in Dubai for a couple days is that there is a distinct class system here. The emiratis are almost always in luxury cars, and the westerners fall into two categories, either tourist or worker, but always somewhere between well-off and wealthy. Something else to notice is that the neighborhoods are quite segregated. There's hardly any westerners east of the river, in fact for how "international" this city is supposed to be, I've hardly seen any westerners at all - because they are all hidden in the ultra-wealthy neighborhoods far to the west, away from all the workers.. but that is nothing new.
What is new here is that, if one pays attention, one will see these little white or beige buses shuttling around all over the place. And they are always filled with either indians (including pakistani, bangladesh, and sri lankan decent) or southest asians (mainly philipino). These are frequently marked by the company that owns them - "Emiratis construction" for example. These are the buses that go back and forth between home and workplace. Not all of these buses are destined for the infamous labor camps, some go to various other highrises (away from the wealthy of course). But, judging by the shear size of the labour camps, most of these buses are destined for the camps. Follow them to find out.
Another thing one notices here is that it seems construction never stops (except on the holy day, Friday, since it's probably some kind of national law). Even in "downtown dubai" after midnight workers are feverishly working, high up above our heads, making all kinds of construction noises. I've heard that they work long shifts (12 or perhaps 14 hours per day) but they must also be working in rotation to keep construction going all night. In any case, I've never seen so much construction going on all over the place.
Here's what I've read: the "labour camps" are the housing provided for the workers. Here's how it apparently works: a recruiter goes to various villages in poverty stricken countries, like those mentioned above. They say that, for a fee of around $2,500 the recruiter can set them up with a company in dubai, with everything covered: work visa, employment, apartment, food. Everything. And that they can pay back the fee within 6 months of arriving. Being poor and therefore probably uneducated, they fall for the ruse. They come to try to send money back to their families. They arrive here. Their employers confiscate their passports: "You are ours now". No passport, no leaving. Then their "apartment" turns out to be one room in a shitty multi-level building to be shared with as many as 8 other people, with triple bunk beds on each side of the small room. People keep their belongings on their beds - there's no other space. The companies own and operate these camps. They own and operate the buses that shuttle the workers to and from each worksite. They dictate every moment of the workers' lives. And they must comply - if they are fired they will have nothing. In 2005 the Indian government registered 971 deaths from Indian nationals in the UAE - since they are mostly young men, presumably this is from either heat exhaustion or starvation. That is the only statistic I've found - perhaps the government here insisted that they stop counting. I've read that there are between 100,000 and 300,000 people living in these labor camps.
Below is some of what I've seen (I post the photos at the end because blogspot is always retarded and never orients anything right, so they are always at the bottom). In the first photo you can see the name of the company owning the building: Dubai Sky Construction. This is one place where the people live that construct those shiny buildings all the white people flock here to see. And this photo is most representative of the kind of habitation I saw: everything is hung out to dry on the walkway for a reason, there's no space inside. The second photo is of another building which, surprisingly, is actually labeled "labour camp". That falls under the category of either stupidity or arrogance.. In the third photo you can see one of the infamous buses exiting passed the barbed wire fence/wall - to keep them in or to keep others out?.. The fourth and fifth photos are two other views.
The camps smelled bad, like garbage - but I don't know if that was the camp itself, or the landfill that was across the street. There are buses all over the place. There are no street lights. There are almost no stores. There is nothing else - no recrational areas (except empty sand lots, of course), nothing to do, nowhere to go. And if one does want to go anywhere, the city is a long way - but they couldn't afford that anyway. The other striking feature is this: there are absolutely no women, only men. Men who leave their homes for years at a time with the hopes of providing something for their families.
In short, Dubai functions on a very simple model. Oil provides wealth for the emiratis, both in their ridiculous levels of capitalism, but also for purchasing building materials in a country which has, literally, nothing to offer except oil (it's one of the driest places in the world, and nothing grows here. It's just sand). Next, by exploiting the ignorance of poor foreigners they create a very, very inexpensive labor class to build things with the materials their oil money has purchased. There's a reason why the emiratis don't address the passport-theft issue.. And of course, they pay some westerners high wages to manage everything - the emiratis couldn't have done any of this themselves. And so it is only with the help of westerners that this slave class can exist - no matter how much they insist that they "feel bad" for what is going on and "wish they could do something". Everything here is built on oil and slavery - it could not exist without it. The expats living here, as well as the tourists, are having a fun time on the backs of the world's poorest - myself included. (And those who rode in the xgames here too.. but it wouldn't be the first time bmxers didn't think about what they were doing). The only way to escape it is to leave - the only way. If you live in dubai you are forever implicated in keeping these people slaves.. but take the gears out of the system and it collapses just like that..
Up until 1962 the UAE was an impoverished shithole. One sheikh brags that his father was riding camels, he a mercedes.. Them discovering oil is like all of a sudden giving hundreds of billions of dollars to a bunch of uneducated rednecks in rural alabama. Of course it's going to be a big fucking mess. The urban planning here is the best example of their lack of intelligence - massive roads where it's literally life-threatening to cross most of them. (And a future city built on the automobile? You'd think a country that is already exhausting it's oil resources would figure out the problem with that.. basic fucking thinking). But driving is equally a nightmare - it's as if a team of monkeys brainstormed the best way to make everyone miserable..
-Modern Capitalism-
But here's the most important reflection. The slavery going on in Dubai is no secret, and this isn't the first time gluttony of the upper classes got the best of the lower class - this happens every single time, without fault. What is amazing to me is that, while the slave situation is obvious to everyone who even takes a glance, the fact is that they somehow have some mental block when it comes to their own lives and economic system. We see slavery in dubai because it is an extreme form of capitalism - maybe the closest to pure market capitalism the world has seen (and the kind that the republican party in the US is always rooting for, incidentally). But it isn't dubai that is slavery - it is capitalism that is slavery. Capitalism is dictatorial, plain and simple. It is the opposite of democracy - if you love democracy you hate capitalism, whether you realize that or not. In Dubai the corporations "take care" of everything by providing the absolute lowest mostly-liveable standard of shelter, transport, and food. But in the ghetto of the US (or any western country), the only difference is that, when you are a low wage worker you get to choose which slum you will live in; the ghetto over here or the ghetto over there. You also get to choose which food you will eat; the discount, chemical laden grocery store over here or over there. And you also get the luxury of picking which bus route you will have to take in your 1.5 hour commute each day, inevitably to serve the wealthy class, directly or indirectly.
And this is how capitalism functions most beautifully: the illusion of freedom. As long as people are able to make "choices", even if they are choices in a list so curtailed as to be nearly negligible, one can still believe that it is in fact a real choice. But it's not. Do you want to get punched on the right side of the face or the left? The only difference between the slave situation in Dubai and the slave situation in my hometown is that people are brainwashed in the US into believing that we live in a free country. But at what moment in any given day are the working poor ever really free? They live check to check, they are stuck in shitty jobs, but most importantly they have absolutely no democratic control over any important aspects of their lives. Can they change what goes on at their company? Can they choose what products their local store will sell (apart from the "activism" of being a "choosy" consumer..)? Do they have a say in how their city will be planned? The architectural design? Or where new businesses will open? Not to mention the government.. No, of course not. If slavery is having no personal decision making ability, absolutely no access to democratic control.. The best form of control is one in which everyone believes that they are free. As long as they believe that, nothing will ever change.
And this is ALSO true for the middle classes. Just because the system rewards you handsomely for your subservience does NOT mean that you are fundamentally any more free than the poorest of the american ghettos; or the poor of dubai. It just means that you fall on a different point in the slavery continuum - your choices are slightly larger in how you will spend your unfairly paid wages. But even the middle class have as little real democratic control over their own lives, work, and city as the poor classes do. Who makes the decisions? They are the dictators. Who must abide by those decisions, who is nearly powerless to counteract those decisions? Those are the slaves. Slavery is not a matter of degree, it's a fundamental matter of the relationship one has with the power structures of society. The workers of Dubai and of Middle America have far more in common than one might think. It's just some people are poor slaves, while others are rewarded more handsomely for the same kind of subservience.
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