{"id":147333,"date":"2015-07-03T03:25:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T03:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/07\/03\/onenefes-stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this\/"},"modified":"2018-09-07T11:34:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T11:34:40","slug":"onenefes-stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/07\/03\/onenefes-stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-147333 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/07\/03\/onenefes-stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this\/attachment\/147334\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tumblr_mv2o21ZGw71s5tc70o1_640-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tumblr_mv2o21ZGw71s5tc70o1_640-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tumblr_mv2o21ZGw71s5tc70o1_640-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tumblr_mv2o21ZGw71s5tc70o1_640-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/tumblr_mv2o21ZGw71s5tc70o1_640.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/onenefes.tumblr.com\/post\/65548247465\/stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this-picture-and\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">onenefes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stay-human.tumblr.com\/post\/65538033240\/i-keep-seeing-this-picture-and-people-being-oh-so\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">stay-human<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I keep seeing this picture and people being oh so impressed by it acting like Dubai\u2019s Sheikhs are miracle workers or some shit. And all that skyline does is make me want to throw up. <i><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/voices\/commentators\/johann-hari\/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html\" target=\"_blank\">Do you understand how all of this was built?<\/a><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div>\n\u2026and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang \u2013 but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<div>\nSahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. \u201cTo get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell,\u201d he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal\u2019s village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (\u00a3400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was <b>pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka<\/b> (\u00a32,300) for the work visa \u2013 a fee they\u2019d pay off in the first six months, easy.<b> So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender<\/b>, to head to this paradise.\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<div><b>As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him<\/b> by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on <b>he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat \u2013 where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes<\/b> in summer, when it hits 55 degrees \u2013 for 500 dirhams a month (\u00a390), <b>less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don\u2019t like it, the company told him, go home. \u201cBut how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket,\u201d he said. \u201cWell, then you\u2019d better get to work,\u201d they replied.<\/b>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, <b>where he lives with 11 other men<\/b>. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. <b>The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp \u2013 holes in the ground \u2013 are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies.<\/b> There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is \u201cunbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night.\u201d At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<b>\u201cThere\u2019s a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they\u2019re not reported. They\u2019re described as \u2018accidents\u2019.\u201d<\/b> Even then, their families aren\u2019t free: they simply inherit the debts. A Human Rights Watch study found there is a \u201ccover-up of the true extent\u201d of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but <b>the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019ve been waiting for this.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>onenefes: stay-human: I keep seeing this picture and people being oh so impressed by it acting like Dubai\u2019s Sheikhs are miracle workers or some shit. And all that skyline does is make me want to throw up. Do you understand how all of this was built? \u2026and then there is the foreign underclass who built &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/07\/03\/onenefes-stay-human-i-keep-seeing-this\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[16863,16864,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147335,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147333\/revisions\/147335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}