Gulf excess and Pakistani slaves

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Yes, and that is why i said preciously our government is to blame for how we are seen. Why do we always see the gulf oil and don't see our 10s of other resources but no one to use them for the better of the country.

Sadly. Oil runs the wheels of life.

 

[Al Bhatti]

Sadly. Oil runs the wheels of life.

So do things other than oil as well.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

First of all in the case of burkha (which covers the face) as per to what I have read is that it is compulsory only if the female is very beautiful and fears of spreading fitna because of her beauty. Otherwise just wearing an abaya or any loose clothes can serve the purpose of Islamic modesty.

If a woman voluntarily wants to wear a burkha she can do so.

Now the reply to your question: She has the right to wear what she thinks is okay for her religiously as long as it is not offending the local culture, religion of other people in France and traditions of France as she is in a foreign land.

Is the wearing of Burkha offending the local culture, religion of other people in France and traditions of France?

Yes.

The French claim so.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy set the wheels in motion for the ban nearly two years ago, saying the veils imprison women and contradict this secular nation's values of dignity and equality. The ban enjoyed wide public support when it was approved by parliament last year.
France Burqa Ban Takes Effect; Two Women Detained

 

[somebozo]

Most of this is true for Bangladeshi labors..Pakistani labors is not favored by Dubai Slave Trade Inc. because firstly they are expensive and secondly aggressive enough to riot. Most of these Dubai Slave Trade Inc. pays between 300-600Dhs for constructions labor which amounts to nothing for Pakistani standard of living. Pakistani labor prefers Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar as their chosen destination to work.

 

[Jon Snow]

not needed

 

[Al Bhatti]

Sadly. Oil runs the wheels of life.

This is just one small example:

A desert country where there wasn't any mineral water company 40 years ago and now are exporting water to a country half way around the globe guess where; Japan.

19-May-2004

Masafi achieves 10 percent growth in exports | Masafi Mineral Water Co | AMEinfo.com

10-Jul-2002

Masafi wins recognition from top Japanese regulatory authority | Masafi Mineral Water Co | AMEinfo.com

20-October-2002

gulfnews : Masafi to quench Japanese thirst

Japan is one country that has no concessions regarding the quality of products. From our side, there was no special arrangements, apart form sending our samples for testing and approval.
We have made special labels featuring the same design and logo of Masafi, but with one difference. Masafi and the list of ingredients were printed on the bottles and the case in the Japanese language.

We received the approval without changing anything. That means the water, which is available to consumers here is the same quality and taste of which is available to consumers in Japan.
As it is known to our customers, Masafi is natural water from the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah and we are proud of the fact that Japanese who used to buy our oil to run their cars are now buying our mineral water too.

Another small example:

Water from the alps is sold around the world in bottles for twice more the price of normal mineral water.

Don't we have water in our mountains?

There are many things that we have and the gulf countries don't have and we always only see the oil there.

 

[LEGENDARY WARRIOR]

Yes.

The French claim so.

So, where is the so called Freedom of Choice over here. The Muslims in France were'nt forcing others to do the same. If they want to cover themselves, what is the problem??

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

So, where is the so called Freedom of Choice over here. The Muslims in France were'nt forcing others to do the same. If they want to cover themselves, what is the problem??

There is no freedom of choice.

It is not merchandise.

It is culture and tradition as per the French.

The same way about culture where kissing in public, nude beaches, homosexuality, adultery would bring the harshest punishment in Arab lands. Or Blasphemy!

If an American wants to be a homosexual in Arab lands, then what is the problem? It OK in his land.

It takes two hands to clap!

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

This is just one small example:

A desert country where there wasn't any mineral water company 40 years ago and now are exporting water to a country half way around the globe guess where; Japan.

19-May-2004

Masafi achieves 10 percent growth in exports | Masafi Mineral Water Co | AMEinfo.com

10-Jul-2002

Masafi wins recognition from top Japanese regulatory authority | Masafi Mineral Water Co | AMEinfo.com

20-October-2002

gulfnews : Masafi to quench Japanese thirst



Another small example:

Water from the alps is sold around the world in bottles for twice more the price of normal mineral water.

Don't we have water in our mountains?

There are many things that we have and the gulf countries don't have and we always only see the oil there.

Each item you have mentioned is some way connected to oil.

Gulf Arabs have the money and they will pay for all the water in the world.

Seen Jumerah Beach residences in Dubai?

How this happen?

Such wonderful finger like jutting as if it were a palm.

God did it?

No.

It is man made.

Sea transformed into land.

How?

Oil!!

Imagine scruffy little Arabs smelling of sweat and faces covered with grime of not so far in history dictating terms to us!

How and why?

OIL!!

 

[IND151]

Gulf excess and Pakistani slaves

Rafia Zakaria



“We need slaves to build monuments,” says an Iraqi engineer living in Abu Dhabi to a reporter from the Guardian. In the published report he goes to add that he would never use the metro if it wasn’t segregated since “we would never sit next to Pakistanis and Indians because of their smell”.

The dismal condition of Pakistani labourers in the Gulf States is well known and the above statements are merely reflections of the deep-seeded and overtly racist attitudes of Arabs in the Gulf and otherwise towards Pakistanis.

The same Guardian report also details how Pakistani slave labourers work up to eighteen hours a day and often live twenty to a room without any ventilation and with only a single bathroom for several hundred people. Several do not see their families for four to ten year periods, unable to afford the airfare home and many die on the job.

Without any insurance scheme families are often not notified of deaths for months and the only compensation available to them is through an underground system through which other workers donate thirty dirham each which is then collected and donated. The strictly segregated society means that the rich Arabs never come across the lowly Pakistani workers who build their roads, clean their floors and drive their cars.

But in recent years, the oil-rich barons of the Gulf have found a new use for slave labour that goes beyond cleaning bathrooms and picking trash off the streets of Dubai. A recent statement issued by Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke in Brussels revealed that the Taliban are being funded by individuals from the Gulf States. Secretary Holbrooke said: “The Taliban receive more funding from the Gulf States than they do from the narcotics trade”.

As has been reported by several Pakistani newspapers, this means that the sources of foreign funding for the Taliban are greater than the approximate USD100 million they receive from the narcotics trade based on poppy cultivation inside Afghanistan.

While Holbrooke was careful to note that the money is not coming from governments but rather from individuals, his statement, based on credible reports tracing wire transfers from the region, illustrates a new use that rich Gulf Arabs have found for expendable Pakistani lives.

Similar to the onerous burden of cleaning one’s own bathrooms, or drilling one’s own oil or building one’s own monuments, the task of fighting one’s own holy war has proven to be far too burdensome for Arabs intoxicated with the seemingly never-ending largesse of a resource-fuelled economy. Smelly Pakistanis, the Arabs have discovered, are not only good enough to build crass monuments to consumerism but also to fight misguided holy wars that destroy nations and eviscerate thousands of innocent lives.

Holbrooke’s statement is not the only basis for believing that the Taliban are receiving support from the Gulf States. In May of this year, the United Nations sent out an international appeal for aid for the nearly 2 million people displaced by the fighting in the tribal areas and the NWFP. While the US has pledged USD320 million for the IDPs and the EU has pledged up to USD121 million, no significant pledges have been made from the Gulf States.

This strange dichotomy in which our supposed Muslim brethren have turned their back on the suffering of the people of Swat, Buner and Dir makes far more sense in light of new information that illustrates that in picking sides, rich sheikhs from the Gulf have chosen to place their bets with the Taliban rather than with the Pakistani soldiers fighting them.

Pakistanis themselves, mired in denial and ever-ready to engage in the pantomime of pretending to be Arab, are inured to this reality of Arab racism. Easily appeased with the promise of Gulf jobs when their own country is in shambles they consider any paltry thankless employment, even if it denies them basic human rights, a godsend.

Ironically, the standards they expect non-Muslim countries like the United States and the European Union to uphold in terms of equal employment, egalitarian laws and freedom of expression are all abandoned when it comes to the assessment of Arab nations. No attention is given for example to the Arabs’ discriminatory employment practices that pay a Pakistani a fraction of what is paid to a European citizen for the same engineering job.

Some workers make as little as 400 dirhams a month, barely able to afford meals while surrounded by unimaginable excess. Even less emphasis is received by the condescending and racist attitudes of Gulf law enforcement authorities that regularly detain immigrant workers without any legal process and routinely beat and abuse them.

All this injustice, perhaps because it is committed by fellow Muslims, who make a great pretence at religious devotion, is somehow unthinkingly and unquestioningly forgiven. The fact that such discrimination overtly and blatantly flouts any minimal allegiance to the concept of the Islamic ummah is never even considered.

This latest news presents an urgent challenge to the apathy of those Pakistanis unwilling to acknowledge the reality of Arab discrimination and disdain toward South Asians. The fact that Gulf sheikhs are contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the Taliban who are bombing schools, marauding villages and devastating the economy and infrastructure of our nation while shutting their coffers to the IDPs languishing in tents should irk even the most minimal nationalist.

More pressingly, it should expose the duplicity of our Arab overlords who, while freely engaging in debaucheries behind their castle walls now wish to use the Taliban to impose a virulent and dogmatic form of Islam on the poor smelly Pakistanis.

Sending money to fuel a war that is depleting Pakistan’s already meagre resources, turning young men and boys into human bombs and transforming Pakistani cities into battlegrounds exposes their desire to condemn Pakistan into oblivion.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

1,000 thanks my friend.

its ironic that despite Pakistanis being Muslim, how Arabs treat them.

i wish Pakistan comes out of WOT successfully and carefully strengthens its economy.

so that response of Pakistani youth to slave jobs in gulf will be =

 

[EjazR]

I am going to take a slight contranian pov here.

I have lived in KSA for 10 years so I think I would have the authority to say that assuming that all Gulf Arabs or Saudis are racist or abusive would be wrong. I could give plenty of anecdotal examples of very kind and thoughtful Saudis as well. Personally, I have never felt any racism but it could be because of the white collar worker factor. But even for blue collar workers, I have seen in Ramadan for example, rich Saudis spending large sums of money every day to feed blue collar workers living in various camps.

This is not to say that there are no HR abuses. There are plenty of cases for example of maids or workers being treated improperly, not being paid their wages and so on. In the case of Dubai, the case I believe is even more extreme.
But I would fault the govt. of the expats for not being concerned about their citizens plight. If South Asian countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh maybe even Indonesia and Philippines form a united block and demand minimum wage and strengthening of the labour environment in GCC countries and pressure them to do so.

For example, only recently India and Indonesia have been working bilaterally with GCC govt. on labour reforms and have also signed such agreements with some. The abuse happens because the govt. don't care and follow up on their citizens plight. Not something that is inherent in Khaleeji Arabs. In fact, if you go back to 1940s or 50s, older generation expats say that foreigners from India and Pakistan were looked at with respect because they were so poor and most people who came were engineers and professionals rather than laborers.

Ensure minimum wage so it becomes at least in some cases to hire locals rather than import laborers for everything, crack down on dodgy employment beraues within expat countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh that mislead applications and push them in wrong jobs by duping them and that is how the problem will be solved.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I have seen in Ramadan for example, rich Saudis spending large sums of money every day to feed blue collar workers living in various camps.

It is to clear their conscience.

The rich of all religions are the first ones to think of God since not always their riches are honestly earned.

Therefore, that is hardly a reason to show that the Saudis are great chaps!

The amount of harm because of Wahabism and their money to promote it in all Islamic and non Islamic nation is the real reason why Islam is taking such a beating for no other good reason.

Even China has rejected their money to 'assist' Islam from the wrong notions the world has!!

If only these Saudi Wahabis were less active, Islam would bounce back as it was before since all these deviates of their funded madrassas would become an exception than a rule.

Not only are they targeting the world, they are causing unwanted terrorism against Muslim of foreign lands too!

 

[EjazR]

Therefore, that is hardly a reason to show that the Saudis are great chaps!

What I am saying is a binary of all Saudis bad OR all Saudi good or more generally all Gulf arabs bad OR all Gulf arabs good and nothing in between is wrong.

The world is more than just black and white.

The wahabbism and terrorism is a completely different issue here. Like I have mentioned in other places, its a the political Islam and extremist religious nationalism that leads eventually to terrorism. You may call it Maududism or Qutubism if you like on the two main people who shape the debate in political Islamic thought.

This has been discussed in other threads here
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...wered-questions-case-pakistan.html#post550583
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...884-counter-ideology-wahhabis.html#post521346

Sure Wahabbis may have some really conservative practices which I may personally see as wrong and regressive like insistence on a face veil for example, but that doesn't mean they automatically support terrorism. Infact, one of the first fatwa's declaring Suicide Bombings as haram came from Sheikh Bin Baz, the chief Saudi cleric on the salafi school of thought on the question wether Hezbollah using suicide bombings against Israel was valid or not. And this fatwa was declared in the 1980s.

 

[Truth Teller]

I could not care less about how Arabs-Persians-Middle Easterners view Pakistanis.

What bothers me the most is when I see Pakistanis who actually think of themselves to be beneath the Arabs. Those Pakistanis who look upto Arabs. The Pakistani inferiorty complex towards Arabs is humiliating and degrading.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Therefore, that is hardly a reason to show that the Saudis are great chaps!

What I am saying is a binary of all Saudis bad OR all Saudi good or more generally all Gulf arabs bad OR all Gulf arabs good and nothing in between is wrong.

The world is more than just black and white.

The wahabbism and terrorism is a completely different issue here. Like I have mentioned in other places, its a the political Islam and extremist religious nationalism that leads eventually to terrorism. You may call it Maududism or Qutubism if you like on the two main people who shape the debate in political Islamic thought.

This has been discussed in other threads here
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...wered-questions-case-pakistan.html#post550583
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...884-counter-ideology-wahhabis.html#post521346

Sure Wahabbis may have some really conservative practices which I may personally see as wrong and regressive like insistence on a face veil for example, but that doesn't mean they automatically support terrorism. Infact, one of the first fatwa's declaring Suicide Bombings as haram came from Sheikh Bin Baz, the chief Saudi cleric on the salafi school of thought on the question wether Hezbollah using suicide bombings against Israel was valid or not. And this fatwa was declared in the 1980s.

When a school of thought feels they are purists and everyone else is a munafiq, then there is the desire in the mind to correct the hypocrites and in that wash, the kaffirs.

When such a thought is drummed in from childhood and through the religious teaching, it may not be evident overtly, but it still burns within.

The worldly Saudi suppresses it for his material gain and even mental peace, but it still does not leave his heart and soul.

The illiterates are less hypocritical and they have no hesitation to be in the forefront to uphold their concept of Islam.

Terrorism is born since they want to reform the world and there is hatred for the munafiq.

Or else why should Muslims kill Muslims as in Pakistan?