Racism in Dubai against Expatriates?

what i noticed i have spend lots of year in Dubai..a raised in England but initially am Pakistan.Apparently am working in multinational advertising agency,i never faced some kind of weird issue of racism,Dubai is really good place ! racism took place in some condition if your are not good enough financially or your stereotype ,and main thing behavior,attitude and hygiene.i have lots colleagues who are Asian,European and Brits also

we are good with each other never felt some kind of shame or face racism trouble.
Depends on if you act well off course,, each one of you are role model for you country , you folks make your country name with your every day behavior and action !

Well i see might be some Arabs,white or Asian are racist so it doesn't mean all are same *like five fingers are not EQUAL* somehow there is Good and evil people in every nationality we shouldn't judge particular person and blame all innocents.

Be satisfy with your self and be confident on you be proud who you are ... this racism will ain't going to be no more.WE all are human beings color,religion doesn't matter.

Am good with black white brown .. Asian , white ,Arabs.i don't have any problem with em...
As soon if they got problem with me so might ignore em and go on because ! i will interpret life as a Ocean where you see lots of fishes of different kind ! i believe that local get more support off course it's there country.And western people get more respect because there countries are tough well good financially!
One other hand Asian countries we believe there is some politics problem and some terrorism activity are taking place which is lot good reason for disrespecting these countries people.

MESSAGE FOR ALL NON-FANATIC AND FANATIC PEOPLE !
Love humans love your kind color and religion doesn't matter

Hi all , it is my first time i read these words i can say that iam really very surprised from the level of hate i have seen in this conversations , the only evidence that there is racism is that conversations.
related to racism i myself has been suffered that from western,emarati , and Indians and paki's however iam an Arab Muslim i do believe that people who hate just for color or ethnic are really dont belong to that millinuim.

iam totally against any kind of racism , this planet is wide that can take us all but we are narrowing it with our small thinking.

something i have been really very disturbed about it from some of the writers here , i didn't find any reason to see some of the writers insulting Islam and prophet Mohamed and the holy quran meanwhile the subject of this conversation is too far from that.
i want to ask you, what is your feeling when you read here an insult about jesus? are you going to be happy???

i think not!!! lets try to be respectful a bit if not to each other so let it be towards our belives and religions.
i leave you in peace and i hope you all to reach the reasonable voice in your mind.

terorist pakistanis, you guys are born terorists,you people started terorism in the world. whole pakistan should be punished, specialy double faced zardari terorist himself.

you can say what you want about jesus, you wont offend me. he did not marry a 9 year old child like another peodophile in your religion and his book does not instruct anyone to go and find people who do not beleive and kill them...i see the way your peaceful religion is practiced across the world every day.....

(you can say what you want about Jesus, you wont offend me) , i will not insult a prophet send by god for peace , as a moslem i do respect and honor all the prophets send to earth , second if you didn't been offended by an insult to your prophet then you don't deserve to be his follower.

all that you know about our prophet is that he marry a 9 years old child??? that is pathetic ..
and to your information our holy book the quran didn't instruct us to kill people who don't follow islam , but your are judging a hole race and a whole religion by the slaughters done to your people by the hands of your governors on the name of islam , my brother you need to read and watch true materials just for you guidance , if you are talking about 9/11 issue please be known that this didn't been happened by moslems or by the name of quran this was an American operation from A to Z and bin laden and all of these mirrors are just reflecting the greed face of the western and US governors to result a war on moslems living in Afghanistan on caves and likewise happen on iraq the whole war is just looking of oil and money that has been stolen from there land , you need to open your eyes more than this , by the way all of this issues iam telling you has been reported by YOUR news channels CNN and BBC so you are not going to ask me about my references , it seems that you have seen some crimes and you have been much comfortable to find Muslims and Islam responsible for it than finding the true planner and killer .
iam not happy that the whole conversation has been going to that far but i feel somehow responsible to clear some issues has been stuck on the minds of some lazy lads who dont want to make some effort to find some truth out there.

secondly if you can see that Muslim and quran are terrorist why you are here???
iam putting myself in yours , iam a Muslim i cant imagine myself working in Vatican because iam sure that iam not be welcomed there for that race crap that you are talking about.

finally i still see some people there who really know the truth even if they was Americans or western and they are my best friends until now , i cant hate some people just because of stupid thoughts somebody put in my mind i have to find the truth myself . and if you hate racism please tell me why there is a church on Europe has been decorated by Muslim bones who died in previous actions.

im amar from sudan ilive now in india isearch to one arabic lady seek men for marry mob no 00923439363540 email;

i think the whites need to be throen out of middle east, they are a disease to our society
they pretend to be gods in dubai and the arabs traet them like that.

bloody whites get the f*** out of dubai you are not needed here

You are a pathetic disgrace to your country. Going by the posting your ignorant pommy.

Singapore is more racist why don't you cry about that?

The very first opinion is racist. Why don't you cry about that? That opinion shares the opinion from a western female's point of view, what if you are a Bangladeshi nonwesterner like myself. Oh I see, a Bangladeshi's point doesn't make much sense to you, right? But nooooo its not racist to ignore the Bangladeshi but it's racist to pass comments at a Western female when we all know they are the most lewd of them all in the whole wide world.

And most of your complaints revolve around entry to nightclubs. I DONT CARE! I wont enter a nightclub, you should be more than thankful that nonmuslims enter nightclubs in the first place in Dubai, be grateful they don't kick you out from Dubai in the first place.

If you want racism, there is no worse place than Singapore. Yet you are so conveniently quiet about it heh

you pathetic idiot, you are in dubai because nobody wants to go to the west
The West is in decline for all its atrocities in cluding murder of a million more innocents civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its economies are mess and will be pulled in to an abyss by USA origin financial trouble. I hope ALL of the Western world declines and Muslim nonwesterners take sweet revenge.

There are many nonmuslim westerners in dubai, doha, bahrain, saudi. Why don't the rulers start by implement ing retaliatory policies against them for what Muslims face in their OWN countries like Iraq Afghanistan Palestine Pakistan Sudan Somalia etc from the West, and what nonwesterner Muslims face in the West

who is asking this muslim filths to come to our countries,u pigs rot in your filthy f***in religion,come to our civilised society as asylum seekers and become well to do off,our social securities and when u muslim pigs asses start itching u subside it by blowing up in the name of ur f***in barbaric religion.if westerners are employed in the middle east its becoz the barbaric cult of pigs doesnt have the capability still to survive in the 21st century,we are doing you a favour by our services,bring back the crusade to end this f***in paedophiles,anyways bangladeshis are considered as shitass scums even in the so called barbaric muslim world

you f***ing bigoted retard! go and eat a bacon sandwich you f***ing sand coon! hahahaha

all arabs are basically c***s. they are homos and love getting butt f***ed. once the oil runs out they wont be able to lubricate their backsides anymore and can go back to f***ing camels in the desert.

asians are the most racist people on the planet along with f***ing arabs as well. they are the most insular, in-bred and introspective people on this planet.

ther are also dominated by a backwards religion..it's just a way of controlling you you f***ing retards!

hopefully they will all contract a diseease and die...very soon.

you are a knob-head...rattling out the usual anti-western propoganda...heard it all before mate. OPEN your eyes.....its the muslim world which stinks..it's how they control the masses (can you name a proper democratic muslim country..and i mean proper!)...there isn't one on the planet........beheading people, chopping limbs off, stoning, hanging, flogging, covering women up.

It is barbaric..along with you and your like. Don't worry as soon as the oil as gone the west will leave you to it...you have nothing to offer us or the world with your death worshipping attitude and religion.

I am an Arab and agree that there is racism against Indians. Whenever there is an Arab in a Restaurant coming later than an indian. The Arab will be served first after that an Indian. Which I think is not right, since India is developing in a respectable manner.

Regarding Pakistani's they are less than dogs in our Muslim community.

you asshole..!!! agree we are in your country to earn our bread..!!! but did you ever think why does ur contry pay us more than you.>!!!

because you bastards dont have anything above your face that means in your f***ing head..!!!
and yes we earn here for ur kind information your f***ing country is rich because we work for it..

in small words you bastards have a machine but dont know how where to use it or may be i can say how to start it...

if you have lot of money screw it in ur ass because you guys want us to work and dubai bastards dont have that capacity to work like us...!!!

i think the worst thing ever is that two nationalities the pakistanis and the indians both are rotten and stinky and the worse that when you say hi or hello to them you can imagine that they are a time bomb ready to explode any time , i don't know what are they doing in this country really , they are making it sucks , before that country was not like this , was fancy with white and western people i cant decline that dubai was prettier before because of western people with their nice smell , swimming speed o's and wanna make sure of what iam saying compare between jumerah and diera you will know the difference offcourse jumerah is prettier because westerns live thier however diera is like a f*** tiolet , all indians and pakistanies and these indians ladies who wear curtains , how are you guys making sex with them , they stinks .
pakistani i feel that they sleep in the roundabout and come to you with that mud on there cloths just like that , this place is coming really a toilet.

The days are not far when every Westerners & whites including the Pommies would be hunted down by this Arabs,make hay while the sunshines.Peace out!
Cheers

Yes, their is racism and sexism too! I can not believe the job classified ads that require a woman to "be good looking, under 40 and must send photo". What type of job was this ad for? A secretarial job. This was not an isolated incident but a very common occurence.

This city is nothing but a cesspool with a nice coat of paint on it. Greed will drive this city into the desert or the sea. The party doesn't last forever and the freaks that inhabit it will find that out and hopefully soon.

I really hated my visit to Dubai. It's unbelievable overrated. I was shocked by the arrogance and the mistreatment of Asian workers. I have never seen this behaviour in Europe.

I mean the arrogance of the locals.

Our muslim community? I think that any good muslim who reads what you said would never consider you a part of the muslim community.

I agree when saying Dubai isn't great at all. It's like it inherited every negative aspect of Western society (greed, megalomania, arrogance ...) but without the positive ones (freedom of expression, disproval of racism, centuries of culture, ...).
I went to many Muslim countries and Dubai was definitely the worst. In the other countries people might be uneducated, at least they were hospital to all and worked very hard. In Dubai people are uneducated yet arrogant because of the oil-wealth: very bad combination.

this is a problem that cannot be fixed. no way. dubai does not grant naturalization national status....the locals will always be treated better. talk to someone who has gotten in a bar brawl against a local emirati ...or a car accident with a local. listen to what they have to say. it is amazing to hear the stories. so much for being a well ruled sheikdom....i just cannot imagine living in a non democratic environment

Sunil
http://www.dubai-information-site.com 

lol u are one frustrated son of a bitch i hate locals here u know why?
they are arrogant sons aof a bitches i a mgald i am going back to holland next week because of this f***ing country

Can i ask for a job? Im a graduating student of Bachelor of Secondary Education and i can do watever job that is available in you.

Can i ask for a job? Im a graduating student of Bachelor of Secondary Education and i can do watever job that is available in you.

Stoopid and arrogant A***bs !!!....you honestly think that piece of desert will be as you have it now?? You must be joking!....when all the expats and Indian\ Pakistani workers leave that over baked sand castle you will be left with nothing but a Gaza- esque dump and you will deserve it !!

I am a canadian born, UK educated lawyer, of south asian descent. I have heard about wonderful opportunities present for british laywers in dubai, with tax free expat packages, and i am thinking of sending in my application. what do you folks think about an educated, female lawyer of canadian nationality and south asian descent living and working in he uk? will it be difficult to find employment because i am a female?? by the way, I can't ever imagine not getting in to a club due to my ethnic background (which is highly difficult to pin point) i mean i am used to geting in a free pass based on my appearance most of he time, lol, i do not mean to sound boastful!!. Do enlighten me on the matter though!
Cheers!

To Female Lawyer, whether you are a good looking south asian or not, whether you are educated or not none of this is going to have much of a bearing for you. I say this because there is a clear but subtle racism directed to south asians by the arabs. It is inevitable that if you are asian and you live in Dubai for over a year you will be the victim of some racist abuse or discrimination. These arabs are racist towards asians period! I'd rather be on measly wage than lose my dignity by going to Dubai. I am ethnically Pakistani and I have relatives who work in Dubai and the stories they tell me are really disheartning and not something I personally would ever put up with.

it all depends the bouncer behaves arrogant cause ...of less education or it is just a bit of racial profiling u c there are ofcourse lot of indians and pakis working there ..in low wages and good wages too.I was in muscat ,visited dubai though..I am planning to visit there again after being in london for 4 years..

what about the persian community in dubai...how are they treated?

your mum is that much of a paki you will be shot cum and find me you fuking dirty american i live in the wirral england cum and find me tit

Interesting posts. Im white british female and used to have an Indian guru (So I was fond of Indians at one point! Ha ha. I no longer have guru by the way) and only since living in Dubai - I have become racist and generally anti asian as result of observing life here in Dubai.

I worked for several indian families on projects and noted how there was a master/slave relationship going on with their indian servants. Their caste system speaks volumes about discrimination in that country.( Although you only have to look at citizens all over the word in UK, India , UAE etcand see discrimination going on between peoples in different neighborhoods, income levels etc. )I do think its to do with education standards - the educated indians/arabs are generally fine and intersting culturally to be around - but you are definitely dealing with some shady characters and backward thinkers amongst a lot of uneducated indians/pakistanis/ arabs - which makes up the vast majority of people on road/ walking around town. (80 percent of people - at a guess).

I also notice vast majority of time that there is a really dumb driver and I mean really DUMB _ i notice by looking at their ethnicity they seem to be 1.Indian 2.Pakistani and 3. Local UAE all male drivers - sorry guys! ( Statistcally Indians and Pakistanis make up about 70- percent of population here - surprising UAE drivers feature highly as aggressive/ dumb drivers.

I just recently worked on a construction site ( Yes as a white female on a specialist project) and had some interesting generalisations with the various races I came across on site. The indians/ bangladeshi/ pakistani generally seemed most raucous and noisy on site, doing very little work when their supervisors were not around shouting noisily at each other and usually making disgusting noises in their throat and spitting. They seemed very hostile/surly generally in manner.

I was impressed with the many chinese nationals who were working hard, calmly and generally quietly and courteously on same site- which contradicts views Id heard that chinese were 'rude' Far from it in my limited experience. Also I came across nepalese workers who were charming, polite, quiet and kind.- As someone mentioned there are good and bad apples from every nation.

I have noticed stereotypes here though. Ive had very unfortunate experiences with Philipinos here - which in my experience - many are very false and appear two faced with fake subservience and I dont trust them - although many have a good attitude considering difficult working conditions they are under- how can I help you madam?

Iranians,indians, egyptians, arabs and lebanese crowds are notorious for being sly and shady in business dealings here and I was specifically warned about dealing with these nationalities. Again there are exceptions - Im just giving my limited experiences here.

Generally westerners ( Of indian descent/ black descent or white) can be relied upon to carry out work efficiently and get the job done - other nationalities are much less efficient in my experience.

One more thing I noticed - a lot of posts have mentioned British as thinking they are 'superior' etc. Its interesting as a British person to get an insight from other cultures on how they view 'my culture' - What I have noticed here in Dubai - is a lot of the Indians/ Phillipinos act more 'inferior/ unworthy/ less self esteem' around Westerners. The indians who have self esteem etc are completely cool to be around with no fake subservience cultural issues going on.


Each country has its own cultural baggage - but the UAE has definitely been an interesting, albeit difficult place to experience on occasions.

I even say on a positive note - I have found people (to my face) have been more helpful, accomodating and considerate as a female in the construction industry here in UAE than the negative, macho and unhelpful attitudes I experienced from guys in UK in same industry. So really the UAE has been excellent for my career - which flies in the face of all comments that Middle East is a backward place for females.

i had a fight with one girl and she put me i deep shit first i kept quiet thingking god is there watching her and will punishh her for everything but stil she didnt stop making trouble for me so i decided to tell the policee the she is an illegal alien here she had a case before and was been in jail stiill havent learned her lesson now she tied again to destroy another person. she is illegally staying in dubai without passsport.visa and doing carlift without license coz she hasnt have a job.. i was wondering i wanna deport her since she is no doing anything herebut to make trouble much better to send her ome. where i can go and complain this but i dont wanna be involvedi mean i want to be secretly and privae. so se wont fin out its me who told the authorities though there a lot of us who she does lot of bad things, but im tired o so i wanna complain. could somebody help me.

hi euqin
please mail me on
regards

Arabism is racism, main victims include: Kurds, Berbers, Africans (not only in Sudan), Jews (not only in Israel), Persians, Assyrians, etc.
http://geocities.com/panarabism 

HI TO ALL YOU GUYS,PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS THING OF HATRED BETWEEN PEOPLE,IF YOU DO NOT LIKE SOMEONE I THINK YOU SHOULD KEEP IT TO YOURSELF AND NOT LET OTHERS GET AFFECTED.PLEASE BE HUMAN AND GOD HAS MADE US ALL THE SAME.WE ALL ARE BORN FROM OUR MOTHERS WOMB SO PLS BE KIND ENOUGH TO EACH OTHER IN YOUR WORDS.THERE IS NOTHING LIKE FORGIVING PEOPLE WHO DO SOMETHING WRONG,IM SURE HE WOULD REALIZE SOONER OR LATER.I THINK MATURED PEOPLE WOULDNT WRITE STUFF LIKE THIS.

chodina you even now spelling of your country and let me know urdu punjabi or any other name of your country you just beg for live. all of you are ................................................................................................................................................
............. a dogshit

DUBAI IS A FUCKING SHIT COUNTRY

I'm a Turkish expat living in Dubai for about 6 months now. I do agree that if you're guest in a country, you live by the rules. That is the first thing you should keep in mind starting the moment you step foot in that country. But I also believe if you're the host, (and this is a crucial manner in Islamic culture) you treat your guest nicely, and make them feel secure and home. 2 months ago I was verbally abused by 3 nationals ( which really pissed me off ), I did not respond because I felt that the justice wouldn't work equally for both sides. But that might not be the truth. I havent experienced racism first hand.

The government workers ( especially the ones in the immigration office ) usually treats people well. We gotta admit that this is a developing country and there is no point of comparing it with USA or England which gets migration more than 50 years. It's a culture issue and takes time especially with conservative communities.

If you get help from a national, try to thank them in Arabic " shukran ". You will notice the change in their behaviour.

Every human being, regardless of their skin tone or religion, or how they treat each other in their own countries, regardless of their countrys history; they do have equal rights. No man by birth, deserves to be humiliated or treated like a lower being. This is the true aspect of being a human.

If you think that you deserve better than indian, paki, asian, american etc... any other individual , just because of your ethnicity; I believe you're a worthless scumbag that doesn't have any other motivation or higher purpose. GET A LIFE. Your money, or your ethnicity doesn't make you a better person. This goes to all fascists on this board

i feel sorry for you and your narrow minded ways. no wonder the poms are the most hated race in the world.

hahahahhaa

The dark side of Dubai

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


Tuesday, 7 April 2009
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Construction workers in their distinctive blue overalls building the upper floors of the new Burj al-Arab hotel

Click here for more Dubai images
The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.


But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

Related articles
The Desert Blogger: Jamie Stewart's dispatches from Dubai

I. An Adult Disneyland


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."

Her husband, Daniel, bought two properties. "We were drunk on Dubai," she says. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to mismanage their finances. "We're not talking huge sums, but he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was surprised. We got into a little bit of debt." After a year, she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

One doctor told him he had a year to live; another said it was benign and he'd be okay. But the debts were growing. "Before I came here, I didn't know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada's or any other liberal democracy's," she says. Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can't pay, you go to prison.

"When we realised that, I sat Daniel down and told him: listen, we need to get out of here. He knew he was guaranteed a pay-off when he resigned, so we said – right, let's take the pay-off, clear the debt, and go." So Daniel resigned – but he was given a lower pay-off than his contract suggested. The debt remained. As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren't covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country.

"Suddenly our cards stopped working. We had nothing. We were thrown out of our apartment." Karen can't speak about what happened next for a long time; she is shaking.

Daniel was arrested and taken away on the day of their eviction. It was six days before she could talk to him. "He told me he was put in a cell with another debtor, a Sri Lankan guy who was only 27, who said he couldn't face the shame to his family. Daniel woke up and the boy had swallowed razor-blades. He banged for help, but nobody came, and the boy died in front of him."

Karen managed to beg from her friends for a few weeks, "but it was so humiliating. I've never lived like this. I worked in the fashion industry. I had my own shops. I've never..." She peters out.

Daniel was sentenced to six months' imprisonment at a trial he couldn't understand. It was in Arabic, and there was no translation. "Now I'm here illegally, too," Karen says I've got no money, nothing. I have to last nine months until he's out, somehow." Looking away, almost paralysed with embarrassment, she asks if I could buy her a meal.

She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars.

"The thing you have to understand about Dubai is – nothing is what it seems," Karen says at last. "Nothing. This isn't a city, it's a con-job. They lure you in telling you it's one thing – a modern kind of place – but beneath the surface it's a medieval dictatorship."


II. Tumbleweed


Thirty years ago, almost all of contemporary Dubai was desert, inhabited only by cactuses and tumbleweed and scorpions. But downtown there are traces of the town that once was, buried amidst the metal and glass. In the dusty fort of the Dubai Museum, a sanitised version of this story is told.

In the mid-18th century, a small village was built here, in the lower Persian Gulf, where people would dive for pearls off the coast. It soon began to accumulate a cosmopolitan population washing up from Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and other Arab countries, all hoping to make their fortune. They named it after a local locust, the daba, who consumed everything before it. The town was soon seized by the gunships of the British Empire, who held it by the throat as late as 1971. As they scuttled away, Dubai decided to ally with the six surrounding states and make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The British quit, exhausted, just as oil was being discovered, and the sheikhs who suddenly found themselves in charge faced a remarkable dilemma. They were largely illiterate nomads who spent their lives driving camels through the desert – yet now they had a vast pot of gold. What should they do with it?

Dubai only had a dribble of oil compared to neighbouring Abu Dhabi – so Sheikh Maktoum decided to use the revenues to build something that would last. Israel used to boast it made the desert bloom; Sheikh Maktoum resolved to make the desert boom. He would build a city to be a centre of tourism and financial services, sucking up cash and talent from across the globe. He invited the world to come tax-free – and they came in their millions, swamping the local population, who now make up just 5 per cent of Dubai. A city seemed to fall from the sky in just three decades, whole and complete and swelling. They fast-forwarded from the 18th century to the 21st in a single generation.

If you take the Big Bus Tour of Dubai – the passport to a pre-processed experience of every major city on earth – you are fed the propaganda-vision of how this happened. "Dubai's motto is 'Open doors, open minds'," the tour guide tells you in clipped tones, before depositing you at the souks to buy camel tea-cosies. "Here you are free. To purchase fabrics," he adds. As you pass each new monumental building, he tells you: "The World Trade Centre was built by His Highness..."

But this is a lie. The sheikh did not build this city. It was built by slaves. They are building it now.


III. Hidden in plain view


There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and 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 – 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?

Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's 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 (£400) 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 pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.

Sahinal was in a panic. His family back home – his son, daughter, wife and parents – were waiting for money, excited that their boy had finally made it. But he was going to have to work for more than two years just to pay for the cost of getting here – and all to earn less than he did in Bangladesh.

He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp – holes in the ground – are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is "unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night." At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.

The water delivered to the camp in huge white containers isn't properly desalinated: it tastes of salt. "It makes us sick, but we have nothing else to drink," he says.

The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."

He is currently working on the 67th floor of a shiny new tower, where he builds upwards, into the sky, into the heat. He doesn't know its name. In his four years here, he has never seen the Dubai of tourist-fame, except as he constructs it floor-by-floor.

Is he angry? He is quiet for a long time. "Here, nobody shows their anger. You can't. You get put in jail for a long time, then deported." Last year, some workers went on strike after they were not given their wages for four months. The Dubai police surrounded their camps with razor-wire and water-cannons and blasted them out and back to work.

The "ringleaders" were imprisoned. I try a different question: does Sohinal regret coming? All the men look down, awkwardly. "How can we think about that? We are trapped. If we start to think about regrets..." He lets the sentence trail off. Eventually, another worker breaks the silence by adding: "I miss my country, my family and my land. We can grow food in Bangladesh. Here, nothing grows. Just oil and buildings."

Since the recession hit, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."

This is all supposed to be illegal. Employers are meant to pay on time, never take your passport, give you breaks in the heat – but I met nobody who said it happens. Not one. These men are conned into coming and trapped into staying, with the complicity of the Dubai authorities.

Sahinal could well die out here. A British man who used to work on construction projects told me: "There's a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they're not reported. They're described as 'accidents'." Even then, their families aren't free: they simply inherit the debts. A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.

At night, in the dusk, I sit in the camp with Sohinal and his friends as they scrape together what they have left to buy a cheap bottle of spirits. They down it in one ferocious gulp. "It helps you to feel numb", Sohinal says through a stinging throat. In the distance, the glistening Dubai skyline he built stands, oblivious.


IV. Mauled by the mall


I find myself stumbling in a daze from the camps into the sprawling marble malls that seem to stand on every street in Dubai. It is so hot there is no point building pavements; people gather in these cathedrals of consumerism to bask in the air conditioning. So within a ten minute taxi-ride, I have left Sohinal and I am standing in the middle of Harvey Nichols, being shown a £20,000 taffeta dress by a bored salesgirl. "As you can see, it is cut on the bias..." she says, and I stop writing.

Time doesn't seem to pass in the malls. Days blur with the same electric light, the same shined floors, the same brands I know from home. Here, Dubai is reduced to its component sounds: do-buy. In the most expensive malls I am almost alone, the shops empty and echoing. On the record, everybody tells me business is going fine. Off the record, they look panicky. There is a hat exhibition ahead of the Dubai races, selling elaborate headgear for £1,000 a pop. "Last year, we were packed. Now look," a hat designer tells me. She swoops her arm over a vacant space.

I approach a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants, oblivious to the swarms of men gaping at her. "I love it here!" she says. "The heat, the malls, the beach!" Does it ever bother you that it's a slave society? She puts her head down, just as Sohinal did. "I try not to see," she says. Even at 17, she has learned not to look, and not to ask; that, she senses, is a transgression too far.

Between the malls, there is nothing but the connecting tissue of asphalt. Every road has at least four lanes; Dubai feels like a motorway punctuated by shopping centres. You only walk anywhere if you are suicidal. The residents of Dubai flit from mall to mall by car or taxis.

How does it feel if this is your country, filled with foreigners? Unlike the expats and the slave class, I can't just approach the native Emiratis to ask questions when I see them wandering around – the men in cool white robes, the women in sweltering black. If you try, the women blank you, and the men look affronted, and tell you brusquely that Dubai is "fine". So I browse through the Emirati blog-scene and found some typical-sounding young Emiratis. We meet – where else? – in the mall.

Ahmed al-Atar is a handsome 23-year-old with a neat, trimmed beard, tailored white robes, and rectangular wire-glasses. He speaks perfect American-English, and quickly shows that he knows London, Los Angeles and Paris better than most westerners. Sitting back in his chair in an identikit Starbucks, he announces: "This is the best place in the world to be young! The government pays for your education up to PhD level. You get given a free house when you get married. You get free healthcare, and if it's not good enough here, they pay for you to go abroad. You don't even have to pay for your phone calls. Almost everyone has a maid, a nanny, and a driver. And we never pay any taxes. Don't you wish you were Emirati?"

I try to raise potential objections to this Panglossian summary, but he leans forward and says: "Look – my grandfather woke up every day and he would have to fight to get to the well first to get water. When the wells ran dry, they had to have water delivered by camel. They were always hungry and thirsty and desperate for jobs. He limped all his life, because he there was no medical treatment available when he broke his leg. Now look at us!"

For Emiratis, this is a Santa Claus state, handing out goodies while it makes its money elsewhere: through renting out land to foreigners, soft taxes on them like business and airport charges, and the remaining dribble of oil. Most Emiratis, like Ahmed, work for the government, so they're cushioned from the credit crunch. "I haven't felt any effect at all, and nor have my friends," he says. "Your employment is secure. You will only be fired if you do something incredibly bad." The laws are currently being tightened, to make it even more impossible to sack an Emirati.

Sure, the flooding-in of expats can sometimes be "an eyesore", Ahmed says. "But we see the expats as the price we had to pay for this development. How else could we do it? Nobody wants to go back to the days of the desert, the days before everyone came. We went from being like an African country to having an average income per head of $120,000 a year. And we're supposed to complain?"

He says the lack of political freedom is fine by him. "You'll find it very hard to find an Emirati who doesn't support Sheikh Mohammed." Because they're scared? "No, because we really all support him. He's a great leader. Just look!" He smiles and says: "I'm sure my life is very much like yours. We hang out, have a coffee, go to the movies. You'll be in a Pizza Hut or Nando's in London, and at the same time I'll be in one in Dubai," he says, ordering another latte.

But do all young Emiratis see it this way? Can it really be so sunny in the political sands? In the sleek Emirates Tower Hotel, I meet Sultan al-Qassemi. He's a 31-year-old Emirati columnist for the Dubai press and private art collector, with a reputation for being a contrarian liberal, advocating gradual reform. He is wearing Western clothes – blue jeans and a Ralph Lauren shirt – and speaks incredibly fast, turning himself into a manic whirr of arguments.

"People here are turning into lazy, overweight babies!" he exclaims. "The nanny state has gone too far. We don't do anything for ourselves! Why don't any of us work for the private sector? Why can't a mother and father look after their own child?" And yet, when I try to bring up the system of slavery that built Dubai, he looks angry. "People should give us credit," he insists. "We are the most tolerant people in the world. Dubai is the only truly international city in the world. Everyone who comes here is treated with respect."

I pause, and think of the vast camps in Sonapur, just a few miles away. Does he even know they exist? He looks irritated. "You know, if there are 30 or 40 cases [of worker abuse] a year, that sounds like a lot but when you think about how many people are here..." Thirty or 40? This abuse is endemic to the system, I say. We're talking about hundreds of thousands.

Sultan is furious. He splutters: "You don't think Mexicans are treated badly in New York City? And how long did it take Britain to treat people well? I could come to London and write about the homeless people on Oxford Street and make your city sound like a terrible place, too! The workers here can leave any time they want! Any Indian can leave, any Asian can leave!"

But they can't, I point out. Their passports are taken away, and their wages are withheld. "Well, I feel bad if that happens, and anybody who does that should be punished. But their embassies should help them." They try. But why do you forbid the workers – with force – from going on strike against lousy employers? "Thank God we don't allow that!" he exclaims. "Strikes are in-convenient! They go on the street – we're not having that. We won't be like France. Imagine a country where they the workers can just stop whenever they want!" So what should the workers do when they are cheated and lied to? "Quit. Leave the country."

I sigh. Sultan is seething now. "People in the West are always complaining about us," he says. Suddenly, he adopts a mock-whiny voice and says, in imitation of these disgusting critics: "Why don't you treat animals better? Why don't you have better shampoo advertising? Why don't you treat labourers better?" It's a revealing order: animals, shampoo, then workers. He becomes more heated, shifting in his seat, jabbing his finger at me. "I gave workers who worked for me safety goggles and special boots, and they didn't want to wear them! It slows them down!"

And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. "When I see Western journalists criticise us – don't you realise you're shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying – I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."

Sultan sits back. My arguments have clearly disturbed him; he says in a softer, conciliatory tone, almost pleading: "Listen. My mother used to go to the well and get a bucket of water every morning. On her wedding day, she was given an orange as a gift because she had never eaten one. Two of my brothers died when they were babies because the healthcare system hadn't developed yet. Don't judge us." He says it again, his eyes filled with intensity: "Don't judge us."


V. The Dunkin' Donuts Dissidents


But there is another face to the Emirati minority – a small huddle of dissidents, trying to shake the Sheikhs out of abusive laws. Next to a Virgin Megastore and a Dunkin' Donuts, with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" blaring behind me, I meet the Dubai dictatorship's Public Enemy Number One. By way of introduction, Mohammed al-Mansoori says from within his white robes and sinewy face: "Westerners come her and see the malls and the tall buildings and they think that means we are free. But these businesses, these buildings – who are they for? This is a dictatorship. The royal family think they own the country, and the people are their servants. There is no freedom here."

We snuffle out the only Arabic restaurant in this mall, and he says everything you are banned – under threat of prison – from saying in Dubai. Mohammed tells me he was born in Dubai to a fisherman father who taught him one enduring lesson: Never follow the herd. Think for yourself. In the sudden surge of development, Mohammed trained as a lawyer. By the Noughties, he had climbed to the head of the Jurists' Association, an organisation set up to press for Dubai's laws to be consistent with international human rights legislation.

And then – suddenly – Mohammed thwacked into the limits of Sheikh Mohammed's tolerance. Horrified by the "system of slavery" his country was being built on, he spoke out to Human Rights Watch and the BBC. "So I was hauled in by the secret police and told: shut up, or you will lose you job, and your children will be unemployable," he says. "But how could I be silent?"

He was stripped of his lawyer's licence and his passport – becoming yet another person imprisoned in this country. "I have been blacklisted and so have my children. The newspapers are not allowed to write about me."

Why is the state so keen to defend this system of slavery? He offers a prosaic explanation. "Most companies are owned by the government, so they oppose human rights laws because it will reduce their profit margins. It's in their interests that the workers are slaves."

Last time there was a depression, there was a starbust of democracy in Dubai, seized by force from the sheikhs. In the 1930s, the city's merchants banded together against Sheikh Said bin Maktum al-Maktum – the absolute ruler of his day – and insisted they be given control over the state finances. It lasted only a few years, before the Sheikh – with the enthusiastic support of the British – snuffed them out.

And today? Sheikh Mohammed turned Dubai into Creditopolis, a city built entirely on debt. Dubai owes 107 percent of its entire GDP. It would be bust already, if the neighbouring oil-soaked state of Abu Dhabi hadn't pulled out its chequebook. Mohammed says this will constrict freedom even further. "Now Abu Dhabi calls the tunes – and they are much more conservative and restrictive than even Dubai. Freedom here will diminish every day." Already, new media laws have been drafted forbidding the press to report on anything that could "damage" Dubai or "its economy". Is this why the newspapers are giving away glossy supplements talking about "encouraging economic indicators"?

Everybody here waves Islamism as the threat somewhere over the horizon, sure to swell if their advice is not followed. Today, every imam is appointed by the government, and every sermon is tightly controlled to keep it moderate. But Mohammed says anxiously: "We don't have Islamism here now, but I think that if you control people and give them no way to express anger, it could rise. People who are told to shut up all the time can just explode."

Later that day, against another identikit-corporate backdrop, I meet another dissident – Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, Professor of Political Science at Emirates University. His anger focuses not on political reform, but the erosion of Emirati identity. He is famous among the locals, a rare outspoken conductor for their anger. He says somberly: "There has been a rupture here. This is a totally different city to the one I was born in 50 years ago."

He looks around at the shiny floors and Western tourists and says: "What we see now didn't occur in our wildest dreams. We never thought we could be such a success, a trendsetter, a model for other Arab countries. The people of Dubai are mighty proud of their city, and rightly so. And yet..." He shakes his head. "In our hearts, we fear we have built a modern city but we are losing it to all these expats."

Adbulkhaleq says every Emirati of his generation lives with a "psychological trauma." Their hearts are divided – "between pride on one side, and fear on the other." Just after he says this, a smiling waitress approaches, and asks us what we would like to drink. He orders a Coke.


VI. Dubai Pride


There is one group in Dubai for whom the rhetoric of sudden freedom and liberation rings true – but it is the very group the government wanted to liberate least: gays.

Beneath a famous international hotel, I clamber down into possibly the only gay club on the Saudi Arabian peninsula. I find a United Nations of tank-tops and bulging biceps, dancing to Kylie, dropping ecstasy, and partying like it's Soho. "Dubai is the best place in the Muslim world for gays!" a 25-year old Emirati with spiked hair says, his arms wrapped around his 31-year old "husband". "We are alive. We can meet. That is more than most Arab gays."

It is illegal to be gay in Dubai, and punishable by 10 years in prison. But the locations of the latest unofficial gay clubs circulate online, and men flock there, seemingly unafraid of the police. "They might bust the club, but they will just disperse us," one of them says. "The police have other things to do."

In every large city, gay people find a way to find each other – but Dubai has become the clearing-house for the region's homosexuals, a place where they can live in relative safety. Saleh, a lean private in the Saudi Arabian army, has come here for the Coldplay concert, and tells me Dubai is "great" for gays: "In Saudi, it's hard to be straight when you're young. The women are shut away so everyone has gay sex. But they only want to have sex with boys – 15- to 21-year-olds. I'm 27, so I'm too old now. I need to find real gays, so this is the best place. All Arab gays want to live in Dubai."

With that, Saleh dances off across the dancefloor, towards a Dutch guy with big biceps and a big smile.


VII. The Lifestyle


All the guidebooks call Dubai a "melting pot", but as I trawl across the city, I find that every group here huddles together in its own little ethnic enclave – and becomes a caricature of itself. One night – in the heart of this homesick city, tired of the malls and the camps – I go to Double Decker, a hang-out for British expats. At the entrance there is a red telephone box, and London bus-stop signs. Its wooden interior looks like a cross between a colonial clubhouse in the Raj and an Eighties school disco, with blinking coloured lights and cheese blaring out. As I enter, a girl in a short skirt collapses out of the door onto her back. A guy wearing a pirate hat helps her to her feet, dropping his beer bottle with a paralytic laugh.

I start to talk to two sun-dried women in their sixties who have been getting gently sozzled since midday. "You stay here for The Lifestyle," they say, telling me to take a seat and order some more drinks. All the expats talk about The Lifestyle, but when you ask what it is, they become vague. Ann Wark tries to summarise it: "Here, you go out every night. You'd never do that back home. You see people all the time. It's great. You have lots of free time. You have maids and staff so you don't have to do all that stuff. You party!"

They have been in Dubai for 20 years, and they are happy to explain how the city works. "You've got a hierarchy, haven't you?" Ann says. "It's the Emiratis at the top, then I'd say the British and other Westerners. Then I suppose it's the Filipinos, because they've got a bit more brains than the Indians. Then at the bottom you've got the Indians and all them lot."

They admit, however, they have "never" spoken to an Emirati. Never? "No. They keep themselves to themselves." Yet Dubai has disappointed them. Jules Taylor tells me: "If you have an accident here it's a nightmare. There was a British woman we knew who ran over an Indian guy, and she was locked up for four days! If you have a tiny bit of alcohol on your breath they're all over you. These Indians throw themselves in front of cars, because then their family has to be given blood money – you know, compensation. But the police just blame us. That poor woman."

A 24-year-old British woman called Hannah Gamble takes a break from the dancefloor to talk to me. "I love the sun and the beach! It's great out here!" she says. Is there anything bad? "Oh yes!" she says. Ah: one of them has noticed, I think with relief. "The banks! When you want to make a transfer you have to fax them. You can't do it online." Anything else? She thinks hard. "The traffic's not very good."

When I ask the British expats how they feel to not be in a democracy, their reaction is always the same. First, they look bemused. Then they look affronted. "It's the Arab way!" an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.

Later, in a hotel bar, I start chatting to a dyspeptic expat American who works in the cosmetics industry and is desperate to get away from these people. She says: "All the people who couldn't succeed in their own countries end up here, and suddenly they're rich and promoted way above their abilities and bragging about how great they are. I've never met so many incompetent people in such senior positions anywhere in the world." She adds: "It's absolutely racist. I had Filipino girls working for me doing the same job as a European girl, and she's paid a quarter of the wages. The people who do the real work are paid next to nothing, while these incompetent managers pay themselves £40,000 a month."

With the exception of her, one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid. The maids used to be predominantly Filipino, but with the recession, Filipinos have been judged to be too expensive, so a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory.

It is an open secret that once you hire a maid, you have absolute power over her. You take her passport – everyone does; you decide when to pay her, and when – if ever – she can take a break; and you decide who she talks to. She speaks no Arabic. She cannot escape.

In a Burger King, a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say – 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.' At first I would say – my God, I will tell the consulate, where are you staying? But they never know their address, and the consulate isn't interested. I avoid them now. I keep thinking about a woman who told me she hadn't eaten any fruit in four years. They think I have power because I can walk around on my own, but I'm powerless."

The only hostel for women in Dubai – a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed – is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her – and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. "But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family – four children – and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn't give me my wages: they said they'd pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn't know anybody here. I was terrified."

One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked – in broken English – how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get her passport back from Madam. "Well, how could I?" she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. "I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything," she says.

As she says this, I remember a stray sentence I heard back at Double Decker. I asked a British woman called Hermione Frayling what the best thing about Dubai was. "Oh, the servant class!" she trilled. "You do nothing. They'll do anything!"


VIII. The End of The World


The World is empty. It has been abandoned, its continents unfinished. Through binoculars, I think I can glimpse Britain; this sceptred isle barren in the salt-breeze.

Here, off the coast of Dubai, developers have been rebuilding the world. They have constructed artificial islands in the shape of all planet Earth's land masses, and they plan to sell each continent off to be built on. There were rumours that the Beckhams would bid for Britain. But the people who work at the nearby coast say they haven't seen anybody there for months now. "The World is over," a South African suggests.

All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea.

The projects completed just before the global economy crashed look empty and tattered. The Atlantis Hotel was launched last winter in a $20m fin-de-siecle party attended by Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan and Lily Allen. Sitting on its own fake island – shaped, of course, like a palm tree – it looks like an immense upturned tooth in a faintly decaying mouth. It is pink and turreted – the architecture of the pharaohs, as reimagined by Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Its Grand Lobby is a monumental dome covered in glitterballs, held up by eight monumental concrete palm trees. Standing in the middle, there is a giant shining glass structure that looks like the intestines of every guest who has ever stayed at the Atlantis. It is unexpectedly raining; water is leaking from the roof, and tiles are falling off.

A South African PR girl shows me around its most coveted rooms, explaining that this is "the greatest luxury offered in the world". We stroll past shops selling £24m diamond rings around a hotel themed on the lost and sunken continent of, yes, Atlantis. There are huge water tanks filled with sharks, which poke around mock-abandoned castles and dumped submarines. There are more than 1,500 rooms here, each with a sea view. The Neptune suite has three floors, and – I gasp as I see it – it looks out directly on to the vast shark tank. You lie on the bed, and the sharks stare in at you. In Dubai, you can sleep with the fishes, and survive.

But even the luxury – reminiscent of a Bond villain's lair – is also being abandoned. I check myself in for a few nights to the classiest hotel in town, the Park Hyatt. It is the fashionistas' favourite hotel, where Elle Macpherson and Tommy Hilfiger stay, a gorgeous, understated palace. It feels empty. Whenever I eat, I am one of the only people in the restaurant. A staff member tells me in a whisper: "It used to be full here. Now there's hardly anyone." Rattling around, I feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the last man in an abandoned, haunted home.

The most famous hotel in Dubai – the proud icon of the city – is the Burj al Arab hotel, sitting on the shore, shaped like a giant glass sailing boat. In the lobby, I start chatting to a couple from London who work in the City. They have been coming to Dubai for 10 years now, and they say they love it. "You never know what you'll find here," he says. "On our last trip, at the beginning of the holiday, our window looked out on the sea. By the end, they'd built an entire island there."

My patience frayed by all this excess, I find myself snapping: doesn't the omnipresent slave class bother you? I hope they misunderstood me, because the woman replied: "That's what we come for! It's great, you can't do anything for yourself!" Her husband chimes in: "When you go to the toilet, they open the door, they turn on the tap – the only thing they don't do is take it out for you when you have a piss!" And they both fall about laughing.


IX. Taking on the Desert


Dubai is not just a city living beyond its financial means; it is living beyond its ecological means. You stand on a manicured Dubai lawn and watch the sprinklers spray water all around you. You see tourists flocking to swim with dolphins. You wander into a mountain-sized freezer where they have built a ski slope with real snow. And a voice at the back of your head squeaks: this is the desert. This is the most water-stressed place on the planet. How can this be happening? How is it possible?

The very earth is trying to repel Dubai, to dry it up and blow it away. The new Tiger Woods Gold Course needs four million gallons of water to be pumped on to its grounds every day, or it would simply shrivel and disappear on the winds. The city is regularly washed over with dust-storms that fog up the skies and turn the skyline into a blur. When the dust parts, heat burns through. It cooks anything that is not kept constantly, artificially wet.

Dr Mohammed Raouf, the environmental director of the Gulf Research Centre, sounds sombre as he sits in his Dubai office and warns: "This is a desert area, and we are trying to defy its environment. It is very unwise. If you take on the desert, you will lose."

Sheikh Maktoum built his showcase city in a place with no useable water. None. There is no surface water, very little acquifer, and among the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf – making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes. It's the main reason why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being – more than double that of an American.

If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues – if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."

Global warming, he adds, makes the problem even worse. "We are building all these artificial islands, but if the sea level rises, they will be gone, and we will lose a lot. Developers keep saying it's all fine, they've taken it into consideration, but I'm not so sure."

Is the Dubai government concerned about any of this? "There isn't much interest in these problems," he says sadly. But just to stand still, the average resident of Dubai needs three times more water than the average human. In the looming century of water stresses and a transition away from fossil fuels, Dubai is uniquely vulnerable.

I wanted to understand how the government of Dubai will react, so I decided to look at how it has dealt with an environmental problem that already exists – the pollution of its beaches. One woman – an American, working at one of the big hotels – had written in a lot of online forums arguing that it was bad and getting worse, so I called her to arrange a meeting. "I can't talk to you," she said sternly. Not even if it's off the record? "I can't talk to you." But I don't have to disclose your name... "You're not listening. This phone is bugged. I can't talk to you," she snapped, and hung up.

The next day I turned up at her office. "If you reveal my identity, I'll be sent on the first plane out of this city," she said, before beginning to nervously pace the shore with me. "It started like this. We began to get complaints from people using the beach. The water looked and smelled odd, and they were starting to get sick after going into it. So I wrote to the ministers of health and tourism and expected to hear back immediately – but there was nothing. Silence. I hand-delivered the letters. Still nothing."

The water quality got worse and worse. The guests started to spot raw sewage, condoms, and used sanitary towels floating in the sea. So the hotel ordered its own water analyses from a professional company. "They told us it was full of fecal matter and bacteria 'too numerous to count'. I had to start telling guests not to go in the water, and since they'd come on a beach holiday, as you can imagine, they were pretty pissed off." She began to make angry posts on the expat discussion forums – and people began to figure out what was happening. Dubai had expanded so fast its sewage treatment facilities couldn't keep up. The sewage disposal trucks had to queue for three or four days at the treatment plants – so instead, they were simply drilling open the manholes and dumping the untreated sewage down them, so it flowed straight to the sea.

Suddenly, it was an open secret – and the municipal authorities finally acknowledged the problem. They said they would fine the truckers. But the water quality didn't improve: it became black and stank. "It's got chemicals in it. I don't know what they are. But this stuff is toxic."

She continued to complain – and started to receive anonymous phone calls. "Stop embarassing Dubai, or your visa will be cancelled and you're out," they said. She says: "The expats are terrified to talk about anything. One critical comment in the newspapers and they deport you. So what am I supposed to do? Now the water is worse than ever. People are getting really sick. Eye infections, ear infections, stomach infections, rashes. Look at it!" There is faeces floating on the beach, in the shadow of one of Dubai's most famous hotels.

"What I learnt about Dubai is that the authorities don't give a toss about the environment," she says, standing in the stench. "They're pumping toxins into the sea, their main tourist attraction, for God's sake. If there are environmental problems in the future, I can tell you now how they will deal with them – deny it's happening, cover it up, and carry on until it's a total disaster." As she speaks, a dust-storm blows around us, as the desert tries, slowly, insistently, to take back its land.


X. Fake Plastic Trees


On my final night in the Dubai Disneyland, I stop off on my way to the airport, at a Pizza Hut that sits at the side of one of the city's endless, wide, gaping roads. It is identical to the one near my apartment in London in every respect, even the vomit-coloured decor. My mind is whirring and distracted. Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City.

I ask the Filipino girl behind the counter if she likes it here. "It's OK," she says cautiously. Really? I say. I can't stand it. She sighs with relief and says: "This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!" But she is trapped, she says. She got into debt to come here, and she is stuck for three years: an old story now. "I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand."

As she says this, another customer enters. She forces her face into the broad, empty Dubai smile and says: "And how may I help you tonight, sir?"

Having lived in Dubai for a year, i must say i am disgusted. The whole area is pomp and flair, with little substance. Migrant workers are treated terribly, many times their Passports are taken from them and they have no way home. They are also crowded into very small housing units which are extremely unsanitary. It seems Middle eastern/Asian countries Emulate the bad behavior of the west such as capitalism and consumerism, yet they fail to copy things like freedom of speech and equality for all. I will never spend another dime in Dubai for as long as i live.

everything you mention is very true ,is it possible to send this article to BBC or the human rights?

Indians hate themselfs, thats why the leave their own country, and they talk about racism in other countires... They ass kiss a white man over their own race, they are racist to their own race and would choose a white man as a friend over their own... THAT IS WHY PAKIS AND INDIANS ARE DICKHEADS AND DISLIKED,... they are like rats, its got nothing to do with skin colour, as much as they would like us to believe so they can scream "RACISM"... they know people hate them for who they are, their ugly smelly culture, their misery ...

abraham my friend, you need serious help for all the hate you carry inside you. as for indians, they dont need your approval, nor your love. they take money for the job they do. and they live the life they want, with or without your permission. if you think you are better than them, you are sorely mistaken. you are just a sick soul

i spent my whole childhood in Dubai and know this place inside out, i've seen it when it was just a place no gave a crap about. Just co they've made buildings doesn't mean it's amazing. The way they treat people there is unbeleivable, i recommend that no one eva goes ther!