as a profession with so many tethers to the UAE, currently floating firms that would otherwise be underwater, what is the response to news like this? if there weren't already enough reasons to be queasy about the place...
I would say that there are terrible people doing terrible things in almost every country in the world. I wouldn't single out the UAE. Look at all the shit that has gone down in the US during the past administration. Not to say that what he did was right or that we should support it in any way but I also don't see why we single out that atrocity yet genocide in Darfur goes on for years with nary a peep in the media.
I am more worried about the craziness of the architecture going in in that region of the world. Luxury housing on man made islands, glass skyscrapers in the desert, golf courses lush with grass in the desert. I mean that place is the antithesis of sustainable.
yes of course it's one guy's actions, crazy terrible stuff happens everywhere, etc. and I wasn't trying to open it up as simply the "the horror of it all" but as an indicator of how power works there and our professional reliance on it. the core of the issue is the response of the authority structure in place. confronted with this detailed, indisputable, unquestionable recording of this guy being criminally psychotic-- what do they do? dismiss. brush it aside. he's protected.
we are service providers to a family shamelessly harboring psychotics-- but they happen to have a country and lots of money...
Believe me, this is a fair representation of how the Emiratis in general treat others. Especially the ones in command.
Be it Dubai or Abu Dhabi, the sheiks are a bunch of sadistic, shameless individuals who have no regard for human rights.
Cant wait for the day when most of the world starts surviving on alternate means of energy and these bozos return to being Bedouins.
subtect, i did not call you retarded; i called your comment retarded. i fail to see where i got personal.
sameolddoctor, i have met many emiratis and many were total sweethearts. your latching on this incident to vent your generalized generalizing vitriol simply expresses your own pent up negativity that must fester in your entrails (i know the feeling, good to turn off meat eating) and not the emiratis.
in fact i don't think anyone with your kind of view can truly discuss human rights with much genuity, as you discredit, in your explicitly stated generalization, the possibility of other Emirati humans to actually be decent folk and therefore you yourself slanderously de-humanize a whole group of people.
it is important to note that the emirates is a fast changing society, physically, culturally, morally...etc. it is not a society that is so far fundementally built on the absolute rule of democratic law (and therefore, one cannot additionally accuse it of hypocricy as one might accuse the USA for its blatant and savage breach of human rights during its Bush years, as a country whose very constitution portends to be the inscription of democratic liberalism)...
as a young country, there is a rampant nouveau riche sensibility that is not endemic to the region but to many other places and people that exist in a rift between their old culture and the global consumerist culture. on par, the rift between old moral codes and new ones.
it is saddening to see that "human rights" turn into human self-righteousness. the only country in the middle east currently perpetrating infringements of human rights on a mass scale is treated as a tabernacle of civility worthy of boycotting human rights meetings for. this has exposed a fundamental base of "human rights" rhetoric...some people are more human than others, and are therefore more entitled to human rights than others.
Orhan, I think this answers your question. torturing a sub-human arab is less contentious than torturing a fully human recognized and certified by the powers that be. and any araq cruelty will get garner more CNN and BBC attention than the countless incidents of israeli and american cruelty.
many good points -- but after your defense of emiratis and lengthy skewering of sameolddoctor about the poisons of categorical prejudice and imperial self-righteousness, just curious what you meant by:
i meant that i am not surprised that this happened...however, this doesnt mean that i think this is peculair to an "emirati nature" as opposed to a other human natures. for the likelihood of this nothappening, there must be systematic restrictions and accountability in place that conflicts with the traditional values of the royal system (a sytem not peculair to the uae obviously) and is not yet supported by the younger democratic system. i.e. such incidents occur because they fall in the aforementioned gap. such a gap exists....even if its decreasing in time...and therefore i am still not surprised such events take place.
noctilucent, judging by your comment "i have met many emiratis and many were total sweethearts.", I can only assume that you are white, or, of course, an Emirati yourself.
If you were to be on the receiving end of their jibes you'd probably know. Im sure there are some Emiratis with some respect towards other cultures and peoples (except white americans and europeans, that is), but most of the ones I have met are innate douchebags.
It is quite amazing how your whole attitude is "They are a young culture with growing pains, hence should be overlooked".
As you say "as a young country, there is a rampant nouveau riche sensibility that is not endemic to the region but to many other places and people that exist in a rift between their old culture and the global consumerist culture"
Which is why I hope we can wean ourselves away from fossil fuels as soon as possible and they can return to their 'old culture'.
i am neither white nor an emirati, sameolddoctor.
also i did not prescribe overlooking...you assume far too much. simply because i refuse your extreme does not imply my being on the other extreme.
as for human rights and hypocrisy-- yes they go hand in hand, but not as cynically as noct dramatizes. if there weren't hypocrisy following their delaration, there wouldn't have been a need for their declaration. chomsky: important social change often begins with hypocrisy. human rights and equality express an aspiration, and basis of action for the future, with a recognition that social change is a historical process with a lot of momentum to countersteer against. but without these declarations having been given the force of law, future groups pushing for social change wouldn't have anything to stand on.
episodes like the one that started the thread indicate that the power structure of the UAE has no such aspirations for the future.
i did not cynically dramatize, subtect. its a fact that the usa other western countries boycotted the UN human rights gathering because of the likelihood of israel being condemned for its treatment of palestinians. and the then re-election of bush was just telling that the average plumber joe did not care much for human rights if the humans did not share his nationality, speak his language, share his colour of skin..etc.in joe's eyes, joe is more entitled to human rights than mohammed.
and i'm not saying, mind you, that if the tables were turned, that in mohammed's eyes he would not see himself as more entitled.
the nexus here is who has the upper hand. for instance, an anti-occupation/colonial activist can be portrayed as a subhuman terrorist; the very language of who is fully human and who is not is a battle ground and not a rational court of justice. and "human rights" rhetoric can be used as a weapon...as it was as part of the pretext to invade and kill innocent iraqis.
there should be a complete review of "human rights" in order that "human rights" itself not turn into an additional weapon against humans.
i'll come back later,, but, i have to agree with nocti here, sameolddoctor, that was a huge misstep, what would u say if i told all the french people i met were douchebags?? or any other country for that matter, just doesnt make sense.
UAE litmus test
as a profession with so many tethers to the UAE, currently floating firms that would otherwise be underwater, what is the response to news like this? if there weren't already enough reasons to be queasy about the place...
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=7402099&page=1
fair warning: parts of the article are disturbingly graphic
I would say that there are terrible people doing terrible things in almost every country in the world. I wouldn't single out the UAE. Look at all the shit that has gone down in the US during the past administration. Not to say that what he did was right or that we should support it in any way but I also don't see why we single out that atrocity yet genocide in Darfur goes on for years with nary a peep in the media.
I am more worried about the craziness of the architecture going in in that region of the world. Luxury housing on man made islands, glass skyscrapers in the desert, golf courses lush with grass in the desert. I mean that place is the antithesis of sustainable.
yes of course it's one guy's actions, crazy terrible stuff happens everywhere, etc. and I wasn't trying to open it up as simply the "the horror of it all" but as an indicator of how power works there and our professional reliance on it. the core of the issue is the response of the authority structure in place. confronted with this detailed, indisputable, unquestionable recording of this guy being criminally psychotic-- what do they do? dismiss. brush it aside. he's protected.
we are service providers to a family shamelessly harboring psychotics-- but they happen to have a country and lots of money...
quite terrible really... and i'm not surprised.
however :if there weren't already enough reasons to be queasy about the place...
now that comment was rather unqualifiably retarded, in my opinion. why must one pump reason up with melodrama?
"why must one pump reason up with melodrama?"
I might agree with this, however to whatever degree it's a misstep:
"rather unqualifiably retarded"
it is certainly less so than puming up a quibble over rhetoric into personal insult.
Believe me, this is a fair representation of how the Emiratis in general treat others. Especially the ones in command.
Be it Dubai or Abu Dhabi, the sheiks are a bunch of sadistic, shameless individuals who have no regard for human rights.
Cant wait for the day when most of the world starts surviving on alternate means of energy and these bozos return to being Bedouins.
is one form of torture more humane than the other?
subtect, i did not call you retarded; i called your comment retarded. i fail to see where i got personal.
sameolddoctor, i have met many emiratis and many were total sweethearts. your latching on this incident to vent your generalized generalizing vitriol simply expresses your own pent up negativity that must fester in your entrails (i know the feeling, good to turn off meat eating) and not the emiratis.
in fact i don't think anyone with your kind of view can truly discuss human rights with much genuity, as you discredit, in your explicitly stated generalization, the possibility of other Emirati humans to actually be decent folk and therefore you yourself slanderously de-humanize a whole group of people.
it is important to note that the emirates is a fast changing society, physically, culturally, morally...etc. it is not a society that is so far fundementally built on the absolute rule of democratic law (and therefore, one cannot additionally accuse it of hypocricy as one might accuse the USA for its blatant and savage breach of human rights during its Bush years, as a country whose very constitution portends to be the inscription of democratic liberalism)...
as a young country, there is a rampant nouveau riche sensibility that is not endemic to the region but to many other places and people that exist in a rift between their old culture and the global consumerist culture. on par, the rift between old moral codes and new ones.
it is saddening to see that "human rights" turn into human self-righteousness. the only country in the middle east currently perpetrating infringements of human rights on a mass scale is treated as a tabernacle of civility worthy of boycotting human rights meetings for. this has exposed a fundamental base of "human rights" rhetoric...some people are more human than others, and are therefore more entitled to human rights than others.
Orhan, I think this answers your question. torturing a sub-human arab is less contentious than torturing a fully human recognized and certified by the powers that be. and any araq cruelty will get garner more CNN and BBC attention than the countless incidents of israeli and american cruelty.
araq = arab .... not the aniseed alchoholic drink
noctilucent:
many good points -- but after your defense of emiratis and lengthy skewering of sameolddoctor about the poisons of categorical prejudice and imperial self-righteousness, just curious what you meant by:
> quite terrible really... and i'm not surprised.
i meant that i am not surprised that this happened...however, this doesnt mean that i think this is peculair to an "emirati nature" as opposed to a other human natures. for the likelihood of this nothappening, there must be systematic restrictions and accountability in place that conflicts with the traditional values of the royal system (a sytem not peculair to the uae obviously) and is not yet supported by the younger democratic system. i.e. such incidents occur because they fall in the aforementioned gap. such a gap exists....even if its decreasing in time...and therefore i am still not surprised such events take place.
and i am not defending emiratis per se. i am attacking sameolddoctor.
noctilucent, judging by your comment "i have met many emiratis and many were total sweethearts.", I can only assume that you are white, or, of course, an Emirati yourself.
If you were to be on the receiving end of their jibes you'd probably know. Im sure there are some Emiratis with some respect towards other cultures and peoples (except white americans and europeans, that is), but most of the ones I have met are innate douchebags.
It is quite amazing how your whole attitude is "They are a young culture with growing pains, hence should be overlooked".
As you say "as a young country, there is a rampant nouveau riche sensibility that is not endemic to the region but to many other places and people that exist in a rift between their old culture and the global consumerist culture"
Which is why I hope we can wean ourselves away from fossil fuels as soon as possible and they can return to their 'old culture'.
i am neither white nor an emirati, sameolddoctor.
also i did not prescribe overlooking...you assume far too much. simply because i refuse your extreme does not imply my being on the other extreme.
more principally, why are you such a dumbass?
as for human rights and hypocrisy-- yes they go hand in hand, but not as cynically as noct dramatizes. if there weren't hypocrisy following their delaration, there wouldn't have been a need for their declaration. chomsky: important social change often begins with hypocrisy. human rights and equality express an aspiration, and basis of action for the future, with a recognition that social change is a historical process with a lot of momentum to countersteer against. but without these declarations having been given the force of law, future groups pushing for social change wouldn't have anything to stand on.
episodes like the one that started the thread indicate that the power structure of the UAE has no such aspirations for the future.
i did not cynically dramatize, subtect. its a fact that the usa other western countries boycotted the UN human rights gathering because of the likelihood of israel being condemned for its treatment of palestinians. and the then re-election of bush was just telling that the average plumber joe did not care much for human rights if the humans did not share his nationality, speak his language, share his colour of skin..etc.in joe's eyes, joe is more entitled to human rights than mohammed.
and i'm not saying, mind you, that if the tables were turned, that in mohammed's eyes he would not see himself as more entitled.
the nexus here is who has the upper hand. for instance, an anti-occupation/colonial activist can be portrayed as a subhuman terrorist; the very language of who is fully human and who is not is a battle ground and not a rational court of justice. and "human rights" rhetoric can be used as a weapon...as it was as part of the pretext to invade and kill innocent iraqis.
there should be a complete review of "human rights" in order that "human rights" itself not turn into an additional weapon against humans.
= customer is always 'right'
nocti, you're the man,, hehe
i'll come back later,, but, i have to agree with nocti here, sameolddoctor, that was a huge misstep, what would u say if i told all the french people i met were douchebags?? or any other country for that matter, just doesnt make sense.
i'm the man? who i am is besides the point.
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