UAE is well on its way to being the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Your rhetoric sounds like it’s from 2003.
You wrote the 40M comment!
Do I win a prize?
yes a lifetime ban! jk congrats!
Switzerland isn't the most progressive of countries (it only gave women the right to vote in 1971) but AFAIK you don't go to jail if you fuck a man in the ass, in contrast to UAE.
Not something that directly concerns me, but I'm personally more worried about restrictions on freedom of speech, but regardless not somewhere I'd be willing to live (I currently do live in Switzerland).
I used Switzerland as an example because of its financial industry. I wasn’t making any commentary on the culture. Presumably if the UAE is the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean, it’s more adapted for that cultural environment and not for what Westerners are looking for.
These laws are also pretty much never enforced in UAE, as far as I understand.
The laws are enforced enough that the British government gives a warning about them for visitors to the UAE.
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/united-arab-emirate...
Government websites are known for giving warnings about lots of things that aren’t a big deal in real life. I am basing my opinion on people I know that have been there, plus topics on Reddit, etc. But of course your mileage may vary and it’s reasonable to be worried about such laws if they might apply to you.
>These laws are also pretty much never enforced in UAE, as far as I understand.
They are never enforced, until you become a target, then you're arrested and charged with a list violations.
I mean, we do this too, to some degree. But this is naive.
Why so harsh example?
This one is better: a woman in UAE went to the doctor(gynecologist) and ended up in jail because doctor found out she is pregnant but not married.
In America a black man driving a clean car can be pulled over and shot dead by police
In many American states a raped woman has to carry her rapist off spring to term
In America black people are significantly over represented in jails, poverty, illiteracy, single parent families.
I’m sure the 5 largest western democracies have similar issues
Are there special laws for black people? no, it is not comparable with UAE.
> Are there special laws for black people?
Formally documented de jure discrimination is hardly the only available approach. For example, the term "grandfather clause" stems from Southern states applying severe voter restrictions (poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.) but exempting anyone whose ancestors had the right to vote on a particular pre-Civil War date.
Functionally? Permitted poor/uneducated whites but not blacks to vote without ever mentioning a race in the law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinn_v._United_States
"No person shall be registered as an elector of this state or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma; but no person who was, on January 1, 1866, or any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote because of his inability to so read and write sections of such Constitution."
Meaningless hair splitting to a middle class black American shot dead for driving a washed car
You should be worried about gay rights: some years ago, a French teenage boy was raped by some local men, and the authorities initially tried to get the boy to confess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_rape has some more examples.
That would be 15-year-old Alexandre Robert, in 2007
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Alexandre_Robert
A number of particularly nasty elements to the response—including that the authorities knew that one of the rapists carried HIV, and had previously segregated him in custody to prevent him spreading the virus to other prisoners, but they fabricated medical tests to the contrary and lied to the boy’s family.
Which country are you talking about?
UAE, obviously, since I was replying to your comment saying you weren't concerned with gay rights in UAE.
Will the world's criminals start storing their money there or did you mean something else with Switzerland of the Middle East?
> The U.S. is the top destination for stashing money illegally, according to a new report from a pro-tax advocacy group.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-coalition-report-us-money-...
Start? Uae is a place known for storing and moving shady money. Very few extradition treatys.
> Very few extradition treatys.
Which is also excellent not just for stealing, but also for murder. Half a year ago a German-born Pole killed a family in a car crash and run away to UAE.[0] They tried to extradit him but without success.
[0] https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/accidents/suspected-fa...
That article says he was trying to flee to the Dominican Republic, not the UAE.
The article is from October - in the meantime it turned out he actually fled to UAE. The Polish government tried to extradite him but failed. There are many sources on that, unfortunately in Polish only.
I didn't know that, but I guess that's not too surprising.
Uk is the world’s money laundering capital of the world
Probably not, they'll still put the money in Luxembourg and Switzerland, but they can exchange gold and diamonds and stuff like that from shady dealings in Africa for money there.
If you look into it you'll find that it's a nice marketplace for israeli oligarchs running operations in DR Congo, e.g. for diamonds which Israel exports unexpected amounts of, and you'll also find that the Rapid Support Forces/Janjaweed in Sudan are buddies of the UAE. Unlike Switzerland the UAE is quite aggressive militarily, e.g. occupying part of Yemen.
I find your second paragraph especially interesting, do you have a source (e.g. a book) to get deeper into this?
Been a while since I last had a run through books about this and no time at the moment to go remind myself about titles, but I can give some links to start digging.
Main export of Israel: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/diamonds/repo...
Local presentation of mining sites: https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/wikidiamond/diamond-mining-m...
Some historical background and interesting sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_industry_in_Israel
As mentioned, reading up on Dan Gertler is a good idea too.
Sudan complaining recently about foreign involvement: https://sudantribune.com/article283888/
If you look into Omar al-Bashir's 'career' you'll likely find it enlightening about the degree of Gulf involvement in Sudan. The Gulf states are really, really good at PR, they can afford the biggest, most efficient firms to run it for them, but there are a lot of books about the colonial history in the region and how trade and economics have evolved over the last century.
The strategically importantly located island of Socotra has a really interesting history, lots of pirates and stuff. Since 2018 UAE is occupying it and lately Yemen news sources have claimed that Israel is in on it, and the US DoD has been asked whether they're there too. Starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Emirates_takeover_...
Thanks for taking the time to reply, really interesting stuff.
UAE has basically annexed Socotra.
Dan Gertler
I just noticed the roll over to comment id 40000000 and came here, albeit 2 days late :)
Think about the fact that education is pretty much free there. They even pay for Western institutions to set up satellite campuses. You’d think they should have the most educated and skilled labor in the world. At some point, you have to realize it’s cultural: they don’t want to work.
Funny you mention Switzerland because they have some of the highest skilled labor in the world.
You’re generalizing nearly 20 million people in Saudi Arabia alone. How this is even an acceptable thing to say on HN is beyond me.
The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future. To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant of the facts and probably related to the point I made above.
> To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant
I wanted to reply "But Sheikh Mohammed himself said so!" but then trying to back up my claim I realized it's false. [0] It's amazing how many false things we take for granted just because they align with our world-view (and make a good story).
[O] https://factcheck.afp.com/sheikh-mohammed-did-not-say-great-...
I won’t comment on culture but it is a fact that the majority of working Saudis work in bullshit government jobs where they basically collect paychecks for free, and actual labor is overwhelmingly performed by cheap migrant workers, no? Or is my information out of date? That’s an arrangement you can’t find anywhere outside the Gulf, to my knowledge.
You have a bunch of weasel words there that are doing some heavy lifting: "majority", "actual" and "overwhelmingly".
It's not possible to run a functioning country (which SA undeniably is) without a large number of people who are at least somewhat competent, at least somewhat hardworking, and at least somewhat loyal to the country. You may be able to rely on cheap migrant workers for the hard physical labor, but not for the planning and administration that makes the whole thing work.
According to https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/20/news/saudi-government-worke..., 70% of employed Saudis work for the government, and according to their civil service minister, "many" of them don't even work an hour a day. If you think they're structured like any other country and I'm merely singling them out with "weasel words" we can't possibly have a discussion.
The oil money printer can hide a lot of problems. A small percentage of somewhat competent people aren't guaranteed to be able to provide for a huge number of useless freeloaders if the gravy train stops. Look at Venezuela for a somewhat similar situation.
You’re right. It’s a gross generalization. But it is based on my personal and professional experience.
Yeah, and I went to Greece, a country with a population half the size of Saudi Arabia, a few years ago and got bad service everywhere. The economic data is also not good.
But I wouldn’t somehow think it’s accurate or acceptable to claim Greeks are all lazy and rude.
>The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future
There are all kinds of promises when times are good, that change as soon as the economic winds change. This project is more evidence of that.
If the collective financial portfolio of the Gulf countries goes away, you’ll have much larger problems to worry about.
This project was a side project and always has been. Its success or lack thereof has very little to do with the overall financial position of the country.
>You’re generalizing nearly 20 million people in Saudi Arabia alone
Yes, this is how you compare populations.
How so ? How is hating 20 million people for your view of their government reasonable