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Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 12:39 pm

Paphitis wrote:
Tim Drayton wrote:You obviously don’t hear much, mate, or only hear what it suits you to hear:

Jobs in the UAE do appear to pay much higher wages than those in home countries. For examples, low skill workers in India barely survive at USD 77 per month while low-skill Indian expatriate workers in the UAE make a median wage of USD354 per month.


http://sciencewebpublishing.net/jeibm/a ... 20Awad.pdf


I don't know exactly but I can tell you that my Indian Unskilled taxi driver was earning approximately $2500 per month.

Never thought you can get more unskilled or under paid than a taxi driver. I would have thought they are bottom of the pile.

Never saw any evidence of people being paid as little as you say. First of all, you would be homeless. Life is not that cheap. Property and rent is expensive. Very expensive! Like about 7 times more expensive than Cyprus.


Stop telling me you don't know. They get accommodation and food on top of that (see comments above based on having visited such compounds on several occasions).
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Paphitis » Mon Apr 11, 2016 12:48 pm

Tim Drayton wrote:
Paphitis wrote:
Tim Drayton wrote:You obviously don’t hear much, mate, or only hear what it suits you to hear:

Jobs in the UAE do appear to pay much higher wages than those in home countries. For examples, low skill workers in India barely survive at USD 77 per month while low-skill Indian expatriate workers in the UAE make a median wage of USD354 per month.


http://sciencewebpublishing.net/jeibm/a ... 20Awad.pdf


I don't know exactly but I can tell you that my Indian Unskilled taxi driver was earning approximately $2500 per month.

Never thought you can get more unskilled or under paid than a taxi driver. I would have thought they are bottom of the pile.

Never saw any evidence of people being paid as little as you say. First of all, you would be homeless. Life is not that cheap. Property and rent is expensive. Very expensive! Like about 7 times more expensive than Cyprus.


Stop telling me you don't know. They get accommodation and food on top of that (see comments above based on having visited such compounds on several occasions).


Seriously! I don't know. I have not seen any evidence of it.

Usually the bottom of the pile are the unskilled migrant workers and I never say any evidence that they are doing it tough on salaries that are so low. Not saying it is not happening but I am saying that I'm not convinced.

Also heard stories of unskilled labour era earning as high as $800 per day but they are on the well either on the rigs or in the desert. But they work for joint Saudi and American interests - Aramco etc.

What you document actually states is that the UAE's Gini ratio or wage inequality is one of the highest in the world. Understandable because of the Lil and Gas industry.

I would say that the median wage of 1150 Dirhams per month is for live in maids. And that is at least similar to Cyprus.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:00 pm

As to the so-called massive salaries and palatial accommodation provided to Westerners.

When I went to Qatar I was being paid precisely the average wage in my own country of the UK, although it was tax-free and with free food and accommodation thrown in - the latter factors made it attractive. However, in the time I was there, the local currency deteriorated against Sterling gradually taking the pay lower and lower below even the average wage in the UK. That was one of the reasons I decided not to stay for another contract - and no, I was not sacked, I even received an email a couple of months after I left offering me a contract on a fresh stint. I wonder why I preferred to stay in Cyprus, eh. Maybe if you didn't just go out for a few days at a time and hob nob with a few well-educated more open minded kind of local who has traveled a lot and only see the glitzy parts of town and instead were stuck out there week-in, week-out, month-in, month-out you would get a different impression. Ever considered that angle at all? As to my accommodation, it was a small room, just about wide enough to stretch my arms out and long enough to fit a single bed in with a fitted wardrobe at one end and an en-suite shower and toilet. It might just make three stars in hotel terms. The social facilities were a television in a lounge shared by four-to-six people in the rooms (described above) leading off from it. That was it. Hardly palatial. Everybody without fail I worked with was there for the money and was counting the days until they could get out. There was always a little celebratory party for anybody who was leaving, and the look on that person's face would always be pure joy. In fact, you would see that joy on the face even of somebody who was getting out for a week's holiday. Once they'd got their exit permit, of course. Because you can't leave the country without your employer's say so and them having applied for an exit permit for you. Sounds a bit like slavery, wouldn't you say? You also have to get an approval letter from your current employer if you want to change employer (what are the chances of that) or even if you want to come back to the country and work for another employer in the coming ten years. Some of the freedoms enjoyed by a conventional wage slave are lacking, don't you think?

I had an offer to go back but I didn't take it up. Explain that then. In your cock-eyed view as seen through your rose-tinted glasses, all Westerners are treated wonderfully, earn amazing pay and have palatial accommodation. I was given the chance to go back and turned it down. Why would I refuse an offer to go back to that, then? Explain that.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Paphitis » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:07 pm

Tim Drayton wrote:As to the so-called massive salaries and palatial accommodation provided to Westerners.

When I went to Qatar I was being paid precisely the average wage in my own country of the UK, although it was tax-free and with free food and accommodation thrown in - the latter factors made it attractive. However, in the time I was there, the local currency deteriorated against Sterling gradually taking the pay lower and lower below even the average wage in the UK. That was one of the reasons I decided not to stay for another contract - and no, I was not sacked, I even received an email a couple of months after I left offering me a contract on a fresh stint. I wonder why I preferred to stay in Cyprus, eh. Maybe if you didn't just go out for a few days at a time and hob nob with a few well-educated more open minded kind of local who has traveled a lot and only see the glitzy parts of town and instead were stuck out there week-in, week-out, month-in, month-out you would get a different impression. Ever considered that angle at all? As to my accommodation, it was a small room, just about wide enough to stretch my arms out and long enough to fit a single bed in with a fitted wardrobe at one end and an en-suite shower and toilet. It might just make three stars in hotel terms. The social facilities were a television in a lounge shared by four-to-six people in the rooms (described above) leading off from it. That was it. Hardly palatial. Everybody without fail I worked with was there for the money and was counting the days until they could get out. There was always a little celebratory party for anybody who was leaving, and the look on that person's face would always be pure joy. In fact, you would see that joy on the face even of somebody who was getting out for a week's holiday. Once they'd got their exit permit, of course. Because you can't leave the country without your employer's say so and them having applied for an exit permit for you. Sounds a bit like slavery, wouldn't you say? You also have to get an approval letter from your current employer if you want to change employer (what are the chances of that) or even if you want to come back to the country and work for another employer in the coming ten years. Some of the freedoms enjoyed by a conventional wage slave are lacking, don't you think?

I had an offer to go back but I didn't take it up. Explain that then. In your cock-eyed view as seen through your rose-tinted glasses, all Westerners are treated wonderfully, earn amazing pay and have palatial accommodation. I was given the chance to go back and turned it down. Why would I refuse an offer to go back to that, then? Explain that.


That would have been a long time ago. It doesn't happen anymore because they wouldn't be able to attract the workers. Usually Westerners would be at the Professional level and they either work in Oil and Gas, as consultants, or other Airline professionals, engineers and pilots. Wages in these sectors at least beat the equivalent in Eurooe, US and Australia and their are huge expat populations.

I guess it depends what you do, but if you're on a rig, it's big bucks. If you work for Etihad and Emirates its big bucks. Try about 600,000USD pa for pilots. Something similar for an Engineer with all their certificates. Similar amounts in oil and gas. Unskilled is about $800 USD per day and a retainer when not on the rig. All transfers paid for. These as far as I know are the highest salaries in the world and most positions are filled by foreigners.

Doesn't sound like slave labour to me.

And considering the fact all workers are not obligated to pay tax, the mean unskilled wage of 1150 Dirhams is in fact probably not that bad for an unskilled live in migrant from a third world country. As long as all their living and medical expenses are taken care of. The data is also from 2008 so I would expect that these waves would be somewhat a bit higher today.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:32 pm

As to the racist, Apartheid style mentality that dominates in the Gulf, I can't help sharing another memory that comes to mind (who knows - there may be many dozens more to come. I've only scratched the surface so far. It depends on how much time I have to waste).

Before I get on to that, I must also mention the attitude displayed by the late-teen early-twenty Qatari trainees I was supposed to be training (and whom it was impossible to teach anything, not because they were stupid, far from it, if anything I think Gulf Arabs possess above average intelligence - as one British supervisor of mine once said, in the days when they were Bedouins surviving on their wits out in the desert, there wasn't much chance of stupid people surviving so the stupidness gene had been pretty much weeded out of the population - and I don't know if that explanation has any scientific validity, but there are plenty of smart nationals in Qatar, it is just that that totally warped and incompetent system of management that you found there and everywhere in that dysfunctional country (that just happened to have one of the largest natural gas fields in the world and a population of only about 200,000: not hard with that arithmetic to share some of the goodies with the populace at large in a way that may parody socialism and keep them happy and pliant) that totally robs everybody of all motivation and wish to achieve anything. Apart from anybody else, when you know it is a lottery as to whether you will be sacked that day because an Arab complains about you, and you see a steady stream of workmates driven to the airport and dumped on a plane for precisely that reason, what motivation are you possibly going to have? The place would collapse in five minutes if you took away the hydrocarbons being extracted using foreign labour and expertise) constantly jibed and taunted and criticised me for the way I used to stop and speak and even sit and share a cup of tea with the ancillary staff there - all of whom happened to be Sri Lankan, and once even say and dined with them, and made faltering attempts to converse with them in their language, when in these people's eyes I should be treating them like shit. Well, doesn't this part of the world consider itself to be Islamic above Islamic and the example to the rest of the world in terms of Islam? Where does it say in the Quran or any other Islamic teaching that people from one part of the world are subhuman and deserve to be treated worse than animals? Perhaps you could explain that to me as you seem to have volunteered to become a kind of unpaid ambassador for the Gulf. I could always take up the theme of the treatment meted out to their fellow-Muslim South Asians, whom there is absolutely no justification in Islam for receiving second class treatment.

Anyway, I digress too much. Here is the curious and true event. As I said, I mixed a lot with Sri Lankans in Qatar, and I knew a Sri Lankan there who owned a small restaurant (well, no, he didn't really. The system in the Gulf countries is that only Gulf Arabs can enter into contracts - I think this doesn't apply in the UAE- so any foreigner who wises to start a business in the Gulf apart from the UAE has to find a local sponsor who will actually set up the business and vouch for any contractual obligations it enters into, and then the foreigner does all the work and shared half of the profit with their local sponsor, who does nothing. Great isn't it? If you're a Qatari. Everything is stitched up in your favour) and he opened a second one. He invited me to the opening ceremony which I attended as the only Sri Lankan among a group of about thirty Sri Lankans. None of them had the slightest problem with me as a Westerner attending. Quite the reverse, they were delighted to see me. At this function, they took a photograph including everybody who attended in a bunch in front of the new restaurant, and the chap who was opening the restaurant sent a copy of the picture to a local English-language newspaper. Well, they published the picture with a little article about the opening, but guess what? I, as the only smiling Westerner among a group of smiling Sri Lankans had been meticulously airbrushed out of that picture. I think I have kept a cutting of that somewhere, and you can see the glaring space in the throng of people. Explain that, if you can, any apologists for the dysfunctional institutionally racist mentality that currently permeates everything in the Gulf.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:43 pm

They're not stupid. They pay what they need to to attract whoever they need. Yes, if as you say you are fortunate to have a skill that they badly need (and as I have pointed out, despite decades and decades of so-called Saudiasaion, Qatariasation, Kuwaitisation etc. which everybody in the know knows has been a total failure and they are badly dependent on certain foreign skills, not least the skills needed to extract the hydrocarbons which keep the entire dysfunctional system going) you will be paid what's needed to attract people out there. It doesn't apply to the bulk of Westerners, though.

Even so, do these well-paid people not still need exit permits to leave the country - and in Saudi they probably have their passports confiscated to boot, i.e. that they can't leave the country without their employer's say so (an conversely that they can be summarily expelled from the country at their employer's say so, usually as a scapegoat to cover up for an Arab's cock up)? Do they not need a letter of approval from their current employer if they want to work with another employer in the same country, even a decade later? These may not be things you learn on two of three day stopovers during which you are feted because you have a skill that is particularly valuable to them, so I'll help you out. To the best of my knowledge they do. And these, like it or not, are factors that move the employer-employee relationship away from one in which both parties are free to contract and in the direction of something resembling slavery. Which is a long way from saying that this is slavery, as you are trying to misconstrue me as saying.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:58 pm

Well, yes, as I said my memories are all from at least twelve years ago. Let's agree to differ and say for the sake of argument that everything has changed and it's not like that any more (Why do I doubt that?). I just hope never to have to go to the Gulf again although if the UK leaves the EU I can see myself being left with no other option (and one positive thing I would say about Gulf Arabs is that they are NOT ageist).
Concerning wages having increased in the meantime, I went for an interview here in Cyprus a few years ago for a teaching job in Dubai that for some reason was being advertised and recruited through Cypruse and my jaw nearly dropped when they said the pay was about half of the average wage in the UK - OK, plus accommodation (but not food). If it's changed, then as the French say 'Plus ca change ...'.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Tim Drayton » Mon Apr 11, 2016 2:07 pm

By the way, does it not say something that they have to pay such huge salaries to get Westerners to go there in the first place? If things really are as they seem through your rose-tinted glasses, people would be begging to get in there and even volunteer to work for free, wouldn't they?
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Paphitis » Mon Apr 11, 2016 2:18 pm

Tim Drayton wrote:As to the racist, Apartheid style mentality that dominates in the Gulf, I can't help sharing another memory that comes to mind (who knows - there may be many dozens more to come. I've only scratched the surface so far. It depends on how much time I have to waste).

Before I get on to that, I must also mention the attitude displayed by the late-teen early-twenty Qatari trainees I was supposed to be training (and whom it was impossible to teach anything, not because they were stupid, far from it, if anything I think Gulf Arabs possess above average intelligence - as one British supervisor of mine once said, in the days when they were Bedouins surviving on their wits out in the desert, there wasn't much chance of stupid people surviving so the stupidness gene had been pretty much weeded out of the population - and I don't know if that explanation has any scientific validity, but there are plenty of smart nationals in Qatar, it is just that that totally warped and incompetent system of management that you found there and everywhere in that dysfunctional country (that just happened to have one of the largest natural gas fields in the world and a population of only about 200,000: not hard with that arithmetic to share some of the goodies with the populace at large in a way that may parody socialism and keep them happy and pliant) that totally robs everybody of all motivation and wish to achieve anything. Apart from anybody else, when you know it is a lottery as to whether you will be sacked that day because an Arab complains about you, and you see a steady stream of workmates driven to the airport and dumped on a plane for precisely that reason, what motivation are you possibly going to have? The place would collapse in five minutes if you took away the hydrocarbons being extracted using foreign labour and expertise) constantly jibed and taunted and criticised me for the way I used to stop and speak and even sit and share a cup of tea with the ancillary staff there - all of whom happened to be Sri Lankan, and once even say and dined with them, and made faltering attempts to converse with them in their language, when in these people's eyes I should be treating them like shit. Well, doesn't this part of the world consider itself to be Islamic above Islamic and the example to the rest of the world in terms of Islam? Where does it say in the Quran or any other Islamic teaching that people from one part of the world are subhuman and deserve to be treated worse than animals? Perhaps you could explain that to me as you seem to have volunteered to become a kind of unpaid ambassador for the Gulf. I could always take up the theme of the treatment meted out to their fellow-Muslim South Asians, whom there is absolutely no justification in Islam for receiving second class treatment.

Anyway, I digress too much. Here is the curious and true event. As I said, I mixed a lot with Sri Lankans in Qatar, and I knew a Sri Lankan there who owned a small restaurant (well, no, he didn't really. The system in the Gulf countries is that only Gulf Arabs can enter into contracts - I think this doesn't apply in the UAE- so any foreigner who wises to start a business in the Gulf apart from the UAE has to find a local sponsor who will actually set up the business and vouch for any contractual obligations it enters into, and then the foreigner does all the work and shared half of the profit with their local sponsor, who does nothing. Great isn't it? If you're a Qatari. Everything is stitched up in your favour) and he opened a second one. He invited me to the opening ceremony which I attended as the only Sri Lankan among a group of about thirty Sri Lankans. None of them had the slightest problem with me as a Westerner attending. Quite the reverse, they were delighted to see me. At this function, they took a photograph including everybody who attended in a bunch in front of the new restaurant, and the chap who was opening the restaurant sent a copy of the picture to a local English-language newspaper. Well, they published the picture with a little article about the opening, but guess what? I, as the only smiling Westerner among a group of smiling Sri Lankans had been meticulously airbrushed out of that picture. I think I have kept a cutting of that somewhere, and you can see the glaring space in the throng of people. Explain that, if you can, any apologists for the dysfunctional institutionally racist mentality that currently permeates everything in the Gulf.


How long ago Tim?

Also, I do believe Arabs are pretty racist generally but certainly no more than Europeans. Yes they are quite intelligent but there is no more Apartheid in the UAE at least as there is in Cyprus.

You are however allowed to import migrant maids just like they do in Cyprus. Such a practice is illegal in most Western European countries, USA and Australia unless of course you are willing to pay minimum wage or above and not many people can afford to do this. The Unions will never allow it for a start.

But yes, you are allowed to do it there as you are allowed to do it in Cyprus. But I wouldn't call it Apartheid.

On the contrary, they are extremely polite and I would say far more polite than your average European, American and Australian which can at times border very arrogant and of course they swear like Greeks do. You know, swearing like nothing is sacred including your mother. This you will never see from Arabs. And there English is flawless. It's like they actually make a big effort to talk and write with the correct grammar which is almost non existent in the USA and Australia at least.

I think Qatar is changing quite a lot. And I like your story about the harsh Bedouin Life. Had the privilege to spend a couple of nights at a Bedouin Camp and was really enthralled with their culture. In fact, I was completely very impressed. Now, compare that to Europeans. In fact Europeans are quite cultural, especially Greeks and Italians but even the French, Spanish and harsh Germans. Then look at the USA and Australia etc which have European links. ok everyone has a culture but I rate the Arabs highly, alongside Greeks and Italians. Very warm and hospitable. Manners and respect. Swearing is taboo. English is perfect. I concur that they are a smart people, and that they are finding their way in modernizing their countries. They are advantaged with an excess of money. Lucky for them. I hope they use it wisely. They waste a lot and they are very corrupt, but they are also being quite clever in investing in Asia, America, Europe and Australia. They are now generating sufficient income outside of oil to maintain a first world economy when it runs out. Otherwise they will all be Bedouins again and they know it too.

Their infrastructure, roads, transport links, tourism, banking and finance service industry, airports, education system and health system is I would say far superior to that found in most Western Countries. To me, that indicates substantial progress and an enlightenment. Illiteracy is still above world averages but in decline. As things progress further, they become more liberal. It's progress and Qatar is one of the leaders. Not quite as good as the UAE but it is getting there. They will be on show for the next World Cup and I think the world is going to be impressed. But we all know they bought the rights from FIFA. Corrupt as!

The economy is far more advance than that of Cyprus in all these countries including Saudi Arabia which is the most socially backward. We are now talking about the UAE and Qatar being the work places of choice for quite a few million westerners. The best companies with the best salary packages are now in the UAE, Qatar and KSA. From Aramco, Saudi Airlines, Air Arabia, Al Jazeera, Qatar, Etihad and Emerites and hundreds of financial institutions, law firms, insurance firms, building companies, the best hotels and resorts, shopping malls which make Las Vegas, Sydney and San Francisco look like third world cities.

It's changing pretty fast.
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Re: Why are Arabs so superior and smart?

Postby Paphitis » Mon Apr 11, 2016 2:25 pm

Tim Drayton wrote:By the way, does it not say something that they have to pay such huge salaries to get Westerners to go there in the first place? If things really are as they seem through your rose-tinted glasses, people would be begging to get in there and even volunteer to work for free, wouldn't they?


Yes it does say something about KSA. It is a sacrifice.

But Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are better than most European cities. Dubai in particular is the world's new and most opulent city of sin. Better than Paris. It is unbelievable and other Middle Eastern cities are headed in the same direction.

And considering the fact that they have a better education and health system than Australia does, with a 0% tax rate, I am thinking they are pretty good.
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