Place of horror where Islamism meets capitalism

[rug]

Dubai is a repressive state, hiding behind religious piety and a dreadful kind of glitz.

Tanya Gold
October 16, 2011

ONE thing confused me about the British headlines last week, which were essentially a morality tale about the loneliness of the professional politician. Why did former UK defence secretary Liam Fox choose Dubai for his mysterious stopovers between London and Afghanistan? Four times in 18 months he laid his head there, when Bahrain or Oman were the usual options. But it was Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Of all the slave states in all the towns in all the world, he walks into this one.

Fox is not alone. In 2010, more than 700,000 British tourists stayed in Dubai's hotels. The British are Dubai's best customers, which exposes how much people will collude with, or ignore, evil if their hotel rooms are cheap, sumptuous and have cable TV. Virgin Holidays says on its website: ''Dubai is like no other place on Earth. It is a truly fabulous destination where visitors can indulge in top-quality hotels, great shopping, fine dining, state-of-the-art spas and, of course, fantastic beaches. There is, however, more to Dubai than meets the eye …''

Yes indeed. That copy could be rewritten to say: ''It is a truly fabulous destination where visitors can indulge in top-quality state censorship, great homophobia, fine misogyny, state-of-the-art police brutality and, of course, fantastic indentured servitude.''

I went to Dubai two years ago because a friend was going for work and I am not a woman to let a friend go shopping in a tyranny alone. I knew there would be trouble, reading the guidebook on the plane. Dubai practises religious tolerance towards all religions, it said - except Judaism. So I knew I shouldn't do anything explicitly Jewish in the UAE, such as complain about the racist cartoons of hook-nosed Jews sitting on the world as if it were a big space-hopper made of gentiles. But Dubai, owner of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building on Earth, has worse to show us than some casual anti-Semitism.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/place-of-horror-where-islamism-meets-capitalism-20111015-1lqdj.html

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1. Good article.

Islam at its core is violently capitalistic. Its central dogma with regard to the economy upholds so-called "property rights". At the same time it's current incarnation is fundamentalist and violent. At least you could make the argument that Jesus was a socialist. But the "profit" Mohammed was a businessman.

Wherever you have capitalism and religion mixing, you can be sure to have repression, hatred, racism, sexism, homophobia, and totalitarians.