Also, I urgently require that you not be so “Jim Crow” (Thanks, Al Mujahid).
This is outrageous, y’all:
Posted On : 17 August 2005
URGENTLY REQUIRED
A leading company in the automotive business requires the following personnel to be located in Abu Dhabi and Beda Zayed city branch
DIESEL MECHANICS
ELECTRICIANS
MECHANICS
PAINTERS
DENTERS
LIGHT & HEAVY DRIVERS
Applicants should have a relative Diploma with minimum 3 years experience in Automobiles industry.
UAE D/L is a must for drivers.Indians are not preferred to apply.
Fax: 02-6767708
P.O Box 29699 Abu Dhabi
Just one more reason why it’s a part of the world I’m not fond of…the minuscule silver lining is, less jobs for brown people means less brown people in the gulf, which means less stories like this.
Haha I grew up in that area, and there are way too many Indians out there. They are trying to reduce the number of Indians who migrate to Abu Dhabi.
Not a surprise. I have seen ads in Indian newspapers routinely that prefers Muslims for jobs. We are talking about a whole different scale of discrimination that we are talking about here.! Interestingly, westerners are prefered more than Muslims and Indians.
won’t the real vinod please stand up, please stand up…how funny. before i read your comment, i wondered if you were mutineer vinod… 😉
“too many indians out there”? oy.
not to mention the number of malloos over there 🙂
a little statistic..not sure how true it is Locals in UAE – 18% Indians – 45% and the rest
There is a reason why they want to reduce the number of Indians working over there.
Hey, in their defense, they are not purporting to be a non-discriminatory state 😉
“Interestingly, westerners are prefered more than Muslims and Indians”
Not suprisly since the entire Gulf was a adminstrated by a hand full of British residents, hence the worship of the Europeans. Also unlike Arabs or Muslims Westerners are less likely to get involved in local disputes (hence the gulf being the favoured destination for Ex British Army officers).
Why are Indians so disliked ? 1)Remember overnight wealth descending on the most backward area of the Arab World, which had long been dissed by other Arab. So to deal with their inferior complex by kicking someone else further down the scale, especially if its those smart ass Indians who in the early days of the oil boom of their education accupied the middle management and skilled positions.
2) Being in the wrong place at the wrong time – Expanding and increasingly educated population coupled with declining oil revenues mean that the white collar jobs that Indians have tradition done are now wanted for locals.
On the inhuman treatment of workers, the law is most of the gulf has little value for non-nationals. The only time it gets enforced is when a local or the interests of the ruling family are effected in which case you can kiss your sorry ass goodbye even if you are blonde and blue eyed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4526759.stm
Incidently Has anyone had on a return visit to the their respective motherlands had to deal with their relatives or friends mistreating a domestic or finding out that children are used as Labour rather then being at school ? What did you do about it ?
sorry didn’t mean to post twice 🙁
Skimmed through the newspaper this was published in. Seems its targeted to NRI readership and sold in INDIA. Might have an adverse effect on their readership I think.
Nobody know the real numbers of foreign workers and hey we helped build the place. In adddition if my memory serves me right, your family has to have been in the UAE since before the 1920’s in order to qualify for citizenship.
well, you can also get the 99years citizenship by purchasing one of dubai’s million dirham ( Cdn$1 = 3.6Dhs approx) properties. Also, the property is yours/your family till the 99years limit.
Wait till the oil rans out. After its straight from the Porsche Cayenne to the Camel’s HUMP s500.
ised: Curious that most statistics in official publications (even the CIA factbook) put the number of local Arab citizens much higher than that of expatriates, when all one has to do is walk down a street in Dubai to know different! 🙂
Vidushi: I believe that the 99 year provision is for permenant residency and not citizenship — probably for the best since even UAE citizens can’t vote or participate politically in any case!
Anna, did you just say y’all? Unbelievable…
My roomie from B School like all good Mallus (even though he was brought up in faridabad !) after a stint with Coke and PwC has landed up at Jeddah (of all places!) to work with some bank there.
On asking when he plans to return, the reply “Dude, get me a job that pays as much with tax-free status, and I’ll return!”
The fact that he reports to a Sudanese nincompoop does not matter 🙂
I wanted to point out that the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi prefers Pakistanis ( since they are muslim) to Indians and is not really fond of non-muslims. A lot like his father actually. On the other hand, the Sheikh of Dubai is a lot more tolerant and modern than Khalifa.
The other emirates, especially Sharjah, do not like Sheikh Mohammed’s more tolerant behaviour ( basically to draw tourism and foreign investment, duh) but they saw how his PR scheme drew in so much $$$, Shj has started offering PR-properties too.
It says Indians are not preffered. It does not, however, say anything about Pakistanis, Bangaldeshis etc. So your below statement on the Big Brown family won’t hold, cause there is no such thing as a Big Brown family in that part of the world.
They don’t like Indians because Indians are a bad influence. Indians get them addicted to booze and drugs. Especially the alcholic mallus are notorious for this.
You’d think Anna’s post would provoke similar attitudes from all of us. But just reading these comments has been rather interesting:
VM: In the Gulf states “Indian” is a generic term for all people from the subcontinent – I highly doubt that if one showed up with proof of Bangladeshi citizenship that it would be any different.
sadbuture: Hogwash! Everyone knows that Indians and especially mallus are a bad influence because they have these crazy ideas about equal access.
oh, dear. i am truly sorry to disappoint you, but it DOES hold. did you click through to any of the links i included?
if you had, you would’ve noticed that the first post was about how Saudi Arabia doesn’t want non-Saudis as security guards etc etc. NON-SAUDIS. that includes Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
the second post i linked to was about the horrific abuse inflicted on SRI LANKAN maids. not indian. so yes, sorry to rain on the anti-inclusivity parade which has gotten tiiiiiiired on this blog, but my usage of the word “brown” is still apposite.
now if you want to constructively contribute a viewpoint, i.e. “in that part of the world, south asians tend to…” then i’m all ears. er, eyes. 🙂
bongbreaker, you are so much more diplomatic than i am…
i call bullshit. this st. thomas christian wants to stick her doubting fingers into the wounds of your evidence. put up or shut up.
sadbuttrue: do you want to explain how mallus get saudi royalty addicted to booze and drugs that is illegal in the country and sells for 10x the price in neigbouring countries ( alcohol tht is)
Because as far we know, mallus and saudi royalty dont sit together and have parties and trade stories of their alcoholic adventures. Not to mention which hard working mallu would be able to afford illegal alcohol in saudi. I don’t think he left his family behind, laboured in the 42 degrees C, to blow it all up on the Johnny Walker Black label.
ANNA dear, so are you saying that any opposing view point from yours, is not constructive 🙂
Actually, I hadn’t clicked on any of those links. But the point I was trying to make is that just as employers in those countries can be discriminatroy about religion (as in Muslims preferred), they can be so also with nationality (as in Pakistanis preffered etc.). In fact, I do recall coming across ADs, ages ago, that specifically preffered Pakistanis for the job. From what I understand, there are quite a significant number of businesses there that are managed (not necessarily owned) by ‘Brown’ people, and the hiring practices of these companies sometimes tend to reflect views of those managing them. Note: At the higher echelons of the brwon family, not everybody is united!
Now having said all that, be it watever, as long as ofcourse i have your ears, err eyes 🙂
eek, hardly! i just don’t want to reopen that us vs them (south asian/brown vs indian) divisiveness. that dead horse has been beaten beyond recognition.
“…there are quite a significant number of businesses there that are managed (not necessarily owned) by ‘Brown’ people, and the hiring practices of these companies sometimes tend to reflect views of those managing them”
Very true but that’s just it, only from within the ‘brown blob’ are the different sub-continental nationalities most visible. Those outside of this blob seem to take an extremely generic view. Somewhat of a reverse effect to what we unfortunately see in the West (brown = Arab). Overall, in the Middle East brown sure ain’t Arab, it’s Indian.
Vidushi, I’m a Mallu who’s never been to the Middle East. (oh yes, there such people.) I don’t know about the “corrupting influence” bit, but I know for a fact that the illegality of alcohol never stopped a Mallu in the “Gelf” from getting his high. We just brew our own, you see. WHo needs Johnnie Walker when you have Vattoli Johnachan weaving his magic with yeast and wheat and sugar?
haha – nice 😉
My point was mallus in the gulf, esp Saudi, do not socialise with the Saudis. So I don’t see how they could have taught the Saudis how to brew their own n become addicted 😉 Not that Saudis would brew their own- they’re too lazy for that.
True. And for all their holier-than-thou personas, the Gulf royalty drink quite a lot and many of them have cellars full of liquor (without any undue influence from us alcoholic Indians of course).
This is the funniest thing I’ve read all day! Thanks for the flush of hot tea out of my nose; I needed that!
As an Indian-American who’s lived in the Gulf, I don’t understand why the Emirates of all places wouldn’t want qualifed people who will work for slave wages. Isn’t this called “looking a gift horse in the mouth?”
Again, I know several oil rats who can’t wait to move to the UAE because of the “amount of opportunity we have to look forward to.”
On the one hand, whites are preferred for technical positions. On the other, whitey in Arabia is Shaitan and must be purged. Go figure.
At least there seems to be solidarity amongst Arabs and desis here in the US. How else do you explain the 6 step A.B.S(Arab and Brownfolk Security)?
🙂
Anna,
This reminds me of an advertisment I once saw on Khaleej Times online, which is an English paper based in Dubai. The ad was for a multinational company which was looking to hire a secretary. A lot of the local ads ask for US/UK educated candidates, so that came as no surprise to me. But of course, this dosen’t mean just ANYONE with a degree from an American university, it’s just a nice way of saying “We just want to hire white people”.
The ad went on to list a whole bunch of other requrements and then ended with “Malayalis need not apply” in bold.
Dubai and the Middle East is for brown people who don’t mind selling their dignity for some extra cash and for white people (primarily Brits) who love to perpetuate the rascist ideologies that their own countries have long since declared illegal.
i have multiple arabs from the gulf tell me with bright grins how much cleaner muslim indians were than hindus. one of the guys, who was a palestinian raised in dubai told me how dirty the hindus were while shaking his repulsively dandruffed head. i don’t know if this is true, i’m very skeptical, but i do know in china muslims get into disputes with han because the former tend to have higher hygiene standards for ritual reasons. filipinos were also characterized as ‘very, very dirty,’ so i suspect that anti-kufir prejudice was behind it. though it is pretty obvious that the racism was another major component, and that hits pakistanis and bangladeshis too.
p.s. my impression is that recruitment is selectively biased toward muslims. in kerala it is the mappila who tend to go to the gulf far more than their numbers in the general population from what i gather.
was a palestinian raised in dubai told me how dirty the hindus were while shaking his repulsively dandruffed head
I have heard similar views about Indians from Gulf Arabs and the Lebanese. However they held the same views for both Hindu and Muslim Indians and did not seem to differentiate between Indians on religious basis. For example I have been told that: – Indians there in the Gulf are oily (especially comments about their heads being oily) – Their mouths are red presumably because they eat paan – Indians are very dark ( in lebanon/jordan etc., they consider themselves to be superior to darker skinned folks)
Geez, there was not a single knowledgeable comment made here about the peculiar racial stratifications in the Gulf particularly through and about the South Asian diaspora. This is to me the biggest tradegy amongst the “progressive, politicized desi” movement in the UK and the US. It consistently makes the mistake of unwittingly emphasizing the Amero-eurocentrism that plagues it regardless of how much it claims to criticize it. I’m a third generation desi that grew up in the Middle East in Bahrain since my grandparents were brought here in the 40’s by the British upon the oil discovery. I think that the history and struggles and current oppressions of and by the desi diaspora are urgently in need of attention. The diaspora here in the US is so pathetically guilty of their own elitism towards desis in the Gulf. I hear the most alarming conceptions from second/third gen desis i meet here who sneer when I mention the Gulf and start associating every problem in the Gulf with the “inferiority” of desis there. “Oh but aren’t the Indians there like lower class, uneducated people and all South Indians sneer” The paucity of academic or mass media literature on the area baffles me. There’s a scarily complex and efficient system in place with tightly bound strata that no one strays from. People on all sides have been/are blindingly convinced about it until very recently. * Westerners do occupy the top rung of the local hierarchy. Ex: Indian Ph.D. holder and English truck driver competing for a position- English dude gets it. This has everything to do with most Gulf countries being former British protectorates thus inheriting that legal of racial classification. * There IS a difference between Muslim South Asians and non-Muslim South Asians in the Gulf. Pakistanis, Baluchis and Bangladeshis have long had access to fast, easy citizenship and lines of family in arms of the state such as the police force and the army. Exclusive citizenship policies and a strong cultural vocabulary that contains the “foreigner”, the “expat” no matter how many generations they’ve been there is one of the most oppressive holds over desis in the Gulf. The uncertainty over place and the mere fact of location not the airy stuff about belonging is a serious burden to live with. *The stratification is contained and structured along entirely moral lines. There are contradictory but highly specific degrees of morality attached to every social group – Filipina maids are inherently thieves, whores and seductresses; Bangladeshi maids are thieves, Sri Lankans and Indonesians are over sexualized and constantly fucking South Asian “labourers”, and not to mention beating the Arab children they basically raise; Pakistani men are this, Shia Bahraini men are like that… the mad litany goes on…
I can’t tie this all together right now but I’m just trying to throw out how little everyone is aware of thus having no right to speak/represent and criticize at this point, just ask every long-term gulf raised desi you met why the hell he/she thinks anything beyond business, IT, medicine and architecture maybe law is sacrilegious. Ask them how they really feel about their status in the Gulf, how they feel about the abusive treatment that everyone is sucked up to giving each other – wealthy desis to poorer desis, whites and most poor arabs towards desis, desis towards phillipina and other south east asian women, …… everyone treats each other like potential criminals and defends their mistreatment. Why does this happen? What role do bizarre economic, historical and social structures play in this? What role do some really strange gender and racial ideologies within “Asia” play in this?
when the hell was anyone here apologizing for the way browns in arabland are treated??? i mean, anna speaks for almost all of us here i’m sure, and those she doesn’t are bizarro caste-conscious FOBs and emulating american desi FOB-wannabes (or FOBs at heart).* sure, i’ve heard bizarro stuff being said like you said on more FOBish forums (usenet) back when i was younger, but those people are a whole different mentality.
now, speaking for me, i have had family members working in the gulf (one of my uncles worked like a dog for 15 years, though now he is back in bangladesh and a wealthy businessmen with multiple rackets going on). since they were bangladeshi i suppose they were privileged. but…well, sorry, brownland sucks, i can’t help but think that being an arab’s dog is better than being a prince among paupers sometimes. also, there are lots of injustices in the world, racial, religious and gender. if i had to pick between all the poisons of arabland, sorry, i would liberate the women of saudi arabia first and introduce religious freedom there (that would obviate some of the anti-brown issues, but not all of them since some of it is racial). all the injustices do suck of course…but there are other issues beyond the gulf that i look at too (like semi-racial slavery in mauritania).
i’m not unsympathetic to the brown plight in the gulf. i just think there are many other things that are important to focus on. my tears are finite.
** it is fair for people to point out that i have a tendency to date germanic blondes. that being said, i don’t care about skin color, i think the dark tan + bleach hair looks good. i don’t know, the fixation on color of browns is something different from my own visceral libidinous biases….
well then. i’m grateful you showed up. that’s the point of all this blogginess. you think we think we’re enlightening you when really, it’s the other way around; we learn from you. i’m glad you commented.
p.s. speaking for myself (and quite possibly several others), i just don’t like seeing anyone get mistreated, and yeah, if those “anyones” look like me then i ache even more. i’ve never been to the gulf. i’ve stated before, publicly, on this blog that though i have dozens of family members there, i don’t want to visit b/c of all the rampant shittiness.
i’ve turned down a job there b/c i don’t know that i could take WITNESSING the things we’ve posted about– and no, i’m not saying that people beat their maids in public or that everyone watches little boys getting abused by their arab slave-drivers out in the open, but i can’t imagine that this shit isn’t in the very air there. it’s just too pungent for it to be masked. that’s why i rail against it all from here, the sepia soap box. i’m not denying anything you write (except for your contention that we don’t have the right to criticize– the world has a right to criticize outrageous conduct. see: rampant shittiness) and i agree, there’s a scary lack of information. feel free to tell us more.
razib_t_a says:
Not to be confrontational or anything but just relating my experiences as a FOB grad student here in the US. As regards the caste issue I have never given this issue thought, ‘cuz growing up in Mumbai I haven’t seen the caste system get much play there. OTOH the number of times I have heard the caste issue being wielded by desis in the US seems alarming. A number of my friends (also from Mumbai) did relate similar incidents with 1.5G/2G people telling them(and me) that they were from so-and-so sub-caste within so-and-so caste within so-and-so community from so-and-so region in India while we would look on in bewilderment. I realize this is sort of an exception to the norm where people from India are expected to be more caste conscious, etc. but I just thought I’d relate my experiences(bizarre as it may seem) – again no offense to anyone.
gradinLA, you might be right. i will be straight up that my brown-on-brown experiences (broadly speaking) is limited to the net. perhaps you are right, my impression is that there is a lot of variance on this issue among south asians, both american browns and indians, pakistanis and bangladeshis. but, my experiences on comment boards and on my weblog suggest that some people bring unconscious biases that they have never been challenged on. often it turns out that these individuals are indian immigrants or indians (the same issue has occurred with east asians).
i hope i’m wrong. and i abhor primitivism when i see it burst out amongst people on these boards who were born and raised here as well.
and i will name names, so to speak, for me, the most obnoxious people have been brahmins (pround of their “superiority” which most americans don’t give a shit about), punjabis (proud of “looking white”) and muslims (proud of not worshipping “idols” like you know who). though the vast, vast, majority of individuals within these three subsets do not fall into the category of “obnoxious” in the specific way that i am implying, the majority of those who are obnoxious often are from these three groups (in my opinion).
anyway, that’s way off topic, and i’m probably setting myself for being flame bait, but i figured i’d lay that out there so that people knew exactly who i’m casting aspersions toward 🙂
p.s. the arab use of south asian labor is not new. in the 8th century whole communities “zotts” were enslaved and brought to southern iraq. they rebelled for a period…though they were eventually defeated by the caliphate.
Actually one 2G girl whom my FOB friend introduced me to was really obsessed with her caste and whatnot. And the surprising thing was she admitted that it was not one of the higher castes (like say Brahmins) but she was really into it, ‘cuz every time we ran into her within 5 minutes of talking to her, the conversation would veer towards something related to caste. Again this is just my experience and need not necessarily hold true for 1.5G/2G peeps in general.
As regards Punjabis, I just find those who can do a mean bhangra always act superior. :). Not really, most FOB sardarjis (and other Punjabis) are really fun to hang out with and they even like to listen to my stock of sardar jokes.:).
As regards Muslims I know, most of them have enough trouble after 9/11 and most recently 7/7 and they don’t want to add to their woes by alienating brown people. A muslim friend of mine (from Pakistan) just shaved his beard and went and bought a new car (after 7/7) ‘cuz of the weird looks he kept getting. The new car was ‘cuz the security guard at the place he’s been working for the past 2 years or so started noticing his not-so-great car and his beard after 7/7 and seemed to be questioning him a lot. Anyways whatever the reason brown muslims seem to get along well with the rest. Again just my experiences – may not hold true for all.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
On an unrelated topic, growing up in Mumbai, I have seen a lotta rich sheikhs descend upon the best hotels in the city. I often wondered what they were doing in Mumbai and would conclude that they probably were on business trips. I had a Saudi roommate recently and he was telling me about Saudi men who go to India to get married. And its generally men who already have 2-3 wives and are looking for a 3rd or 4th that seek out Indian wives. Now that was his explanation – maybe someone here can elaborate on this.
what’s a sardar? i tried to google it, but there’s a lot of stuff out there.
also, let me add a specific addendum of what i’m talking:
re: muslims. the easiest example that get’s on my nerves is when they try to blame all bad things related to islam on indian culture. i’m not into indian culture, and my own background is muslim, but it still seems primitive and childish.
re: punjabis. i run a weblog devoted to genetics. about every few months i get an inquiry from south asians about south asian genetics, and 3/4 of the time i figure out that they are punjabis and they want to know how they are special, and they will often keep prodding me about particular genetic data that shows that they are closer to west asian people. after a while, it get’s old, and i just tell them that knowing more data doesn’t change who they are as people (sometimes i’m less polite).
re: brahmins. i’ve had a few people on my weblog simply conflate brahmins with indians as if all non-brahmin indians didn’t really matter. ie; if someone brings up assimilation of browns into american culture and their decline in educational, someone else responds, ‘well, how we preserve our brahmin culture?’ when no one had mentioned brahmins. the attitude seems to be that everyone must think they are the pearl of great price because they think so (this happens a lot with jews too, just because they think they are the chosen people, some of my jewish friends act as if i think that).
so i was specific with my personal issues and interactions that i’ve had. there are others outside of these groups that i’ve had issues with, and very few people in these groups (aside from, to be honest, muslims) exhibit the tendencies i’m pointing to.
I am sorry, wasn’t being PC. I should have said Sikhs.
Ironically, I have encountered this attitude amongst Jewish people here in the States. I have interacted with Jewish people back in India (brown people who are Jews) – in fact I had a Jewish friend in High School – and they don’t seem so bitten by it. To each his own, I suppose.
Btw, have you heard about Arabs shopping for wives in India? (As I mentioned in my last comment)
Btw, have you heard about Arabs shopping for wives in India? (As I mentioned in my last comment)
yes. thought it was an urban legend. they go there for organs you know!
the late king hussein’s brother married an indian woman, though her and queen noor apparently hate each other.
i belive the late nigerian dictator sani abacha died of a heart attack while he was preoccupied with two indian prostitutes. nothing to do with arabs, but i thought i’d pass the nasty gossip along.
So the purpose of these discussions is to make fun of the rest of them ? 🙂
Ah, you can say ‘Sardar’, it’s not disrespectful.
“Surd” and “surdie,” on the other hand, are a little distasteful.
bb
You raise some interesting points.
I disagree that there is a significant difference between the experience of Muslims/non-Muslims in the Gulf (maybe Saudi…). Iranians and Palestinians who become naturalized citizens in the UAE are also treated horribly. Personally, I didn’t see either Pakistanis or Bangladeshis having it significantly better.
A very interesting point about social stratification. Question – isn’t this not the case in most societies though? Also, how far are desis themselves implicated in these sorts of abuses – e.g. construction companies, owned by desis hiring and then abusing workers from Punjab and Kerala.
I came across this site recently: http://www.uaeprison.com/
the late king hussein’s brother married an indian woman, though her and queen noor apparently hate each other
I believe she was Pakistani.
Battle of the wives in Jordan.
Here is the Pakistani princess in Jordan.
Geez, there was not a single knowledgeable comment made here about the peculiar racial stratifications in the Gulf particularly through and about the South Asian diaspora.
Thats a little arrogant. I have relatives working in the Gulf for decades now and I have been there a few times. I would actually take issue with your attempt at treating the experiences of the Indian Diaspora or the racial stratification as being similar across the gulf. The GCC states/big cities range from the ‘austere’ Riyadh to the relatively free Dubai. I have been to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Muscat actually had temples even in the 80’s. It is nothing like Saudi Arabia.
This is midway between urban legend and reality, really. Used to be a big underground problem, where Arab men would land up in India and marry girls (mid-teens and even pre-teens) by paying off huge sums of money to the parents. This was legally possible, since muslims can have upto four wives in India. Later on, after they had their fun, they would divorce these girls and pay up some money as part of the settlement. Literally, these guys used to take this girls to hotel rooms hang around for a week or two and then divorce them (triple talaak), leave them with their parents and fly back to middle east. sick sick sick stuff. Depraved legalized prostitution, I guess. I have heard most of this stuff happening in Hyderabad (India) and Bombay. Thankfully, social organizations in India keep a watch for these old men (yeah, they are always doddering old bastards) and now-a-days any small event is front page news and police spring into action if this happens.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040822/women.htm#1 http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/18saudi.htm http://www.7days.ae/global-news/india-brides-for-sale.html
razib_t_a: I guess you haven’t run into punjabi muslims or punjabi brahmins on your blog ;-). Turkish and/or caucasian mountain origins just a few generations back are a certainity with such folks.
Back to topic.. Slate has an interesting article “Thanks for Your Hard Work. Now Get Out!”By Eric Weiner on the same topic, but I love ANNA’s heading wayyyyy better. http://slate.msn.com/id/2124497/?nav=fo
that sucks