David Conn on Abu Dhabi and Human Rights

[bluenova]

Titles may be thrown about lightly but it looks to me like he's pretty much at the top of the tree politically. Also, many countries will give foreign citizens rights if they work there long enough, and in many places you can vote relatively quickly after arriving - whereas in the UAE it's just about impossible to become a citizen without marrying a current citizen. It's more of an issue when the population is nearly 90% expats, many of who have already lived there for a couple of decades of more. What happens 20-30 years down the line when the majority of kids born in the country will be non-citizens?

The Gulf states get a lot criticism (sometimes justified) for not granting expats citizenship after x number of years, or not giving those born in Gulf state nations citizenship. But our countries have relatively new fledgling economies. The sizes of our countries are very small compared to the EU or the US and Canada. Also we already have political, religious, ideological divisions already bringing in more people and creating more of those divisions will cause a huge imbalance in demography and can disintegrate any homogeneity that exists already. The last thing I want for any of the Gulf States is to be in the situation that Syria or Egypt are currently in.

Nothing is simple in this world sadly. I've probably taken this off topic with the comment, but I was just curious what might happen in twenty years time. First generation expats might grumble about the situation but to an extent they chose to move. What happens when you have a majority of the younger population who have no rights in the only country they ever lived in? The poster above from the UAE makes some good points, but in a few years there will be hundreds of thousands of 'Egyptions' who were born in the UAE. It's a situation that would be better dealt with gradually, rather than allowed to simmer over in the future.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It's a bit left-field but has anyone considered the possibility that Conn, having been granted unprecendented access by the owners, might just be the conduit for the more progressive elements in the UAE, who might be the ones close to the club?

 

[mcmanus]

Titles may be thrown about lightly but it looks to me like he's pretty much at the top of the tree politically. Also, many countries will give foreign citizens rights if they work there long enough, and in many places you can vote relatively quickly after arriving - whereas in the UAE it's just about impossible to become a citizen without marrying a current citizen. It's more of an issue when the population is nearly 90% expats, many of who have already lived there for a couple of decades of more. What happens 20-30 years down the line when the majority of kids born in the country will be non-citizens?

The Gulf states get a lot criticism (sometimes justified) for not granting expats citizenship after x number of years, or not giving those born in Gulf state nations citizenship. But our countries have relatively new fledgling economies. The sizes of our countries are very small compared to the EU or the US and Canada. Also we already have political, religious, ideological divisions already bringing in more people and creating more of those divisions will cause a huge imbalance in demography and can disintegrate any homogeneity that exists already. The last thing I want for any of the Gulf States is to be in the situation that Syria or Egypt are currently in.

Don't worry pal, we used to brutalise half the known world at the barrel of a gun. We just let the USA torture ours nowadays but you can't beat a story about them bad muslims .

 

[Q8-Blue]

Nothing is simple in this world sadly. I've probably taken this off topic with the comment, but I was just curious what might happen in twenty years time. First generation expats might grumble about the situation but to an extent they chose to move. What happens when you have a majority of the younger population who have no rights in the only country they ever lived in? The poster above from the UAE makes some good points, but in a few years there will be hundreds of thousands of 'Egyptions' who were born in the UAE. It's a situation that would be better dealt with gradually, rather than allowed to simmer over in the future.

I am not sure if the UAE have this law, but in Kuwait expats have to 'retire' and leave the country at 60, if their employers are good enough they'll give them a nice paycheck for services rendered etc. This law though isn't enforced all the time (as with most laws in the country) and you can see expats whose grand parents migrated to Kuwait and had their grand kids in the country. Expats tend to congregate among themselves and in their communities they never really adopt a gulf identity or wear distinctive gulf clothing and speak in a gulf accent. A lot of expats leave to visit their families annually and stay in touch with their home countries. I would say that if you ask any expat on the street what he would want to change about immigration laws they would probably state that they'd want permanent residency over citizenship any day. So to answer your question I don't really foresee any major movement by expats for political rights, labor laws though I can see expats rallying for those though (and with good reason).

 

[Blue Haze]

You mean to tell me, David, that a Middle Eastern country doesn't have full civil rights? You don't say! Next you'll tell me Abramovich is involved with Putin.

David Conn on yet another one of his moral crusades. Anyone who doesn't know that the UAE is an essentially absolute monarchy from the Middle East would learn something from Conn; anyone else already knows this.

 

[Ahmed]

I totally agree with Prestwich_Blue.

 

[moomba]

I'm struggling to work out why we are involved in this. If Conn wants to write about human rights abuses then so be it. But making it about us just stinks of sensationalism to me.

 

[Jumanji]

I'm struggling to work out why we are involved in this. If Conn wants to write about human rights abuses then so be it. But making it about us just stinks of sensationalism to me.

Exactly, it will tarnish our name. People will will just read the headline and assume our good club is associated with human rights violations.

Conn will certainly get the pay-per-clicks he was fishing for...no doubt about that.

 

[Skashion]

Yep, pretty much. Human Rights Watch - often guilty of making excessive claims, state they are using us as a vehicle to escape condemnation about human rights abuses, but that doesn't ring true at all. We are being used as a vehicle to promote their name for tourism purposes. As part of a vision to diversify their economy beyond oil. We are turning attention towards the country with the Premier League's global audience, and in turn towards their human rights record as well. How much do you hear about Yemeni breaches of human rights? Is it more than Emerati or Qatari or Bahrani breaches, I'd say no, despite their breaches of human rights being on a par with the latter two and greater than the Emerati breaches.

Does the mainstream media talk less about human rights abuses in the UAE because we are owned by Sheikh Mansour? I would say no. I'd say quite the opposite, I'd say this story has happened BECAUSE we are owned by Sheikh Mansour.

What about governments? The reason western governments don't talk about human rights abuses in the UAE is because the UAE is an ally. Saudi abuses (far worse than Emerati abuses) are likewise swept under the carpet, and it's not because they own a football club. It's because they are dependable allies who buy billions in British and American military equipment. BAE are more responsible than we are, but I don't blame them either.

So, how does Manchester City's ownership distract from the UAE's human rights record? It doesn't. The best Conn can do is to say that Khaldoon went with Sheikh Mohammed to see our foreign secretary to discuss military cooperation. But what on Earth does that have to do with the human rights record of the UAE? Nothing, it has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The UAE does not use British military cooperation to suppress human rights, it doesn't even use tanks, planes and guns. It uses the police force, its courts and prisons.

I see one motivation behind Manchester City being mentioned both by HRW and by Conn, and it is to use our name to attract attention. Sheikh Mansour isn't using us to distract attention from human rights. The attention isn't there anyway. Rather, it is HRW and Conn who are using our name to attract attention to the issue. Whether out of fine motive or not, I don't know, but that is what they are doing.

 

[Impeccable One]

Lets keep this simple. If you ruled a country that made you immensely wealthy and you knowingly committed human rights violations, do you a) Buy a sports franchise and build it in to something that draws global attention to your situation or b) Keep quiet, enjoy the lifestyle and generally try to keep your head down ?