The Dark Side of Dubai: Credit and Ecocide, Suppression and Slavery, Islamic Society, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Society

The Dark Side of Dubai: Credit and Ecocide, Suppression and Slavery

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging.

Johann Hari reports

Karen Andrews can't speak. Every time she starts to tell her story, she puts her head down and crumples. She is slim and angular and has the faded radiance of the once-rich, even though her clothes are as creased as her forehead. I find her in the car park of one of Dubai's finest international hotels, where she is living, in her Range Rover. She has been sleeping here for months, thanks to the kindness of the Bangladeshi car park attendants who don't have the heart to move her on. This is not where she thought her Dubai dream would end.

Her story comes out in stutters, over four hours. At times, her old voice – witty and warm – breaks through. Karen came here from Canada when her husband was offered a job in the senior division of a famous multinational. "When he said Dubai, I said – if you want me to wear black and quit booze, baby, you've got the wrong girl. But he asked me to give it a chance. And I loved him."

All her worries melted when she touched down in Dubai in 2005. "It was an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse," she says. "Life was fantastic. You had these amazing big apartments, you had a whole army of your own staff, you pay no taxes at all. It seemed like everyone was a CEO. We were partying the whole time."

http://newageislam.com/the-dark-side-of-dubai--credit-and-ecocide,-suppression-and-slavery--/islamic-society/d/1377

Why 'who is a Muslim?' has no easy answer, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

Why 'who is a Muslim?' has no easy answer

The Muslim community, argues a new book, is far from the

unified group the media make it out to be

By Sarah Barmak, Nov 22, 2008

I wanted this book to portray a diversity of views. The things (contributors) have chosen to write about appear to be things that have been thrust on Muslims, like the war on terror, but other things are things you don't hear about, like what it's like to raise Muslim children or to be a scientist and Muslim.

The piece I wrote in the book looks at Muslim women and their attire. Look at young girls who have been forbidden from wearing hijab at sporting events. Usually this (debate) is about the imperilled Muslim woman being saved from the Muslim man, and usually the saving is being done by a civilized European. In this case, it's about saving them from the danger of the scarf itself. What's amazing is that it's made despite any evidence showing that any woman has been strangled by the hijab ever. The second issue is the woman who wears the niqab. (Look at) the failed voting legislation that was proposed by the Conservative government a few months ago (banning voting with veils, alleging it would lead to voter fraud). In fact, there is no voter fraud problem in Canada, or at least not a significant one. Of course the people this affects are Muslim women ... The stereotype is not that women are victims, but the aggressor; that Canadians need to be protected from this woman who is going to defraud the voting system.

http://newageislam.com/why--who-is-a-muslim?--has-no-easy-answer--/islamic-ideology/d/1010