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Dubai: A liberal place to do business

BillieTheBotBillieTheBot Posts: 8,721 Bot
in Politics & Debate
Go and tell it to the Swiss bloke who's spending four years in prison because he had a poppy seed in his clothes after eating a sandwich at Heathrow before he flew out.

Source.

Just something to think about when people go on about how great Dubai is. It bloody well isn't.

Maybe this is what Rowan Williams wants with Sharia law in the uk?

If we all stop going to Dubai then this might stop. Fat chance of that, mind. I suppose people who go there get what they deserve.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There's a thread started on a similar note in the Drugs forum.

    Dubai has been an interesting place to do business for a while, but generally possible with a small amount of consideration. If they keep this up that might start to change.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Unfortunately irrational and illogical attitudes and laws are the norm in the Arab world.

    In Egypt HIV sufferers are being tortured and subjected to anal tests to "prove" their 'homosexual conduct.' And as Muslim countries go Egypt is pretty moderate...

    I think it's very important though that domestically modern, liberal countries assert their belief in the value of secular and progressive values. (The kind of talk we've heard from Rowan Williams is completely unacceptable).
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've gotta say I think that things such as the Iraq war and the US support of Israel has rallied people around leaders with a more militant interpretation of Islam. Iran for example, has certainly gone backwards in the past few years. I was watching a report just this morning about how certain films are being censored at their national film festival for really trivial things. I mean I'm against any sort of censorship in general, but you can sometimes understand why a government will censor something that is politically opposed to them. But one example was a film that was censored because it showed a woman singing. A shame, because Iran has some great cinema. And even the famously secular nation Turkey has also slowly becoming far more religiously conservative. And the longer such people have power, the longer they can inflict their extremist views on the rest of the population, and you end up with a situation like Afghanistan, where the democratically elected government is just as prone to human rights violations as the government it was set up to replace because of human rights violations (if it wasn't for US/UK intervention, the new Afghani government would have executed a man for converting from Islam to Christianity in 2003).
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The trouble is that you seldom have a choice between a totally evil regime and one with an absolute committment to democracy and human rights. Often you have to deal with shades of grey.

    Egypt and Dubai are certainly imperfect, but the alternatives are likely to be even worse. So you keep the imperfect onside and slowly (ever so slowly) try to influence them for the better.

    The good thing about current Afghan Government is that it can be influenced. The Taliban were much, much worse and the UK, US et al had no influence to improve things.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm With Stupid wrote: »
    I've gotta say I think that things such as the Iraq war and the US support of Israel has rallied people around leaders with a more militant interpretation of Islam..

    The trouble with that analysis is that it assumes if you are an Arab you are a blank slate - only capable of reacting to others. And it is only the West who are actors and have free-will.
    And even the famously secular nation Turkey has also slowly becoming far more religiously conservative.

    Possibly, but another way of reading it is that the power of the Army to influence politics has been reigned in. One of the reason Turkey is so secular is that it's army is, and any previous moves in a political direction they didn't like tended to be crushed rather brutally. The legislation going through about headscarves seems to be as much about democratisation as anything. The Government is not saying that you have to wear a headscarf, just if you do you'll be allowed to study at University.

    And given that about two-thirs of Turkish women wear a headscarf and this legislation will allow them to study at University, it actually has the result that it will increase women's rights.
    And the longer such people have power, the longer they can inflict their extremist views on the rest of the population, and you end up with a situation like Afghanistan, where the democratically elected government is just as prone to human rights violations as the government it was set up to replace because of human rights violations (if it wasn't for US/UK intervention, the new Afghani government would have executed a man for converting from Islam to Christianity in 2003

    See my previous post. The current Afgan Government is far from perfect, but you admit it can be influenced.
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