In Dubai

I don't know what people like about Dubai. It is an artificial city. It is the strangest thing. You have all these people around but you never see a citizen of Dubai. They are all tourists or guest workers. The only actual citizens of Dubai you might see are at the customs desk.

We talk about the exploitation of the Global South (what people my age used to call the third world) by the developed world and former colonial powers, but what about the exploitation carried on by local elites? The history of British colonialism surely offers few examples to compare to the exploitation on exhibit in Dubai of "southerns" by "southerners."

The British colonial masters did at least do some work. The phrase 'mad dogs and Englishmen' came from the saying that the only people that would work through mid-day without taking a nap in these parts were the English. They did something. Citizens of Dubai make a show of not working from what I can tell, the male citizens wearing ostentatiously white flowing robes, practical for no other purpose than to stroll around (their wives padding along behind in their black bags). It seems designed to show that they don't engage in labor.

Here is an interesting item on that other form of exploitation, the exploitation of women by men, here is a nice item about the newly formed and government sanctioned "Obedient Wives Club." In their own words:

"Disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world," the club's vice president and co-founder, Dr. Rohayah Mohamad, told told the Associated Press

. She blames the country's rising divorce rate—as well as incidents ofprostitution

, rape, and even incest—on wives who have neglected to keep their husbands satisfied in bed.

"When husbands come home, wives do not welcome their husbands with warm alluring smiles and sexy dressing ... That is the reality today," she said. "A good wife is a good sex worker to her husband."