OK, the same points keep being brought up again and i think they need to be rebuked
"slave labour: Yes some people from the Indian Sub-continent come here and work hard for what we would consider a small amount, but it is nothing like the slave labour that is being portrayed. Yes some people are tricked/conned into coming over, usually by their fellow countrymen, not the locals. Their pay, while low (around £300 a month) is enough to send a lot home to their families and is way more than they could earn back home, if they could even find a job (e.g. Bangladesh's GDP/capita is $1700 (2010), if they earn £300 a month they get $4,900 a year - 2.8x the national average).
IT IS ILLEGAL for an employer to hold an employee's passport for any reason and the government will get involved if this happens. There is even an anonymous government hotline to report employers.
Sharia Law - Yes it's got a 'muslim' sounding word in, but in reality it's not that different from the UK, there are laws, lawyers, court. You're not going to get arrested for holding hands with your girlfriend, you're not going to get executed unless you did something really stupid. The Emiratis have really accommodated for western culture by allowing Churches, Pork and Alcohol etc. I can't imagine that happening in the UK if a group of people came to their country and wanted to do something which is strictly forbidden by their religion.
"Dubai is just rich Arabs wasting their money" - 50 years ago the UAE had nothing, a few camels, date farms and oyster fishing, then they found oil, 50 years from now when the oil runs out they will have nothing. They realise this. So what do you do? You try and build up an economy not based around oil as quickly as you can. How do you attract people from around the world? It has to blow everything else out the water, a low rise business park with a Holiday Inn isn't going to cut it, so you end up with Dubai. Did it work? Of course, Dubai is the undisputed Hub of the middle east and a bridge between Europe and Asia. Yes it was hit hard by the financial crisis like the rest of the world, undoubtably more so with the growing pains of a developing country, but it is getting back on track with 3% economic growth forecast in 2011, almost double the UK's 1.7%
The weather - Yes it's hot in summer - 50C some days. But remember if you live there you're not on the beach all day, you're in an office, so it's a non issue, kind of like winter in the UK, you don't go outside that much. The other 9 months of the year is like a perfect summer's day every day, although if you're straight off the boat it might take some getting used to. Imagine that! you can eat outside in restaurants, plan a BBQ and not have it rained off, go camping in the mountains without being washed out and take up hobbies you'd never consider at home, Scuba diving and the like...
But anyway i live here and love it so I am biased but I'm just trying to give both sides of the story. Dubai is by no means 'complete', it still has a way to go to be on par with Europe culturally, legislatively and developmentally, but give them some slack! they've had 50 years, Europe's had almost 1000!
