Wow what bullshit is this? Qatar is ranked number 1 for GDP per capita and I assure you 99.999% of their citizens are incredibly wealthy and do not live in poverty camps ffs, what a load of shit, have you ever visited these countries, because I do regularly and go to the poor and rich areas, and believe me they are MUCH better off than the average citizen here. Majority the citizens of the Arab countries have good lives and they rank all in top 10 for GDPPC.
I'm not saying they are perfect but stop this crazy spreading of misinformation. Funny how everyone thinks they are an expert on Arab countries by reading the media and never actually visiting themselves.
Also in reply to Ducklegs, where do you think all the money from those tax cuts for the increadibly wealthy go to? All those MP expenses etc while cutting benefits to the people who need it the most and letting them starve or freeze.
(Had 1 post left, didn't realise. Have no posts left on limit to reply)
Most of the people in Qatar and the UAE aren't actually citizens, they're very protective of who they give citizenship and a passport too. Pretty much everyone else is considered a migrant worker with very few rights. So yes, the 'citizens' of these countries are incredibly wealthy and live very privileged lives, but there are several underclasses of migrant workers, some of which are treated as relative slaves.
I actually know a bit about this, my girlfriend is an Arab Muslim who lived in Abu Dhabi for about 12 years and spent a lot of time in Dubai as well. Her family still live there, so she goes back from time to time, although as little as she can help it. Admittedly I've never been myself, but I consider her a pretty good source.
She has a lot of great memories; the standard of living was great, the restaurants are world class, Dubai is a beautiful modern city and she made a lot of good friends, not to mention the fact she was incredibly well paid for even the most basic of admin jobs.
However, she has an endless supply of horror stories. There are the obvious ones that we in the West stereotypically relate to Islamic countries; the conservative/religious oppression and sexism towards women. She did suffer under this unfortunately, but the UAE is actually fairly moderate, so as a women she had a fair amount of independence and it rarely affected her day to day life. She could more or less go about her business like she could here, except maybe she had to be a bit more careful about how she behaved in public or who she spoke to.
But it does go deeper than that. UAE citizens have a lot of power, she has friends who were deported because they were in a rush and failed to hold a door open for a UAE woman, or because in a fit of road rage they flipped the finger to a UAE national. Then there were the bosses (typically UAE nationals as they can basically walk into any job they want, and are immune to getting sacked) who sexually harassed her. Of course that's not exclusive to the middle-east at all, but if she'd tried to report it she wouldn't have just lost her job, she would have been kicked out of the country, away from her family and friends, forever. She might even have been arrested for being 'immoral' if the boss decided to take it that far. Then there's all the friends and acquaintances who were the victims of rape and sexual assault, but couldn't even think about reporting it to the police as they'd be arrested as well for having an 'extramarital affair'.
Then there's the hired help, the desperate souls they ship in from Malaysia, India etc. to do their dirty work for them. While most of them are just poorly paid and neglected, she insists there are those who are beaten and tortured by their UAE 'masters'. Apparently many of them go missing and are just never seen again...there was even a local Sheikh who apparently liked to take them out into the desert and drag them about chained to his car until they died. Something i found unbelievable, but she thinks is entirely plausible after living there. This of course never makes it into the media as it's owned and controlled by the ruling elite.
There's more, but I think you get the general idea. She got out of there as soon as she was old enough, although even then she needed her dad's approval to legally leave the country as she is technically his 'property' as an unmarried woman. She's also spent a lot of time in a few other Middle-Eastern countries, namely Saudia Arabia and Jordan, doesn't have anything nice to say about them either.
Don't get me wrong, she hates it here too. She recognises we suffer under a very different kind of oppression, but she feels safe at least, and knows her rights can't be entirely taken away without her at least being able to put up a fight if it came to it. She also lived in the USA till she was 10 and isn't fond of their government and their own brand of hypocrisy, although that might be because her parents are originally from Palestine, Trump's announcement last week didn't go down well in her household.
Basically, if you think the ruler of a country like the UAE should pass any fit and proper person test then you're mad. It doesn't matter who is better, what culture or beliefs are more acceptable, what is fair or unfair. It's still wrong.
But while they keep pumping money into our country, I don't see that changing.