Recently, I spoke to a colleague about staff at a hotel - having learned that they routinely work long shifts and several live in a shared room inside the building, with hardly the most basic amenities. I was told that these might even be lucky, and that at the labor camps outside of Dubai, where thousands of construction workers are shuttled to every night, the situation looks much worse - as the BBC documentary seems to confirm to the world. There are also blogs on this, like this one.
Beyond the content of the report, I was interested in some of the reactions, as this also sheds light on how Dubai is discussed internationally.
One Western blogger, usually leaning towards the critical with regard to Dubai, commented: "As expected last night's Panorama [...], did indeed spur a fair amount of media interest in Dubai. Not all of it fair. Such reports have in fact spawned a genre all of their own - popularly known as 'Dubai bashing'."
In fact, you could argue there indeed is such a tendency of 'Dubai Bashing'. One recent (and much discussed) example of journalists' going mainly after the negatives is an article that appeared in the British newspaper The Independent, "The Dark Side of Dubai". Interestingly, one of the sources quoted in this article later accused the reporter of only looking for negative voices and speaking only to people in extreme situations. He also claimed to have told the reporter many positive things, which the journalist simply didn't want to hear about. Similarly, the company operating the labor camps says the BBC had not approached them for comment to get their view of the story.
The blogger mentioned above observes: "It's true. The economy of the state of Dubai has taken an unfair battering from the international press of late. Dubai found itself in an unfortunate position when the credit situation turned from crunch to bite."
I do think there are a number of things that would help to make some people want to stay longer after they have come to Dubai for one reason or the other. However, temporarily working in Dubai, I don't see such observations adding up to a gloomy and altogether negative picture as indicated in some reports - especially if you deliberately leave out a number of positive aspects that don't fit into your dark story.
It's like you're connecting dots on a paper intentionally in a way to get a certain result - say, a dog or a house - which you had in mind from the start. Or like a Rorschach inkblot test: where what you see in a random inkblot tells in fact a lot about yourself and your intentions, rather than reflecting objective reality.
Of course certain stories make better news than others - it's more interesting to read about shops running out of cardboard boxes or cars being dumped at the airport as people leave the country, or people advertising themselves on the back of their Porsche to get a new job - than speaking about things going ok or even well. After all, Dubai's economy is still set to grow - which is more than quite a few countries can claim. But this is not what sells best in daily news journalism.
So there might be a number of cases where media, in their attempt to sell themselves, are guilty as charged.
However, can "Dubai Bashing" be discounted as a simple sign of well-selling jealousy, as some try to shrug off the criticism? The blogger writes: "In the words of a very popular man, [...] 'Only a fruit laden tree has stones thrown at it.' [...]" - a position I've read from at least one other public person here myself. But I don't think it's that easy. If you only want to speak about good things, you leave out a part of reality as well. Anything too simple is likely to be simplistic. Even though it may still make good TV, especially if there's at least some truth in it.
The work camp's operator understands the mechanisms of the media - almost. Shortly after the documentary was aired, they invited a group of journalists and led them through a camp. And then another. And another. And would have thrown in four more into the deal, if the journalists themselves had not wanted to go home by then.
Now this is transparency, you might think.
However, consider this: It was clear that after the BBC story, local journalists would want to see for themselves. So getting them all in one go, at a time and with people to accompany and (possibly) to meet whom you can choose, must have seemed a much safer option than having other investigative activity including more night vision goggles taking a hard look at laborers' bunks and trudging around restroom facvilities in eager search for their own bit of some foul-smelling over-flowing sewage.
And, interestingly, the camp featured in the BBC documentary was the third, not the first place the tour went to - with the first being the best-kept (and, so it seemed to the reporters, especially treated to receive the guests). So the journalists' first impression was set to be one that is clearly better than the critisized camp, framing anything to come later.
Apparently, the managers were even unhappy that the journalists did not want to see all the sites: “The doctor at the clinic is disappointed,” a company official told the journalists, after these had decided to call it a day. “You see, they were all expecting you.”
No wonder some journalists felt this was an attempt to whitewash the company.
But there's also action: The construction company said it will close the camp featured in the BBC documentary and admitted it had been warned about conditions. And the ministry of Labour said it plans a campaign to tackle laborer conditions.
The caravan moves on, trying to leave the muck behind.
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