Some more pictures of worker’s conditions here
Moving to Dubai, Kuwait, and other Middle Eastern countries, men and women from the Philippines, India, and other South-east Asian locations, look for better work opportunities. Upon arrival their passports are taken from them. They soon discover the wages they were promised will be much lower. For years they are forced to work in dangerous conditions to pay back the cost of travel to their new jobs. Any sign of protest will invite beatings or arrest by police. Žižek is right to be critical: “This is the reality sustained by great “humanitarians” like Brad Pitt who invested heavily in Dubai.”
Living in Kuwait I have my own experiences of this. My partner was on her way to work one morning, and stuck in traffic she noticed a Kuwaiti man pull a Bangladeshi from a taxi and beat him with a belt. No one did anything to help. We were also told that workers could get a day off work if temperatures reached over 50 C (which frequently occurs: tomorrow’s forecasted temp is 53 C), but of course this would set construction back, so media outlets (presumably with owners whose interests reach into the building industry) would rarely publish temperatures over 49 C.
The shiny new skyscrapers and giant shopping centres of the Middle East, indeed whole cities are built with the sweat and blood of workers from Apac nations. The luxury contained in these shiny walls serves only to obscure the poverty and desperation of the slum dwellers outside. There will -there must- be a day of reckoning...
