Ye Dunia Jee Laganay Ki Nahin Hai!

I reached office yesterday and was settling down switching my computer on and going about my daily ritual when a new colleague of mine walked in and went past my desk to the HR reps sitting behind me. Having HR placed behind me has been a source of some good entertainment ever since we moved into the new office so I thought this would be interesting. In the new “open space” it’s a bit difficult to ignore conversations that spring up close by so eavesdropping is the new national pastime J

Anyways, the gentleman is a new transfer into Dubai, as is the case with the company these days since many departments are relocating to Dubai. So this gentleman has just joined the long line of “expats” living in Dubai and he sounds a bit ticked off. “I went to the bank to open an account yesterday, did you know that in Dubai if you die, then your account gets frozen and your family doesn’t get any access to the money? Did you know that you need to have a will made and registered with the bank so that it enables access of funds to your family if you happen to die, and that this will needs to be drawn up in Arabic and registered with the courts? Even then it might take weeks before your family gets any access to your funds? Why didn’t HR tell me this before? Why don’t you advise all expats coming into Dubai as a matter of policy?” and so the conversation continued, largely one way traffic with the HR reps squirming for replies, but weren’t able to muster up anything substantial.

The conversation ended and the gentleman left steaming, basically wanting the company to foot the bill for drawing up the will since it was an expense he had to undertake being an expat, but it left me wondering. I thought to myself, just because this guy’s a gora he could mouth off and will probably end up getting his way, but this applies to any expat who lives in Dubai. That’s probably why majority of the expats don’t keep their money here and save up in their home countries or in forms of gold, except for the people who have lost sight of reality and have come to accept this place as their “home”.

It’s these people I’d like to address.  There are countless stories of people having spent their entire adult lives here 20 years, 30 years, sometimes even in government, and at the end of it had to leave the country as soon as they retired since now they didn’t have a visa. Not everyone was lucky enough to have children who had been brought up here on the farce they call education and landed good enough jobs to be able to sponsor their parents and that too for only a year. There’s something inhumane about asking someone in their 60s to just pack up and leave and go back to their home countries to try and settle into a new system all over again where more often then not they have lost any semblance of a social network and the family is a bit alienated since you’ve spent all your time abroad. The look in those same relatives’ eyes is killing when you realize that it has dawned upon them that you will now be here forever and will no longer be the distant cousins who would be coming home bearing fancy gifts every other summer.

The children can’t be blamed either because they’ve grown up on an overdose of “the good life”, ineffective education or a job market that isn’t ready to hire expat fresh grads. Why? Simply because they don’t have to. The government only asks them to hire local fresh grads because that’s the indigenous population they’re responsible for. We’re just the necessary evil they have to live with so that we can keep the country running or building their egos even higher. It’s the nature of the beast that companies have established here knowing full well that the local talent is not good enough to cut it, therefore the need to bring in seasoned professionals from outside or bring in foreigners on temporary assignments. This simple fact adds to the temporary nature of the place.

Add to it the glitz of the shiny buildings, the high profile events and the over the top landmarks and you get the feel of a huge life sized amusement park, which again by definition closes down at nightfall.

It’s all a big fish net. You get drawn here by the prospect of earning in dirhams and you say this is big money. You convert into your local currency and you think, no one in my class would be earning this much, so you jump at it. You tend to conveniently forget the costs will be in dirhams as well. Again countless stories of labour class workers being duped by high promises into taking loans to come here and then being stuck with less than half the pay they were promised and a mountain of debt. Can’t go back coz they have to pay the debt off, and wait a minute, their passports have been locked away so they can’t go even if they wanted to just leave.

The people who fare slightly better said to themselves, I’m going for 3 years, 4 years, 5 years max, that’s how long it’ll take me to save up to do this this and this back home, then I’m jumping on a plane and back it is. During those years, they end up marrying, having kids, taking on debt and it becomes harder and harder to just get up and leave. Its like quicksand.

Scores and scores of people headed back to their home countries during the mid 90s and now post the Sep 2008 recession, and came back with their wills broken. Not having the energy to start afresh and put their efforts into one last venture that’ll put food on the table. Many families were split while staying in Dubai because of a rule that didn’t allow 18 year old sons to be sponsored by their fathers. This meant that either they send them to the expensive colleges and universities here or send them abroad, not everyone could do either. The result was “visa runs” for these boys who would go back home for a month and wait for their dads to somehow get a visit visa for them so that they could spend another  3 months in precious Dubai.

The phenomenon called Dubai has resulted in the formation of at least two lost generations. One that came to find gold originally as they came back like ghosts in their own home countries drained of all their powers, and the children they bore, who grew up to be soulless individuals capable only of reciting the latest movie, mobile phone or gadget model number, or the latest car on the street.

It truly saddens me to now see some of these people left over here in Dubai still trying to hold on, regardless of their circumstances, just trying to stay on in Dubai come what may. God knows when they’ll wise up and realize that all of this temporary. The irony of the similarity of the “Dubai” story with how this world is a temporary abode before we cross over to the hereafter cannot be ignored. As muslims, we’re taught to prepare for the hereafter all our lives by being good humans, follow the 5 tenets of Islam in the best way possible and try to inculcate the habits of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) into our lives as much as possible. Treading on this path sincerely, will lead us to eternal salvation, or so we’re told. We’re told to shun away the temptations of the world, and lead a continuous battle (jihad) against our self as we have by way of being muslims, submitted our will to the will of God. Now apply all that to anyone who’s staying in Dubai with all the realities existing around it. Eerie right?