To further curb hiring of unskilled foreigners, the $650 levy for every worker beyond the approved number for a building project has been upped to $950. Has Armageddon been averted? Or are the pruning measures too late in the implementation?
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In "Dubai, The Story of the World's Fastest City" author Jim Krane writes that 95% of Dubaians are foreigners, and there were only about 100,000 citizens among the city's 2 million inhabitants in 2009. But swarming immigration extends beyond Dubai, and has left Emrati citizens a minority in every one of the United Arab Emirates' seven emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman,Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah and Ras Al-Khaimah). The million or so UAE citizens make up about 15% of the country's total population of around 6 million. In the UAE, citizenship is guarded "like a vault of nuclear fuel rods". Residents who never took nationality after 1971 have no citizenship at all. That's one way to maintain the nationality core.
When the Sharjah Radio host Mohammed Khalaf dedicated a week of his daily talk show on the touchy subject in May 2008, the responses echo the sentiments of our own citizenry. Khalaf started by asking his guest, UAE university professor Ebtisam al-Kitbi, whether she thought Emratis might disappear:
"It is reality. Today we face an invasion of millions of people coming to us from abroad to stay. They have no intention of leaving this country. As result, our existence is threatened."
Al-Kitbi dismissed callers who suggested she was exaggerating:
"Today the locals can't find plots of land to build their houses, while you are selling entire areas to foreigners. The person responsible for this should be punished. No matter how high-ranking they are, these people should be punished."
Another guest, president of the Arab Family Organisation Jamal al-Bah, "totally agreed":
"We have too many foreigners competing with us for work, education, even marriage. Our girls are finding it difficult to get married because of the expatriate girls. We are like a ship lost at sea. ...We need to do something before it's too late."
Khalaf took a call from an agitated Emrati man. "You are pouring salt into our wounds. You're making us cry. I am telling you that if this situation does not change, I will leave the country in the next three years and I vow never to return." The caller starts weeping and hangs up. (page 260)
Powerful stuff. If our mainstream media were not so thoroughly emasculated, that would be the true tone of the national conversation.
When the Sharjah Radio host Mohammed Khalaf dedicated a week of his daily talk show on the touchy subject in May 2008, the responses echo the sentiments of our own citizenry. Khalaf started by asking his guest, UAE university professor Ebtisam al-Kitbi, whether she thought Emratis might disappear:
"It is reality. Today we face an invasion of millions of people coming to us from abroad to stay. They have no intention of leaving this country. As result, our existence is threatened."
Al-Kitbi dismissed callers who suggested she was exaggerating:
"Today the locals can't find plots of land to build their houses, while you are selling entire areas to foreigners. The person responsible for this should be punished. No matter how high-ranking they are, these people should be punished."
Another guest, president of the Arab Family Organisation Jamal al-Bah, "totally agreed":
"We have too many foreigners competing with us for work, education, even marriage. Our girls are finding it difficult to get married because of the expatriate girls. We are like a ship lost at sea. ...We need to do something before it's too late."
Khalaf took a call from an agitated Emrati man. "You are pouring salt into our wounds. You're making us cry. I am telling you that if this situation does not change, I will leave the country in the next three years and I vow never to return." The caller starts weeping and hangs up. (page 260)
Powerful stuff. If our mainstream media were not so thoroughly emasculated, that would be the true tone of the national conversation.