Dubai’s look is grand-scale. So is its debt. Its ambitions were colossal. It wanted to own the ‘largest hotel, largest airport, largest fake island and largest theme park in the world.’ The world’s tallest man-made structure ever built, fittingly renamed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa after the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi who just bailed Dubai out f a $10bn colossal debt, recently opened for business.

Such is the story of magnificent Dubai. Grandiose look built on grandiose debt in the vicinity of $80 billion, largely incurred by Dubai World at 75 percent of total debt at the very least. Dubai World, the ‘enormous government-run investment company, which sports the slogan “The Sun Never Sets on Dubai World”’ fueled the country’s material ambitions. The government of Dubai was not able to bail out its own investment arm, and this sent shockwaves to global investors.

John Feffer in Foreign Policy in Focus excellently describes the collapse of Dubai World, and the dubious reputation Dubai itself has now earned: “A casino is an apt metaphor for the conglomerate’s operation. Dubai World was gambling with easy credit. It was dazzled by high-rolling investors. And it woke up the next morning with a hangover and empty pockets, hoping that its friends would help it out.”

Dubai has been largely living off the generous strength of others, and enjoying the ride all the way. Feffer adds that Dubai’s grand projects were “all built by migrant workers who were paid poorly, treated terribly and forbidden to strike.” The Burj Khalifa is a grand example of this. The tallest building in the world was built primarily by workers from South Asia. By June of 2008, there were 7,500 skilled workers constructing the Burj Khalifa.

Skilled carpenters earned a measly UK£4.34 a day, and laborers earned UK£2.84 at the site in 2006. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, ‘the workers were housed in abysmal conditions, their pay was often withheld, their passports were confiscated by their employers, and they were working in hazardous conditions that resulted in a high number of deaths and injuries on site.’ Also, “those workers toiled 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for pay as little as $4 per day.

Image: Poco a poco
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