So much bad news about the UAE.

So much good news about Iola.

I landed in Abu Dhabi on May 19th, 2008. In three weeks, we'll be evaluating our year, and reevaluating the decision to stay.

I have lots of opinions about the bad news. Also about Iola. She is getting so much smarter. Yesterday, for instance, I offered her a potato wedge, which I was eating with ketchup. She took it, looked at the ketchup, looked at the potato, and then rubbed it in the ketchup. I can't say dipped, exactly, because she got a lot on her fingers. She wasn't too impressed, but she tried it twice, so it couldn't have been that bad. It made me wonder what other things she has been imitating, besides banging on the xylophone, trying to stand up, grabbing the mouse and obsessing over the keyboard and cell phone. Does she think she sounds exactly like us when she talks?

The slave society, torture video stuff...
Johann Hari wrote a piece in The Independent that had good reporting but faulty conclusions. He wrote that Dubai has been built by slaves. There are too many people who choose to come here without being duped to call it a slave society. That's my opinion. There are those who have been lied to by recruiters about the salary or the type of job, and those recruiters are human traffickers. Part of me thinks this: there are millions of South Asians and Filipinos here. Those wishing to get a job in the Gulf should do their due diligence about the job, ask friends of friends for contacts and the low-down, and not go into debt to put their lives in the hands of sketchy people. They are desperate and without resources to ask questions, so it is cold-hearted of me to place the burden of responsibility on them. Primary responsibility lies within the source country. Recruiters are operating in India or Pakistan or the Philipines, enslaving their citizens, and should be apprehended as criminals. There should be coding and permits and hotlines and inspections, and potential laborers should go through licensed recruiters. The UAE government should cooperate with data sharing and criminal prosecution for illegalities that occur, but mostly it happens in deceiving people before they arrive. Lastly, the UAE construction companies need to address their supply chain labor issues. If they cared about responsibility, they would. But they won't care about it until it is exposed as an outrage, because that's the way companies work, and that's why a free press is great.

Which leads me to the torture video. The story is that a grain delivery man was tortured by someone in the royal family. The real story, though, is that there were police in uniform* involved, and that the UAE government performed a review and found that "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department." Which sounds ridiculous, though I don't know the laws. I wonder, will this make people within the UAE government realize why the media glare is important - to keep irregular members of the family from creating havoc, and a government from sounding ridiculous? People, corporations, and governments are all more likely to behave when they think someone is watching. For me the pressing question is this: is it realistic to believe that a free press as an institution can be built slowly over time? There is so much defensiveness about the Western press being critical and even racist of the UAE, that I'm not sure the positive externalities of a free press is registering. Most people here don't realize western press is also critical of the west itself. Critical of everything, biting, nagging: doing its job. Holding people accountable.

The National has been silent. One year is not long enough to build a free press in Abu Dhabi. 

*maybe not police, instead security guards? Conflicting reports. There are some interesting comments on this on the UAE Community Blog, especially by khulood: "admitting shortcomings is the first step to greatness, and believe me, we ARE on our way." So that's hopeful.

Back to Iola:
     I took these yesterday in Khalidiya Park. Couple minutes after the climbing practice video.