Exerts from a lengthy and interesting article. ************ I. An Adult Disneyland Karen Andrews can't speak. Every time she starts to tell her story, she puts her head down and crumples. She is slim and angular and has the faded radiance of the once-rich, even though her clothes are as creased as her forehead. I find her in the car park of one of Dubai's finest international hotels, where she is living, in her Range Rover. She has been sleeping here for months, thanks to the kindness of the Bangladeshi car park attendants who don't have the heart to move her on. This is not where she thought her Dubai dream would end. Her story comes out in stutters, over four hours. At times, her old voice – witty and warm – breaks through. Karen came here from Canada when her husband was offered a job in the senior division of a famous multinational. "When he said Dubai, I said – if you want me to wear black and quit booze, baby, you've got the wrong girl. But he asked me to give it a chance. And I loved him." All her worries melted when she touched down in Dubai in 2005. "It was an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse," she says. "Life was fantastic. You had these amazing big apartments, you had a whole army of your own staff, you pay no taxes at all. It seemed like everyone was a CEO. We were partying the whole time." Her husband, Daniel, bought two properties. "We were drunk on Dubai," she says. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to mismanage their finances. "We're not talking huge sums, but he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was surprised. We got into a little bit of debt." After a year, she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour. One doctor told him he had a year to live; another said it was benign and he'd be okay. But the debts were growing. "Before I came here, I didn't know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada's or any other liberal democracy's," she says. Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can't pay, you go to prison. "When we realised that, I sat Daniel down and told him: listen, we need to get out of here. He knew he was guaranteed a pay-off when he resigned, so we said – right, let's take the pay-off, clear the debt, and go." So Daniel resigned – but he was given a lower pay-off than his contract suggested. The debt remained. As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren't covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country. "Suddenly our cards stopped working. We had nothing. We were thrown out of our apartment." Karen can't speak about what happened next for a long time; she is shaking. Daniel was arrested and taken away on the day of their eviction. It was six days before she could talk to him. "He told me he was put in a cell with another debtor, a Sri Lankan guy who was only 27, who said he couldn't face the shame to his family. Daniel woke up and the boy had swallowed razor-blades. He banged for help, but nobody came, and the boy died in front of him." Karen managed to beg from her friends for a few weeks, "but it was so humiliating. I've never lived like this. I worked in the fashion industry. I had my own shops. I've never..." She peters out. Daniel was sentenced to six months' imprisonment at a trial he couldn't understand. It was in Arabic, and there was no translation. "Now I'm here illegally, too," Karen says I've got no money, nothing. I have to last nine months until he's out, somehow." Looking away, almost paralysed with embarrassment, she asks if I could buy her a meal. She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars. "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." http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html
Wow....that absolutely sucks......why can't she leave? She is not in prison.....why not just go to the Canadian embassy and leave? DD
Beirut was great in 1972. It was the Paris of the middle east. Dubai was such a bubble it was funny. "A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place"
And libs can't see the danger of letting TurboTax Timmy and his cronies control the financial sector? This isn't much different taxing peoples hard earned bonuses at 90%. Damn people, read the writing on the wall and learn from others mistakes.
Turbotax Timmy and his "cronies" fought against the 90% bonus tax. It's almost like just you make up stuff and run with it without actually finding out if it's true.
the rest of the article was just as or even more interesting than the excerpt posted here.....thanks to the OP
I wish we had the same system here in the States. If you can't pay your debt, you are forced to wash plates or strip until you earn enough money to pay it back. Dubai government knows fully well that if those people are allowed to take off, they will NEVER repay the debt. This is sort of like gambling at a Vegas casino and not paying your tab. Unless you are a celebrity, you are the casino's slave until you pay out what you owe.
Islam oppression working it's magic: Dubai is definitely a city without a soul. You have people from all over the world but they stick to their ethnic groups, the culture revolves around superficial shows of power and the Jumeirah Beach area is filled with vacant houses. It's interesting and keeps you occupied but don't go there expecting to find depth and people who "keep it real". It does require some discipline to live in the Middle East, and while it's not a great place for servants most of the minimum wage workers in construction earn very good money compared to the best case scenario for them in their home countries. Dubai will be fine in the near future as it's a popular and cheap tourist destination for Europeans and they are setting themselves up to be the central point for sporting and cultural events in Asia. However the city does not apply the law of supply and demand to it's real estate market and this arrogance could lead to it's downfall.
The construction workers (who are mostly Indian/Sri Lankan) do nothing but work for 5 years and save up enough money to support a family back home... and it is A LOT more than the money they would earn in India. It's not that bad of a trade off if you consider their situations and original quality of life. Whereas the servant class... it's always a dead end situation for them.
Every country has them.....btw anywhere you go you're going to get people of similar ethnic backgrounds magnetized by their own.....human nature. Dubai/Abu Dhabi are class based societies.....
lol Let's keep in mind that this woman can't leave because she owes money. She readily admits that they messed up their own finances. Now apparently she has no money to leave (which is why there's apparently no point going to the embassy). She needs to take responsibility for her actions. Nevermind that she is sleeping in a car which she can sell for cash. A Range Rover!! lol Surely no one expects a city facing a credit crisis to allow this woman to leave when the right thing for her to do is find a job as a waitress or something.
No lets not. I dont think most of you realize but a majority of bankruptcies occur because of sudden bills such as emergency medical bills from severe injuries/surgeries. You can't tell me you dont know a family that hasn't been hit by a sudden spike in bills out of nowhere. So you honestly expect to just punish those people? Look there is financial mismanagement that exists but somehow freezing their assets and locking them into poverty isn't an answer. And just because a majority of us are responsible enough to manage our debts doesn't mean that everyone who failed to automatically deserves to be forced into indentured servitude. Barbaric is what I'd use to describe this. After working with some families with debt related crises, I'm pretty sure that ignorant members of the media are the only ones who believe that those that are in serious debt deserve to be punished. It's also the reason why the Bush administration ****ed up our bankruptcy laws a few years ago because of the need for some overly vindictive response to a problem that didn't exist. And in the end, it only hurt American families who fell deeper in debt because of our "reformed" bankruptcy laws.
You act like that's such an easy thing to do. Have you been to Dubai before? The labor market there is absolutely cutthroat. They import so many immigrants that you don't stand a chance. The economic divide between the rich and poor there is so large that the wages she theoretically might earn wouldn't ever pay off her debts. Their approach to debt is absolutely wrong and ensures that the debtors won't ever get a penny back. Solving debt involves negotiating with the debtors and trying to find constructive solutions rather than ridiculous responses like the Dubai government. It's the reason why forclosures in the US don't even mean anything anymore. You're better off negotiating with the homeowner and trying to recoup some money because the foreclosed house isn't even worth anything. A little bit of common sense when it comes to debt goes a long way, but most governments seem to do the opposite.
