Ethics of having fun in Dubai

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Dubai has become the most popular global holiday spot in the world and is very popular as a stopover or destination for Australians or New Zealanders. Nearly every person I know has holidayed there (including my parents and siblings). My wife and I have avoided the place.

The oil rich nation has been throwing money around to also attract celebrities, sport stars, money laundering politicians criminals and big business by offering first world living standards, cheap labour and minimum taxes. I post this as I just saw champion retired Australian cricketer Brett Lee give up his (and his wife and kids) Australian citizenship to live a life of luxury in Dubai.
https://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/c ... c96784b188

Dubai uses a Kafala system to indenture and abuse foreign workers (from south and south-east Asia) in what can be described as modern day slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system
this allows labour costs to be cheap.

So when you see middle/upper middle class expatriates smiling/flexing Dubai lifestyle on social media remember somebody is going to suffer whipping, abuse and exploitation to allow them to fun.

My GF worked under this system at some point.

A similar system exists where I live too, with the same naming. Wealthy people doing ethical stuff as usual.

What makes the system worse, that they often hand them a contract written in Arabic only to workers who can't read the language to sign it O.o; and hence are unaware of the rights they have - for instance a domestic worker, even according to the Kafala law itself, must not work more than 9 hours a day , must have a 24 hours day off per week, must have their own private bedroom of a viable space, or a seperate flat, and even has the right to terminate the contract - yet, very rare are the employers who grant all those rights (often only the bedroom because well...wealthy people always have extra rooms) or even make their workers aware of them.

Nice racket for capitolists ....

And let's not forget that women are still "property" in some of THOSE countries. I will never support that with my travel money.

Yes the broader implications are throughout the gulf states and Lebanon, domestic workers are exploited under this system. I've seen cases of maids having their passports confiscated and being subject to horrible cruelty (too gruesome to post here). Many governments like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines see this form of labour as lucrative and for the workers the salaries are much better than local income so the system continues.

It's why I picked on Dubai specifically. Not to mention thousands of western women travelling alone (particularly travel influencers) sitting in an infinity pool at the Burj Khalifa with shades on sipping cocktails, not realising the concrete foundations of the hotel they are staying contain skeletons of Indian workers killed in accidents.

Many foreign maids have tried unaliving themselves by jumping out of apartment complex windows (where expats and their families live) to avoid daily torture and abuse.

the proximity in Dubai is the "yuck" factor, as a tourist you are literally rubbing shoulders in the streets with young foreign men and women who are stuck in slavery/bondage working 16hr days non-stop under oppressive conditions.

Admist all the cruelty beneath the surface, local Arab women are forced to live under medieval rules and the Dubai sheikhs also enjoy acquiring victims of human trafficking from eastern Europe kept in harems. Also advertisements offering young western women thousands of dollars to attend parties thrown by Dubai's wealthy playboys has lead to further exploitation which I will refrain from posting in case it breaches forum rules.

Yet Dubai is advertised as a global "playground" with Disneyland type attractions for kids and all type of entertainment for parents - biggest and best of everything. Families bringing their kids should know in advance that Dubai is more like Sodom and Gamora and less like Disneyland and Las Vegas.

Sodom and Gomorrah? Dubai? Maybe compared to Saudi Arabia or Iran, but the Emirates is still a very conservative country.

Also minor transgressions of conservative laws lead to fast-trak prosecution and jail. If you get into conflict with a native Dubai resident the police take their side.

Infact the police are complicit in some bad things too long to list
https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-u ... 749b596489

As I said, it's marketed as better than Disneyland and Las Vegas but is infact more like Sodom and Gomorrah

I really don't know what people seeing Dubai. Apart from futuristic, Canto Bight style buildings and malls full of snob stores, what's there to see? No nature to speak of, so I'd much rather visit countries where I can see more than just a flat mass of sand.

You couldn't pay me enough.

If you are travelling between Europe and Asia (including Australia and New Zealand which are geographically in Asia) then Dubai is the stopover of choice. Dubai International Airport (DXB) is currently the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic, handling 92.3 million passengers in 2024 and expecting continued growth in 2026. It operates near maximum capacity, with over 300,000 travelers daily.

Using oil money, the Dubai princes have made Dubai a holiday/lifestyle destination investing hundreds of billions in infrastructure including the world's best hotels, duty free and entertainment spots. Basically biggest and best of everything. As a result a high proportion of travellers convert their Asia stopovers into 2,3-7 day stayovers. Infact for many travellers Dubai is more memorable than Asia, you can sleep in the cheapest 5 star luxury hotels in the world, have a 3 Michelin star breakfast while staring at sharks a few feet from your face in the world's biggest aquarium, leave your kids in the biggest theme parks in the world (Disney is building the biggest Disneyland due to open in a year) while your teenage kids do dune buggy racing, tobogganing, sky diving, jet boating and any number of thousands of activities while you and your partner sip $1000 champagne, eating michelin star canapes sitting in the world's tallest infinity pool watching million dollar light shows and the world's largest drone show to finish the evening.

I haven't even touched on a fraction of what you can do in Dubai, and the government makes sure it ranges from affordable all the way to exclusively for the mega rich. It's one giant playground. But in order to build and maintain this mega-metropolis in the middle of the desert, you need thousands and thousands of cheap workers paid next to nothing (many maids are infact kept prisoner) in slave like conditions.

I understand for many wealthy Indian and Chinese tourists, they are accustomed to having poor servants so don't care and enjoy themselves. But for millions of westerners who pride their own societies for human rights, should be ashamed to participate in this barbaric enterprise.

Would you be at all surprised to learn that Disney and Las Vegas do not exactly have clean hands themselves, and commit many of the same atrocities - they just hide their shadow better.

People will often tolerate the darker underside of indulgence, so long as they don't have to be aware of it.

Even Disney is largely powered by exploitation and manipulation. Vegas is so morally compromised, it's a work of art the way they've managed their image to still look even remotely "family friendly".

Luxury is usually built on exploitation. One should ponder the ethics of having fun anywhere, where that fun is provided by the labor of others.

(Side note - "Gamora" is a Guardian of the Galaxy - "Gomorrah" is the city from the bible)

Yes I am aware of Las Vegas's origins being for money laundering for crime bosses from the 1940s-1980s. And yes, there is always some level of exploitation whether it involve illegal migrant workers in Disneyland or human trafficking in Las Vegas.

But on a sliding scale (1-10), the level of human suffering in Vegas/Disneyland is the opposite of Dubai. Like comparing a modern factory employing cheap labour (1) on one side of the scale Vs a Nazi concentration camp on the other end of the scale (10).

On a worker suffering scale 1-10
Dubai construction - 7.5 (working non-stop 16hrs in 110 F outdoors - kept in crowded unhygienic dormitories no aircon or running water, no safety equipment or OHSE and high risk of injury or death, pay < what was offered)
Dubai domestic maids - 8.5 (passports stolen, little or no pay, little food (often starved as punishment), made to work all day 7 days a week, 4-6hrs sleep allowed, abused and physically assaulted daily (punching, whipping and hit with blunt instruments, hot irons and dangled off balconies for small minor infractions by wives. then at night sexual and physical assault from husbands. If the maids manage to escape they are either recaptured and returned to their tormentors, or locked up and sexually assaulted by police, sometimes vanishing altogether. when returning home to Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka almost all maids look half starved and wear some permanent scarring or injury. Some quite serious.

I am not even listing everything reported. I am also not saying Las Vegas or Disney is a 1 or that Dubai is a 10, but on a continuum Dubai is closer to a Nazi concentration camp for these unfortunate foreign workers.

Dubai is such an evil place it's not even funny, I have never been a "we need to boycott this" kind of person because most of the time something is a comparable evil to other things, and elsewhile still provides a good or useful service. Dubai is different, it's the most disgustingly soulless place in the world and it's designed for rich psychopaths. Do what you have to do if you have to stay there but I don't want to be close with anyone vapid and tasteless enough to enjoy that place.

For one, I wasn't comparing the two, only noting that neither disney nor vegas are as "family friendly" as they let on, given what occurs out of sight. I wasn't speaking of vegas's past, but rather it's present. The fact that you think their worst regular offenses are merely hiring illegal immigrants for disney / orlando, or human trafficking in vegas, demonstrates just how good their marketing team is.

Dubai may be worse, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones that deserve attention. Moreso to your point about dubai, disney and vegas fall into the same category of a morally questionable establishments, who maintain the family friendly image.

DIdja know, the corridor across florida from the space coast across orlando to tampa st pete, actually has pretty notable issues with human traffickers and pedos - last sting operation I can recall, in one single county they busted over 100 offenders of CSAM, including mayors, legislators, members of boards of big companies (think Raytheon or L3 Harris), doctors, and other assorted people of power. While disney's official policy might frown upon many behaviors, I'm willing to bet they look the other way in service of sufficiently powerful or affluent individuals.

Vegas is designed to ruin people. Even families. Casinos are terrifying with how predatory and manipulatively they operate.

My point is that people will happily patronize an establishment so long as they don't have to see the atrocities they commit.

Are ya by chance familiar with the Nestle corporation? Makes drinks and snacks and cereal n stuff.

I never knew Vegas had a family friendly reputation to some because I have always known it as Sin City.