See my post in the other thread about living in Qatar.
The exit visa is a system that legally enables indentured servitude. Any country that has this system (pretty much just Islamic mideast countries) should be shunned by the US and the UN (won't happen of course given the US has a couple of bases in Qatar and BP has a huge investment there).
Given that the terms change from what the worker originally agreed to - for example, a lot of these work camps don't bother paying the workers, and freedom to roam is curtailed - it's more analagous to slavery than indentured servitude.
It is legalized slavery. These middle eastern countries are well known for that. That's why they are recruiting the poorest of the poor from rural areas in Asia.
Foreign workers have 0 rights there. But hey these guys are US allies,the leader of democracy and the free world... they cant be bad , can they ...
> Foreign workers have 0 rights there. But hey these guys are US allies,the leader of democracy and the free world
As an European (and football fan to boot) I'm more saddened that the latest issue of The Economist had a full inside-page ad for Qatar Airways, featuring Lionel Messi and a couple of other Barcelona stars, all mingled with "genuine" customers with a sheik or two thrown in for good measure.
Not the middle eastern countries. This is part of their legal system, which is called "islam", or "sharia" (translation: the right way for a muslim).
Slavery (if you define it as forced labour without compensation), in case anyone doesn't know, is part of every religion. It is even part of Christianity, but Canon law specifies that it is a Christian's duty to, firstly, never own slaves themselves (with serious punishments for violations), secondly, to work to exterminate slavery around them (e.g. purchasing slaves then freeing them).
Little known fact, that second law is what lead to the introduction of hindu numerals in the west (Venetian merchants would purchase slaves, then free them after one voyage, in Venice. On of these joined a monastery, and taught the other monks (many things, mostly historical data, actually), on of whom wrote the Codex Vigilianus, which lead to the pope starting to use the numbers, which lead to ...)
Islam encourages freeing slaves, but only in one circumstance : after they have completed a successful military campaign, to celebrate (and it's perfectly OK, to re-capture the freed slaves and force them to fight again later. In fact the prophet did this). Note that islam is also unique in that it actually says that it's OK for owners to just kill slaves (whereas in other law systems there has to be a reason. Like, say you can kill slaves for running away. Islam and specifically the second Caliphate is the only state in history that has a documented history of killing slaves for fun).
So I'm wondering what the attitude is on this. If you seriously defend this point, you're effectively against every religion except Western-brand atheism (ie. not the -much more successful- socialist version of atheism), and Christianity.
Let me just leave you with a quote from Winston Churchill
"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. " (Mohammedanism is the historical name for Islam)
And do not take this as dissing islam, in fact pretty much every religion has slavery (in the sense of zero-compensation forced labour). "The west" is unique in opposing slavery and is still the only driving force behind the extermination of slavery, half-heartedly sort-of kind-of joined by India (the difference is that the west actually imposes trade sanctions against slavery-using states for using slavery whereas India refuses to do that. Within India, they're doing a good job fighting slavery though).
As the article illustrates, the western fight against slavery has actually lost terrain in the last 2 decades. Mostly because islam-based law systems are pushing for re-introduction of slavery (in Saharan Africa, Sudan, Mali, the worst can be found. But it also happens in the Middle East and Asia). Today the situation is that Islam is regressing, and slavery is one of the consequences of that.
Frankly I hope that a few states experience a few slave revolts. If Saudi Arabia were to be destroyed by it's (large majority) of almost-slaves, for example, that would do a LOT to eliminate slavery. Of course, like Holland before it, America is mostly on the side of the slavers in the name of stability.
My usual take on these things is it's more about money and what you can get away with locally than the character of the religions themselves.
Lots of very christian Americans had very christian outlooks on slavery being legal in the 1850s, and on unequal rights being the way of things (noah and ham) up until the 1960s. If I were looking for a religion that didn't have a history of justifying slavery, I'd point to maybe buddhism and taoism, maybe. Certainly none of the abrahamic religions (old testament) or hinduism.
Well, there are different flavours of crhistianity as well as different flavours of islam. While christian Americans did indeed support slavery, the eastern (Orthodox) christianity was never involved in such behaviour. I'm pretty sure that not all islamic countries were openly supporting slavery, it's just the desert ones.
That being said, I agree that it's more middle east phenomenon that islam phenomenon.
The other poster also mentioned women rights as a part of islamic slavery. How is that different than, for example, Switzerland, where women got a right to vote only after black americans got it? And it's not like extremist christians treat their women in any way better, except they mostly allow only one woman per man.
Women not being allowed to vote is actually an inherent flaw of democracy: Those who are allowed to vote decide who else may vote. All democratic countries make this kind of decision for many groups. Voting age, if and when immigrants may vote, whether to let people convicted of a felony or prisoners vote: all of these are cases of the voters deciding on who else will share their privilege. Switzerland was just slightly different because referendums are binding and were not overturned by the supreme courts, and the discriminated group was more visible/obvious.
So you want to say that just because it's called democracy, the voters have the right to deprive the other of basic human rights? The same way as in ancient Greek/Athens democracy where we had both free elections by popular vote and slaves.
I was, obviously, saying the very opposite, i.e. that what you are describing is an inherent flaw of democracy, and that some discrimination is just more obvious for cultural reasons. Usually, institutions like the supreme court save the day in the worst cases, but when this control fails, like with the popular votes in Switzerland on Voting rights for women, democracies can be quite barbaric.
>>This is part of their legal system, which is called "islam", or "sharia"
This has nothing to do with Islam. This is all about money and a few rich idiots abusing their power.
Bulk of the practices you associate with any religion, are not that of a religion but that of the local civilization at that point of time.
Your post resembles the attitude of the western masses today, which is to hold the perception created by media and politicians as a fact. Islam is followed by more than 1/3rd of the world today, no one wakes up with knives searching for slaves to kill. These people are ordinary people just like any other people in the west who go out and make a living, in the hopes of a good life for themselves and their family.
And they have their local culture which dominates bulk of their lifestyle.
>>I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.
Basically he is saying, anything that what the so called self proclaimed 'stronger' or 'higher-grade' race does is right.
This is the exact same attitude these rich guys in Qatar show today. Something tells me they are both just the same. Regardless of the religion.
People like these should think about their own morals before talking about somebody else's.
>>> People like these should think about their own morals before talking about somebody else's.
People like Winston Churchill can't think anything because they, like Winston Churchill, have been dead for decades. And in all civilized countries slavery has long been illegal. So if in one country - namely Qatar - institution of slavery still exists, Churchill quote from the thirties is not actually a good way to prevent somebody from talking about the morals of Qatar slaveholders.
>>People like Winston Churchill can't think anything because they, like Winston Churchill, have been dead for decades.
They could think when they were alive. To talk about freedom and morals, when your own country has set up colonies all round the globe and committing atrocities is hypocrisy.
US and Europe have some black pages in their histories, that is true. Not that they are unique in that - we all know about slaves being brought into the US, but I encourage you to look up who was selling those slaves and where the centers of the slave trade were located and how much of power in Africa and Middle East depended on selling the slaves - but with all that, the past can not be denied. However, for US and Europe is is the past and slavery has been long recognized as immoral, unacceptable and evil. In Qatar, the slavery exists today. It is not hypocritical at all to call Qatar out today and tell them that in 21th century we don't do these things. Even if people did it some time ago. We grew past that, and it's time for Qatar to do the same.
A few people at the top are greedy and exploiting these laborers or slaves. But it appears religion and culture and being used to justify it in the general population.
I don't understand. What exactly are you saying is not true :
1) islam is a system of laws
2) those laws include slavery
3) people who are fighting to introduce those laws to society are reintroducing legal slavery
4) the muslim world is the major hotbet of slavery
Copious evidence for all claims is easy to come by. Start with :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_views_on_slavery
And if you want to hear it from an imam:
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/94840
(note that many of the "advantages" slaves had are the exact same as they had in the Roman Empire. An owner, for example, would generally treat his own educated slaves better than fellow free men)
"Islam and slavery" (TLDR: taking slaves is allowed "in war" and buying them and kidnapping them. There are lots of rules about slaves)
"Intercourse with female prisoners of war." (TLDR: allowed for men)
"What is the ruling on intimacy with slave women?" (TLDR: allowed for men)
"Intercourse with a slave woman is not regarded as zina (adultery)" (TLDR: true, provided certain conditions are met. Also: A muslim man fucking a non-muslim woman is perfectly OK if not done in an islamic country, because any muslim is at war with everyone outside of muslim countries) (note how he squirms to avoid saying what the ruling is on muslims living in non-muslim nations. Why ? Because that's punishable by death, except for soldiers and -maybe- ambassadors. Where do you live ?)
...
Your "evidence" that this is not true, is, as I read it :
a) 1/3rd of the world follows islam (in reality, it's probably between 1/5th and 1/6th)
b) "no-one wakes with knives searching for slaves to kill" (that's not allowed, btw, you have to buy them first)
c) Winston Churchill is a hypocrit with often similar socialist eugenic standpoints as the people he fought -> not a surprise to anyone who knows a smitten of history. Nobody denies he was a keen observer and a very effective leader either.
Islam isn't a system of laws, it's a religion. Like all organised religions, what's written in its holy books is of far less practical importance than what is preached by its leaders. Adherents don't read and figure out for themselves, they follow what they are told the books say. Like most religious leaders, the Islamic holy men tend to preach what is convenient to them. The fact that the religion is Islam isn't of particular note. It wasn't so long ago that American Christian leaders preached that God condoned slavery. You might explain this by talking about different branches of Christianity, and likewise there are different interpretations of Islam too. But really, I think that unless a religion actively encourages a practical pursuit of self-enlightenment (e.g. Buddhism, Taoism, spiritual Yoga), then it is nothing more than a system of control. Ultimately the important thing is how corrupt the leaders are.
Think of it this way, if there were no courts and no defence lawyers and no-one ever bothered to read the legal statutes for themselves, then would the actual text of the law mean anything? Or wouldn't it rather be that, in application, the law would tend serve the interests of the police?
That's a very secular western view of religion. The distinction between law and religion is one seems important to people familiar with Christianity, because that religion has historically existed alongside a state with a separate system of laws (either English common law or some derivative of Roman civil law). It's a distinction that makes a lot less sense in Islam, which has historically not existed alongside a separate state, but has been an integral foundation for the state.
I wouldn't say that Christianity has "historically" been particularly well factored from a separate system of laws, unless you mean to start history with the Enlightenment. The seat of power in Constantinople for centuries was a shifting alliance of Emperors and Patriarchs, and the law that was enforced was not really separated into secular and church law, but more like negotiated spheres of influence of each leader's representatives. The same goes for most of Western Europe's history, which involves a very long shadow cast by the Pope, and an extensive role for the Catholic Church in comprehensively ordering society and the operation of courts—in many places and eras there was essentially no distinction between canon law and civil law. This is because, exactly as you say, religion has traditionally been considered an integral foundation for the state in Christian countries.
Islam absolutely contains a set of laws. For the Muslim, you cannot have the religion without the law. Even in countries where Islam is the minority, disputes between Muslims are settled by a community Islamic court...
Please read again. I have not denied that Islam contains a set of laws. I said that Islam is not exactly equal to a set of laws. Which is correct.
I've also stated that, in practical terms, it is the behaviour and beliefs of the religious leaders that matter more that the laws themselves. The community Islamic courts you cite are a perfect example of this. You seem to expect them to behave according to some monolithic interpretation of Sharia law. Whereas, in reality, these courts are run by the Islamic community and are presided over by local religious leaders who make decisions (and interpret the laws) according to their own beliefs, informed by their own prejudices and self interests.
If you have any doubt that this is true, then simply consider that there are moderate Muslims in the world, and there are Muslims that believe God wants them to commit murder. Do you think it is a coincidence that those who see the West as the devil come from countries where the West has severely harmed in the past through selfish and corrupt interference? Do you think it is by chance that within the West and within countries allied with the West, we find more moderate viewpoints?
Religious rhetoric aligns itself with realpolitik. It is naive to see it in any other terms.
1) many muslims disagree that there is a difference between islam and sharia. The word itself disagrees with your assessment. Besides, ever met a muslim that didn't care what halal was ? Ever wondered what "halal" refers to. These people that call themselves muslim use the sources I referred to as guidance on what is halal, they do not decide for themselves.
2) slavery, incuding kidnapping people, even children into slavery is halal. So is raping them. Yes there's limits to exactly who, when and where, but frankly that doesn't matter to the morality of that. Halal = morally reprehensible.
3) Even seemingly stupid parts of the islamic faith, like halal food (practiced by the vast majority of muslims), you're going to find discriminatory/racist at best (religious discrimination in employment, to start with). Even that part is morally reprehensible.
4) I disagree strongly with your assessment that "those who see the West as the devil come from countries where the West has severely harmed in the past through selfish and corrupt interference". Aside from the fact that that statement reads like a conspiracy theory, those hotbeds you refer to are Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Pakistan. In a different way Egypt has been a hotbed. You might be able to build a weak case America has harmed Somalia, but the others have massively benefited from America's influence and help.
I propose instead that those who see the west as the devil come from societies (or at least families) that take islam very seriously and let it guide their life. The stronger the place of islam in their lives, the more hate for everyone they have (not just for America, in case you truly are that naive. Israel, Holland (because there is a whore at every intersection, one Egyptian explained to me not very long ago), France (something about a Jewish school that you just can't repeat, and the "fact" that they support ex-muslims in Lebanon), Ethiopia, Kenia, ...).
> Religious rhetoric aligns itself with realpolitik. It is naive to see it in any other terms.
Everything, including your rhetoric, aligns itself with realpolitik. That's the definition of realpolitik. Your statement is true, but it contains no information, other than what's in the dictionary. Barbie dolls align themselves with realpolitik too, and it is equally naive to see things otherwise.
I disagree. I think his comments are well-researched, insightful, and logically driven. That his conclusion does not jibe with your particular worldview does not make him a bigot.
This is true, but besides the point. Laws on how to treat slaves are redundant in a country where slavery is illegal. And there is nothing in Islam to say that keeping slaves is compulsory or even desirable.
Sharia is the laws OF Islam. Sharia is not equal to Islam. Set A contains set B. Set A is not equal to set B.
You might as well say that Christianity is the ten commandments, Judaism is the halakhah and Atheism is the American Atheists’ conference code of conduct.
The problem in Qatar is vastly the exploitation of poor, by the rich. Which is hardly any different than situations in certain parts of China, India, North Korea and where not?
I'm pretty darn sure you don't talk about religion of people who commit suicides in those Foxconn factories.
I don't know what agenda you hold in continually dragging Islam into all this.
No religion doesn't have something that Western society doesn't have moral difficulty with. Christianity has a load of crap about stoning people, homophobia and subjugation of women for a start. Also includes God sanctioned rape and murder of non-Christians. Leviticus, Exodus and Deuteronomy is full of that crap.
Except Christianity broadly doesn't believe in the Bible being the literal word of God and thus all of those rules applying now - and no country accepts it as their view of Christianity.
Biblical infallibility is a modern, revivalist concept. Even during the good old days of the Mediaeval Church no-one stoned adulterers.
No Christian country has laws stoning people on the basis of "it's in the Bible". However it is the law in many Muslim countries.
That's the problem. Christianity is a religion that has had philosophy and interpretation bedded in from the off. US revivalists may ignore that rich history but it is a minority. Islam lost that argument many centuries ago, before which it led the world in scientific discovery and culture, now only a few, oppressed, sects think that way.
It is one of the central tenets of Christian faith that one should not judge others. Quotes attributed to Jesus explicitly state this many times in the new testament.
Funny that you mention that. You see islam has that exact story in it's holy books, but with a slightly different outcome :
Bukhari :: Book 6 :: Volume 60 :: Hadith 79
"The Jews brought to the Prophet a man and a woman from among them who had committed illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet said to them, "How do you usually punish the one amongst you who has committed illegal sexual intercourse?" They replied, "We blacken their faces with coal and beat them," He said, "Don't you find the order of Ar-Rajm (i.e. stoning to death) in the Torah?" They replied, "We do not find anything in it." 'Abdullah bin Salam (after hearing this conversation) said to them. "You have told a lie! Bring here the Torah and recite it if you are truthful." (So the Jews brought the Torah). And the religious teacher who was teaching it to them, put his hand over the Verse of Ar-Rajm and started reading what was written above and below the place hidden with his hand, but he did not read the Verse of Ar-Rajm. 'Abdullah bin Salam removed his (i.e. the teacher's) hand from the Verse of Ar-Rajm and said, "What is this?" So when the Jews saw that Verse, they said, "This is the Verse of Ar-Rajm." So the Prophet ordered the two adulterers to be stoned to death, and they were stoned to death near the place where biers used to be placed near the Mosque. I saw her companion (i.e. the adulterer) bowing over her so as to protect her from the stones."
Let me repeat that last sentence: 'I saw her companion (i.e. the adulterer) bowing over her so as to protect her from the stones.'
If any muslim can answer this question : who was the most moral person in this story. The prophet or the adulterer ? Because the answer is VERY clear to me.
>If any muslim can answer this question : who was the most moral person in this story. The prophet or the adulterer ?
I doubt you will find any Muslims here who profess 100% faith to the tenets of Islam. Wrong place to ask, I think. More likely you will find cultural Muslims over here. And they themselves struggle with doubts and what-good-to-pick from religion, like their other religion counter parts.
Also its not good to judge some 1400 year old incident with modern day values.
Yeah, but during medieval and early modern times the church tortured and killed heretics and supposed witches. There isn't even anything in the Bible about doing that. Oppressive theocratic regimes aren't caused by the religious texts they interpret. The Turkish people have a very tolerant culture, despite being an Islamic nation.
The fact is, when a set of beliefs is used as a foundation for nation building, it usually gets twisted over time to create an oppressive regime. Think about the rhetoric of Communism, how explicit that is about equality and fairness, and how well that turned out. It is not amazing that Islamic nations are shitty places to live. What is amazing is that secular, democratic, capitalist nations are quite nice places to live.
> Islam and specifically the second Caliphate is the only state in history that has a documented history of killing slaves for fun).
Ancient Rome would like to disagree.
> Slavery (if you define it as forced labour without compensation), in case anyone doesn't know, is part of every religion.
Buddhism would like to disagree, probably many more. I'm sure there was forced labor of some kind pretty much everywhere, but that doesn't make it part of the religion, and I'd also say that that it's a too-broad definition. Slavery IMO implies more than just forced labor without compensation: it implies that people are considered property.
Ancient Rome did not disagree. If you're referring to the circus, you might want to look up what the deal was gladiators got (and what it meant for their families), if they fought in the arena.
As for Buddha, he had to say a lot on several subjects :
1) the untouchables, effectively slaves (he only found it unjust that people were born into a caste, not that the untouchables existed or were forced to labour without compensation)
2) the fact that the Buddha forbade runaway slaves to join any Buddhist order, is but one of many indications that the Buddha accepted slavery as normal and moral.
3) This is not to say that the Buddha did not advance the state of morality, by saying that a Buddhist is allowed to trade in human beings, but that it would be better not to (he did say, however, that it was allowed, and that interference with it was not allowed). The Buddha did outlaw quite a few things, so I find the argument that he was somehow unaware of this distinction extremely unconvincing.
All Buddhist states I know of, historically, used slavery. Buddhists monasteries used slave labour throughout history, until the English banished it. In fact one of the emperors of China famously put forth an edict, stripping all Buddhist monasteries in his domain of their slaves. It mentions that this affected over 150000 individuals.
This is not abnormal or strange, by the way. All societies around them used slavery, and so did Buddhists.
Way to go on creating an completely irrelevant religious flamewar. As others have said, Islam has nothing to do with this.
This, as others have pointed out, is a case of rich-exploits-poor. Unsurprisingly, with the full support of the law. Exit visa laws, for example, aren't exclusive to the Middle East. (Actually, of the Middle East, only Qatar and Saudi Arabia have it.) The Soviet Union had them, Uzbekistan still has them, even Nepal has them. And for a short while, both Germany and Italy had similar laws.
I am from Nepal. Where did you get that information from? Nepal does not have exit visas the way Qatar has them. The one mentioned in Wikipedia article applies only when one (a Nepalese citizen) goes back to Nepal to get his H1 visa stamped.
Ugh, that was at once an impressive and disgusting array of not just wrong but ill-willed information, basically from start to finish.
You don't deserve a full rebuttal, but just in case anyone should be in doubt.
For just one example, Islamic law practically guarantees the eventual freeing of slaves. It is probably the most highlighted charitable act described in shariah. Missing a day of fasting must be atoned for by freeing a slave.
But as said, everything you said is wrong and the spirit you said it in is despicable. Fuck you, honestly.
Freeing a slave for missing a day of fasting? If that's the most charitable act in Sharia then you pretty much proved his point. And regardless of how people practice Islam, its texts are full of crap that I'll never have any respect for. Fuck Islam.
Islam is ignorance and lies. Any doctrine which labels me a lesser man and says that I will burn in hell can go fuck itself. That's not me being ignorant, that's me standing up for myself.
This is not part of Islam, since you don't find it going on in Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Islamic Africa, or the West where muslims live as well. This is instead confined to the Gulf states.
I'm really very curious about where you're pulling all this stuff from.
However, effective slavery of foreign workers does go on in those places, often with local or national government conspiracy. Malaysia is a prime example.
In the previous article, the family interviewed in Nepal lost one son to construction slavery in Qatar and one to the same in Malaysia.
Furthermore, Sharia law has been waved around in the western media as the height of evil (like the word Islam or the neologism Islamist), but like most religious ideologies Islamic law does historically have many good intentions behind it and there are many strong examples of excellent, safe, learned and tolerant societies that drew from this tradition (some periods of Iran I guess, definitely Yuan China after the Mongols who were great integrators and sponsors of language, philosophy and the culinary arts (包子原来是土耳其的！), Islamic Spain, etc.). Officially, Qatar 'abolished' Sharia courts in 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Law
My theory for the correlation of shitty law and many Islamic countries is simply that education is lacking, or some unelected self-serving bigot or a cartel thereof are in effective control, extracting all the wealth for themselves. In modern times, in many of these cases the ruling parties' route to power can be clearly traced to have sprung from the west's actions at the end of colonialism, or even later. Usually England or France in those times, but later in the 20th century blame seems to shift primarily the US with its one-eyed diplomatic stance and obsession with oil money and global economic/military dominance, with economic hitmen, the undermining of the UN, numerous examples of sponsoring evil regimes or undermining democratically elected ones, so and so forth.
I'm very curious about where s/he's pulling all that from too. First time I ever hear that killing slaves is OK in Islam! Or that freeing slaves is only allowed after they served in a military campaign.
"Evidence from slaves is rarely viable in a court of law. As slaves are regarded as inferior in Islamic law, death at the hands of a free man does not require that the latter be killed in retaliation.[81] The killer must pay the slave's master compensation equivalent to the slave's value, as opposed to blood-money. At the same time, slaves themselves possess a lessened responsibility for their actions, and receive half the penalty required upon a free man. For example: where a free man would be subject to a hundred lashes due to pre-marital relations, a slave would be subject to only fifty. Slaves are allowed to marry only with the owner's consent. Jurists differ over how many wives a slave may possess, with the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools allowing them two, and the Maliki school allowing four. Slaves are not permitted to possess or inherit property, or conduct independent business, and may conduct financial dealings only as a representative of the master. Offices of authority are generally not permitted for slaves, though a slave may act as the leader (Imam) in the congregational prayers, and he may also act as a subordinate officer in the governmental department of revenue.[10][82] Masters may sell, bequeath, give away, pledge, hire out or compel them to earn money.[47]"
"The same punishment was imposed on believers and what is similar to the act of the crime in the case of a homicide, by virtue of description or actuality. A freeman should be killed for another freeman but not for a slave, a female for a female, but a Muslim (even if he is a slave) must not be killed for an infidel, even if that infidel is a freeman."
Jalalan (p. 24)
"The Shafi'i and Malik prohibit the killing of a freeman if he slays his slave or other men's slaves. This is because 'Ali Ibn Abi-Talib mentioned that a man had killed his slave and Muhammad scourged him only; he did not kill him. It was related on the authority of Muhammad that he said a Muslim should not be killed for a non-Muslim, nor a freeman for a slave; also because Abu Bakr and 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab did not kill a freeman for a slave. (This was said) in the presence of all Muhammad's companions, and no one disapproved or objected to it."
The Commentary of al-Baydawi (p. 36)
"A man is not to be killed for his slave nor the freeman for a slave."
"A believer is not to be killed for a non-believer, nor a man for his son, or a man for his slave or for a woman."
Ahkam al-Qur'an (p. 275)
Need I go on ?
As to how slavery is justified:
When the Saudi national Homaidan Al-Turki was imprisoned for holding a woman as a slave in Colorado, he complained that “the state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.”
In other words, the point that complaining about forced slavery is racist against muslims is in fact on the legal record as a defense against getting convicted for practicing slavery in the US.
You are citing an Orientalist, not a real Islamic source.
I don't know if you can read Arabic: ذهب أبو حنيفة وشيخ الإسلام ابن تيمية، وهو رواية عن أحمد، إلى أن الحر يقتل بالعبد؛ لعموم قوله عليه الصلاة والسلام: «المؤمنون تتكافأ دماؤهم، ويسعى بذمتهم أدناهم» وهذا القول هو الصواب.
And from another source:
: القول الراجح أنه يقتل به؛ لقوله تعالى: وَكَتَبْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِيهَا أَنَّ النَّفْسَ بِالنَّفْسِ وَالْعَيْنَ بِالْعَيْنِ [المائدة:45]، وقول النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: (لا يحل دم امرئ مسلم إلا بإحدى ثلاثة: النفس بالنفس) وقول النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: (المؤمنون تتكافأ دماؤهم ويسعى بذمتهم أدناهم) وقول النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم: (لا فضل لعربي على عجمي إلا بالتقوى) وقول الله تعالى: إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ [الحجرات:13] فهذه العمومات تدل على أن الحر يقتل بالعبد كما أن العبد يقتل بالحر، وليس هناك نصوص صحيحة تدل على أن الحر لا يقتل بالعبد.
Both of which mention that a free man can be killed for a slave.
Furthermore, I don't know why you are raising the issue of slavery. It is not related to the thread topic. The workers in the Gulf countries are not slaves in the actual sense of the word - it has very particular connotations.
That being said, I agree that the way those countries treat the laborers is inhumane, disgusting, and anti-Islamic, and should be abolished.
Spoken like a true Islamic Extremist. Find the teachings that support your argument and then use them to brand everyone who disagrees with you as not being a true believer.
It's a peculiar mind that can ignore the fundamental values of morality and kindness, and go straight for the edge cases that justify your warped sense of righteousness.
Indeed! Even according to Wikipedia which waps was citing: "The Qur'an and Hadith, the primary Islamic texts, make it a praiseworthy act for masters to set their slaves free." goes against his/her claims. Furthermore, most, if not all, of those claims for the status of slaves were cited from Orientalist Levy's book. The bias is very evident.
No it doesn't. It has in fact nothing to do with that claim. If islam regulates slavery, it's obviously making it legal and pushing it.
Compare it with this, suppose some republican came to power and decided to legalize drilling through nature reserves but makes a big public statement discouraging it. What is that person doing ? Pushing it, or discouraging it ?
There is only one, and blatantly obvious answer : islam is pushing slavery. In theory, as you confirm yourself with your statement showing that islam regulates slavery. In practice, because of what is happening in Saharan Africa, Yemen, Kuwait, etc.
> It's a peculiar mind that can ignore the fundamental values of morality and kindness, and go straight for the edge cases that justify your warped sense of righteousness.
Truly sorry, you see I've studied too much history to believe anything remotely like "fundamental values of morality and kindness" exists. There are no values independent from ideology. Besides, you should get out more. Find a way to talk to one of those niqab'ed women, ask them what their values on the equality between men and women and then tell me how fundamental those values are.
There is no such thing as an inbuilt human morality. You wouldn't believe what some societies did, or even what they considered kind. You know how they say a "Spartan" upbringing these days ? Here's what it used to mean : Spartans are famous for considering the following a kindness : when a (male) kid turns 7, lock up his mother, and leave the kid with a small spear in the woods, where wolves are sure to find him. If he came back without a dead wolf, do it again until the kid is dead, or a wolf is. They considered this a kindness, both to the kid and to his mother, and also to the state. Tell me, how does this fit with your fundamental values of morality and kindness ?
Or read a few Greek plays. Pay attention to who fucks who, and how many people end up poisoned/stabbed/otherwise dead as a result. I don't care how free you think sexuality should be, I guarantee you will not find that behaviour moral or acceptable. Yet the Greek heroes are as bad as the losers, and they are certainly depicted as extremely moral. That they (sometimes) raped their own mother, sisters or daughters does not affect the story's judgement on their morals at all. And let's just stay away from the morality of the Greek gods, because while they are depicted as the definition of moral, you will massively disagree with their petty, cruel and mass-killing squabbles. Moral, in ancient Greece, it seems to me, is whatever behaviour gives you military victory.
If fundamental values don't exist, your argument falls apart, since it means you can only judge behaviour from the perspective of a religion or (maybe) ideology. That means that you yourself judge from an ideology (and frankly, you judge from the perspective of Christian values), and that your definition of an extremist is also relative.
For example, one who doesn't believe in fundamental values, might take offence at you judging a person based on "fundamental" (ie. your own) values. Which is of course exactly what you accuse extremists of.
> So I'm wondering what the attitude is on this. If you seriously defend this point, you're effectively against every religion except Western-brand atheism (ie. not the -much more successful- socialist version of atheism), and Christianity.
That's just ridiculous, and you know it. You're basically saying "every believer interprets his religion the way I say they do".
If anyone is interested in exploring America's historic views of Islam (or Mohammedanism) I highly recommend the book "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America and the Middle East, 1776 to the Present."
If you're looking for a religion to blame, start with capitalism. Islam has nothing to do with this.
While you're at it you can start by looking at how unrepresentative of the Muslim world (if you an even use that term) the Gulf countries are - India and Indonesia are both home to many times more Muslims than the Gulf but yet you continue to judge the adherents of a religion by the actions of a few small countries made significant by their oil and gas reserves.
Do you think it is "capitalism" when employers are not honouring contracts that they created, and their employees signed? After you have learnt what capitalism means, you'll see that the article is rich with examples of violations of capitalism.
I don't know about Indonesia, but India is, not by any stretch of imagination, representative of the Muslim world. [2] I don't know why you bring up India as an example of things going right in the Muslim world.
I would love to debate with you. If I did I would point out studies that show the historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships, I would point to monopolistic behaviour, and the tendency of an unrestrained capitalistic system to undermine the workings of its own free market. I would draw upon my own experiences of living in the Gulf, visiting labour camps, talking to migrant workers (mostly themselves also Muslim), and perhaps gently suggest that your armchair judgment of over 1.5 billion people (25% of the world's population) based on a couple of hastily googled sites from a fringe cleric and a single reported court case is not necessarily accurate or fair. I might ask you to compare the number of Muslims in the Gulf with the number of Muslims in India and Indonesia, and then tell you happy anecdotes of my many visits to these countries and the wonderful people I met. I might explain the difference between doctrinal theory and practical exigencies, and faulty interpretations based on fear and greed spread by power hungry clerics (I'd pause of course to muse at the irony drawn from the parallels with capitalism), and then discuss similar dichotomies evident in the practice of Christianity in the West. I'd conclude with the realisation that the problems inherent in the treatment of migrant workers are myriad and complex, and cannot be distiller into a simple judgment against any belief system.
I'd love to do all these things, but sadly I am a longtime believer in the maxim that "If you argue with a fool, then there are two fools arguing", so sadly I must decline.
You seem to enjoy making the effort to write all this rhetorical crap! With bits like "historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships", I hope you don't claim credit for independent thinking.
Wow... didn't know middle eastern countries (Islamic) legalize slavery. Can they catch someone in their country or outside of their country and make them a slave?
Plz can you link to "that other thread" for those of us not acquainted with it? (just that it's a good practice and experiences with search for such things are not always productive)
From another article on the topic by The Guardian [1]
The British engineering company Halcrow, part of the CH2M Hill group, is a lead consultant on the Lusail project responsible for "infrastructure design and construction supervision". CH2M Hill was recently appointed the official programme management consultant to the supreme committee. It says it has a "zero tolerance policy for the use of forced labour and other human trafficking practices".
Halcrow said: "Our supervision role of specific construction packages ensures adherence to site contract regulation for health, safety and environment. The terms of employment of a contractor's labour force is not under our direct purview."
So they've got a zero tolerance policy, unless you're talking about the actions of their contractors which is just, like, totally out of their control, man.
On a side note, is there anyway we can donate money to his family. ~ $1500 with 36% interest is lot of money for his poor Nepalese family and I doubt they will be able to repay that debt. I guess they will have to work rest of their life just to repay money.
I'd be up for donating some money to their family. How do I do it?
Lot of Indians also work in these countries due to poverty reasons. I feel privileged to be born in a relatively wealthy and educated family in India. If it was not the case may be I would have one of the migrant workers like them.
If these countries have oil money in abundance then why don't they give good working conditions and pay more money. Few million dollars will hardly going to move needle for them. I smell corruption.
If these countries have oil money in abundance then why don't they give good working conditions and pay more money
Racism. There's a certain pecking order in the Gulf: 1.) Locals, 2.) Other Gulf nationals, 3.) Whites (Western), 4.) Non-white professionals (Western) 5.) Other Arabs (professionals), 5.) South Asian professionals, 6.) Working class (busboys/waiters/etc.), 7.) Day laborers (mostly South Asian).
If you see a certain race/class as subhuman, why would you provide them with good working conditions?
It's been a tough journey of about 200 years to eliminate most of this thinking in the west.
It's certainly hard to watch this process unfold in other countries. The process is certainly faster than it was in the west but still excruciatingly slow.
The countries could enforce/create laws and protect these people. To suggest that they have no power in the situation laughable. They cannot be absolved of their responsibility for this issue.
I suspect that, due to the internet, prospective migrant works are a good deal less naive than they used to be. Which makes me wonder if Nepalese will still be prepared to work there in future.
They are well aware of working conditions. I'm sure some migrant workers might be returning to Nepal and this type of information spreads quickly within rural communities. And Nepalese people will still work for them. Poverty makes people do all sorts of things. And that includes taking risks with your own life.
Apparently, that is also true of farmers in India. If only the government can bring in better policies to improve logistics; oh how poverty corrodes the soul of a society.
"""
...Nepalese men and women leave their towns and villages for jobs overseas. More than 100,000 head to Qatar, where a booming construction industry and insatiable appetite for cheap labour has been fuelled by its successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup...
"""
Just like Rome's slaves built the Colosseum so that the upper classes could keep the masses entertained to keep exploiting them.
We really have not learned shit in the past couple thousand years.
Why is this not front-page news of mainstream media? (I know why, it's because it's not profitable). But where is the outrage? Why is fighting back restricted to a few NGOs and some back office of the Nepalese government?
What metric are you using for third biggest? The national figures I've seen put the Guardian in a pretty lowly 10th place in terms of circulation. Even if you exclude most of the popular papers (i.e. tabloids) and look only at broadsheets then the Guardian is still only 4th (of 5).
The Guardian certainly punches above it's weight through its internet site the paper itself is nowhere near as big as the other papers.
Because this is not news. It has been going on for a while now. One of my cousin wanted to go to Qatar because he couldn't get a job. My father knowing this have been going on, stopped him. Thankfully he got a job as a chef to feed Bangladeshi refugees. Not a good paying job, but it's a whole lot better than slaving away in a Middle Easter country.
BTW Nepal didn't have ANY law for a year or two. I don't know if it is still the case but Nepal has been messy ever since the revolution(removal of the monarchy).
Because it would bring uncomfortable questions about the list of states that employ slavery, or effective slavery :
Sudan, Mali, Niger, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan, Bangladesh.
Hmmm I wonder what is driving the advancement of slavery, given that's the places where it's happening. An exploration of slavery would bring the very uncomfortable, but pretty well known, fact to the surface that slavery is part of a particular religion. And the fact that if that religion entrenches itself in a society, it has a very strong tendency to bring slavery back.
(Fun fact : know what the arabic word for slave is ? "Abed". Literally it means "black". "Black gold", when it was a popular term in the 19th and 20th centuries, referred to slaves, not oil.
Others have discussed the slavery claims, I'll address the linguistic claims.
The three-letter root عبد, transliterated "3abd", or more inaccurately, "Abed", has meanings related to servant and slaves. It does not mean black. This can be seen in this entry of the Hans Wehr dictionary - http://tinyurl.com/pk2alcu . You might be familiar with this root from the Arabic male name Abdallah or 3abdallah - this literally means "Servant of God".
Side note - I'm using the letter 3 to indicate the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin letter, which is a throaty consonant in Arabic that is hard for Westerners to pronounce and hear. Because of this, it is sometimes sliced off and ignored when Arabic words are transliterated to the Latin alphabet. However, making claims about the Arabic language while ignoring it is a bit like making claims about the etymology of English words while ignoring the difference between l and r - it can lead you seriously astray.
The color black is أسود / aswad (masculine) or سوداء / sauda2 (feminine) in Arabic, all derived from the three-letter root سود (s-u-d). Dictionary entry at http://tinyurl.com/q7cadg4 . You may recognize this root from the country سودان / Sudan. However, it should not be confused with Saudi Arabia, which is سعودية or sa3udia. Again, the Ayin is present in the word and gives it a very different meaning.
In general, Arabic has a number of consonants that are hard to distinguish for Westerners - this includes the Ayin, the gh (guttural r), the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated h, the difference between emphatic and non-emphatic t, s, d and dh. This means it is hard to represent Arabic accurately with the Latin alphabet without extending it in ways unfamiliar to regular readers. I tend to trust claims about Arabic if the Arabic alphabet is used to explain them, otherwise I would be fairly skeptical.
Your reply is technically correct, and yet also entirely false. It's of course true that the color is aswad. I was not talking about the color black being abd. It's just that in English people use the same word for black (the color) and black (the skin).
If it makes things more clear, abed means n-gger. Literally and figuratively.
I'm more inclined to believe that the reason is socio-economic rather than religious. Many of those countries you listed are also a source of cheap goods for the West.
Edit: just to clarify, what I'm saying is that the majority of adherents to any religion aren't fundamentalists. They choose which parts of their holy scriptures to follow, and ignore the rest -- the vast majority aren't even aware of all of them.
Human nature being what it is, they are more likely to follow portions of scripture that benefit them in other ways, e.g. economically. They may likely have chosen to behave the same way regardless of their religion; the religion merely provides a convenient excuse.
I don't dispute that there are economic reasons behind it. I'm not saying that enslaving people is done without reason in islamic countries.
The problem is those same economic reasons exist in the west. Yet slavery is not practised here. Why not ? Simple : the population would never allow it (not even in dictatorships). Yet the population in the middle east does allow it (or at least, they won't fight to abolish it). What is the difference ?
Note that the origin of difference goes back all the way to the later days of the Roman Empire. What changed was not that the middle east started to accept slavery as normal, what changed was that the west stopped accepting it. Why ? Well, simple : because of the rise of Christianity. Once slavery was gone, it re-appeared in the west twice (not counting slavery in, for example, Al-Andalus). Both times it was eradicated from within, and outlawed (after a while). Both times slavery reappeared because of trade contacts with muslim countries. In the middle east/asia/africa the reverse happened. Slavery was normal, the vast majority of the time, but every 300 years or so the slaves would successfully revolt, which generally lead to a decade-long abolishment of slavery (sometimes a once-off freeing of every slaves, sometimes 50 years of no slaves), but it would always return.
What is the difference ? I'm not claiming islam changes populations to accept slavery. Rather, I'm claiming Christianity changes populations to stop accepting slavery. And of course, I'm claiming that were Christianity/"post"-christian values lose sway, for example to islam, slavery returns.
This does not just apply to slavery, but equality in general as well.
Most of your other claims here have already been refuted, but here's one more. If "black gold" ever mostly meant slaves rather than oil, then the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary would like to hear from you. (They say: "colloq. (orig. N. Amer.) petroleum; mineral oil" and their earliest citation is from 1910.)
I just did a Google book search for "black gold" on 19th-century books, and checked the first 100 results. None of them had anything to do with slavery (or with mineral oil). So far as the Google n-gram tool's corpus knows, the term became popular around 1920-1940.
I have been able to find a few references to "black gold" meaning slaves, but so far as I can tell from the snippets available on the web they have nothing to do with Islam. In the few cases where I can tell who the slavers were, they were specifically Americans.
The English colonist in the New World imported white indentured workers at first, but found there weren't enough of them. The Indians in the Americas refused to work or proved to be poorly fitted for long hours of hard labor. The Europeans found it easier and cheaper to import Africans as slaves. By the seventeenth century, the African slave trade was booming in the Americas. The slave dealers made so much money from their human cargoes that soon Africans came to be known as "black gold".
> I have been able to find a few references to "black gold" meaning slaves
I am not claiming that no one has ever used the term to mean slaves.
What I am disputing is (1) your claim that in the 19th and 20th centuries the term was popular with this main meaning, and (2) your claim that it had anything to do with Islam.
On #1, I find that the term was extremely rare until it started being used to describe oil in the 20th century.
On #2, note that the slavers mentioned in your particular links were all Western European or American. Guess how many of them were Muslims? I'm thinking the answer is somewhere between "exactly zero" and "zero to within statistical sampling error".
Black gold used to mean the slave trade towards America and within the British Empire and the Dutch. What does that have to do with Islam : simple. Who did they buy the slaves from ? The Ottoman empire.
Most kidnapped slaves never did end up in the western slave trade by the way, but were instead kidnapped into north africa and the middle east (which was the effective center of the muslim empire, they even relocated mecca into africa). Almost none of them survived, and today with a few small exceptions no significant numbers of those slaves survive.
I am not an expert on the slave trade, but my understanding is that most of the slaves in the western slave trade were bought in West Africa, which was never part of the Ottoman Empire.
(I'm not saying that the Ottoman Empire was never involved in the slave trade. It was. So was the British Empire.)
This story make me sad for the human species, it sounds criminal.
On the upside, with tech of course:
Is there any existing app for labor conditions reporting?
If potential employees had a slight opportunity to easily research conditions, they might choose another company with a better record. This would have the potential to drive disreputable shops out of business and promote those that care a bit more about basic human rights. It would be a daunting education and development task, but one that would be meaningful.
Predatory lending on top of indentured servitude: dual slavery of the body and poverty.
I'm sure there are much worse and much better companies than what is reported regarding un/semi-skilled labor workforce vendors. The former should not be allowed to survive.
Would be a cool project if someone went undercover themselves to make a docu on the living and work conditions of these industrial sites to expose this further.
I am from Nepal. This happens because of poverty and people need to make a living. Awareness is high among migrant workers about the conditions - given hundreds of thousands travel each year and news travels back. But hope of 200-500 USD per month makes people take risks and the exodus continues.
Once there, dodgy contractors and employment agents take advantage when they can. The exit visa system really doesn't help either. Neither do unstable government, weak economy and low employment back home.
It is an actual fact that in desperation, the poor migrant workers are made to work long hours in extreme heat (direct sunlight). At nighttime, close to the desert where many of these fetid labour quarters are get suddenly cold. Extreme variations in temperature and strenuous manual work is said to have contributed to all these heart attack deaths in young people - as young as 20. I'm not sure exactly because I'm not a medical professional - but the conditions are definitely not conducive to human survival.
The way international community has taken notice with this article does help. Business communities and political interests might do their best to keep the blatant human/labour rights violation under wraps but spreading the news will make their task harder. People from countries with vested economic stakes in these gulf countries etc could do well to pressurise their governments to demand accountability. Work is what the workers want - but in humane conditions. Death should not be an acceptable condition of employment.
I am from Nepal. The irony in all this is that we Nepalese will keep flying the Qatar Airways. The Nepalese airlines, a state-owned corporation, used to have regular flights to many busy destinations like Frankfurt. But like with everything that has happened in Nepal for the last 10-15 years, this has gone downhill.
Qatar bribed many Football Associations in FIFA to get this world cup bid. One of them was Nepal. The Nepalese FA's president is in good terms with the Qatari FA, and was apparently given nice kickbacks for voting in their favor.
This situation seems like an embodiment of several bad things that can be found everywhere, but all taken to the extreme. They add up to a slavery system.
First of all, I think that slavery is a relative concept. The modern comparison archetype that most people know the most about is the American system of race based chattel slavery. But, there have been many many different systems all throughout history. All different. Slavery is something that exists on a difficult to define continuum.
Many (most?) countries have laws for emoting foreigners. They usually have more limited rights compared to citizens. Deportation looms. Residency is tied to employment. The country is not run for them. When it's a Belgian professor teaching in Russia, it obviously isn't slavery. When it's this poor Nepali man in Qatar isn't. There just isn't a clear line between the two. Contracts? Consent? What do those mean when you have the power differences between a Qatari Sheik and an illiterate.
Qatar is comparable in a lot of ways to ancient slave states. There are a small minority (2-5% depending on how you define it) of extremely privileged aristocracy, members of important families. Another 10% of Qatari citizens who make up most of the the professional class. The foreign professional class (10-15%) of mostly arabs and whites. They have fewer rights, but are materially well off. Then a vast underclass (50-60%) of poor foreigners with no rights and practical situations ranging from bad to awful. Work to death conditions. Sexual assault. Chattel-like system of employer-employee relations. Probably similar distributions to famous slave states like Sparta.
Saying slavery is inherently Islamic is like saying slavery is inherently American. And then for proof, going over centuries of quotes about slaves, beatings of slaves, violence during desegregation and the whole entire ugly history of race relations.
Anyone remotely well read knows this is absurd. That what is happening is a matter of individual greed and not some systemic mind control.
This is heartbreaking, but I'm having a hard time seeing the HN angle, except that there was another thread on the same subject earlier today. I suggest this is more suitable fare for Reddit.
While I say that anything can fit on HN I have a hard time with articles like this, because the threads are usually full of hateful idiots bickering about things they have little knowledge of.
What have I learnt from the comments to this submission?
Seems a dead horse at this point, but this was common-place in Saudi Arabia where I grew up. Migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Phillipines (from memory) and elsewhere were notoriously mistreated.
My mother worked at a TV & Radio broadcast station for a (...the) major oil company there (side job, father was in oil @ same company), and found out the janitorial staff in her building were going both unpaid and unfed during their workdays for months at a time. I remember helping her with food-drives to pull food from expat communities for them.
It was well known to expat kids running around on-compound that 'gardeners' (generally bangladeshi and nepalese) were absolutely second-class citizens. These people were absolutely degraded at the hands of Saudi nationals and expats of a variety of ethnicities and nationalities (yes, westerners too). I've seen them yelled & cursed at, spit on, and beaten by company Security officers (generally al-Dossari Saudi's, but not always). The horror stories are literally countless.
There seems to have been a lot of discussion in this thread as to the effect that religion has played as a cause of this treatment of migrant workers. I DO NOT know (nor believe) that Islam has a direct role to play, but I can say confidently that this is a reflection of culture. There is a general acceptance of inherent difference in levels of humanity that is tied to national (and tribal) identities in many Middle Eastern countries. I would wager that the majority of the population (at the time I was living there, demographics change fast, and there are a boatload of young people in KSA) would tell you that a Sri Lanken / Bangladeshi / Pakistani != a Brit / American / Frenchmen, etc., and not feel that bad about it.
As I observed it, some of these people believed this as coldly as it is stated above, while a great many see it as a fact the whole world thinks this, but their culture/mindset is 'realistic' (shudders) or honest enough to admit it.
I DO NOT believe this is simply a 'rich taking advantage of poor' scenario. In my experience, these people are mistreated far worse than necessary for profit, or probably quite often to the detriment of it. I think it has more to do with cultural definitions of identity than anything else.
If CIA wanted Qatar's Royal family gone, they'd ship 50,000 AKs, pick a few leaders from each ethnic group and Viva La Revolucion! Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks
The moment these middle eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen) are not useful to Western foreign policy anymore and therefore lose our support, they will probably disintegrate.
You've got citizens that are a minority in their own country, and that are largely incompetent and incapable of running anything, because they never had to do any work.
And then you have a majority of foreign workers that are largely treated like slaves, and probably not happy with that situation.
I can't see who would support those regimes if they get into troubles
Europe certainly wouldn't, politicians here already call those countries dictatorships (publicly) and noone want's to have any affiliation with them.
Russia and China both already had their experiences with terrorism sponsored by those regimes, so I wouldn't expect any support from them either.
I think that particularly Saudi Arabia already sees the writings on the wall and they are actively taking measures but it will be too late, too little.
I've only been to a few countries in the Middle East, so I can't generalise. But one thing common among these countries is the lack of warmth, sincerity and humility among the locals. It is one of the most unpleasant and hostile cultures that I have encountered in my years of travel.
They treat blue-collar foreigners as lesser humans.
EDIT: To clarify, I've only been to Qatar, UAE and Bahrain.
What a load of crap. So you saw the airport in Qatar, stayed in a 5-Star hotel in the UAE and caught a connection at Bahrain without ever actually speaking to a local??? I can tell you from my experience of living in the UAE for 3 years and regularly travelling to Saudi overland via Bahrain, the locals are just like people anywhere in the world - some crappy, most decent, and some really nice. Minor differences include the fact that they are generally more spoilt, and much more hospitable than people in the west. Most that I've spoken to care about the worker conditions, and would hate to see people hurt, though they worry about being a minority in their own countries, they find it hard to say no to the comfortable lure if unbridled capitalism and its shiny things.
How many of you have actually been to labour camps? I've been to a couple - I drove on (hardly a "prison") and was invited into the home of a worker, who bought me a juice. There were 6 guys living in a small space (about 10 feet by 20 feet), and they had a rota system for sleeping space. The place was clean and they had somehow managed to afford satellite TV.
"I am simply unable to recall any other country that I’ve visited where I’ve been so instantly and warmly welcomed and I still cannot believe how many people have approached me in the streets just to literally say the words “Welcome to Syria my friend!”"
A lesbian couple I know travelled through west Africa and the middle east. They mentioned that Syria was far more welcoming than the stereotype suggests, and that they felt safe there. This was only a few years ago.
While I doubt they were openly advertising their homosexuality, they still were two women travelling alone, off the beaten path, which was enough to cause a lot of their friends back home to express concern.
Oman was actually pretty decent, from my experience between 2004-2010. They also mostly have young Omanis doing things like working at gas stations, rather than importing labor. They have recently started building more of a downstream gas economy, but have a demographic bulge in youth like Egypt does. It's also the prettiest natural environment of any of the GCC countries.
Bahrain and Kuwait mainly have issues due to large minority groups being repressed. Saudi is huge, and relatively diverse, with lots of political strife under the surface. UAE and Qatar are the expected super-rich with mostly imported slave labor. Jordan, Syria, Egypt don't have meaningful oil so no one cares. Iraq and Iran are largely having issues due to sectarianism, war, and isolation; Iran seems like it was the best country in the region before the Shah and revolution.
There are friendly/warm locals in all of these countries, but there's a clear social hierarchy, and only white Americans and Western Europeans, or other Gulf Arabs, will be treated as humans (some exception for Japanese in Kuwait), generally, and even then, the culture isn't as accessible to complete strangers as a lot of other cultures.
| Any free market advocates or Randians care to try and fit this terrible situation into their worldview?
Except anarchists, I think "Randians" and most "free market advocates" are in favor of court (government) enforcement of contracts.
> He was 16
There's a concept of "age of consent" or "capacity" to contract.
> arranging a fake passport stating he was 20
Fraud.
> wages retained
Who would sign a contract like this? It's most likely a violation.
> deprived of the ID cards they need to move around freely without fear of arrest
Seems like a failure of the State, to be arresting people who are allowed to be there.
> demand their wages, a drastic step given that the authorities can simply expel them to penury
If "the authorities" refers to the State, I'd say it's another failure of government, not the free market.
> refusing to issue the exit permits they needed to return home
Yet another failure of the State, if I'm reading that correctly as a restriction of the freedom of movement: a basic human right which brutal, anti-capitalist regimes are infamous for violating (e.g. Berlin Wall). Historically, people tend to flee from less free (market) countries to more free (market) countries.
> the kafala system binds the worker to a single employer
Is "kafala" a system of laws? This sounds like Directive 10-289 which Ayn Rand rails against in Atlas Shrugged: "All workers, wage earners, and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment"
It's a good thing it's illegal, that way these people can fight it in the courts with all the access to legal assistance they have.
One of the biggest drawbacks to the libertarian 'fight-it-out-in-court' mindset is that it considers everyone to be equal, but only if they can afford a lawyer. The people that libertarianism fails the most are the people we're talking about right now.
Forget affording a lawyer, they can't even read the contracts that they sign in the first place as they don't read Arabic. Hell some don't even read or write, and have to put an 'X' where their signature should be. Even if they could read it they'd sign anyway, because shit what choice do they have when the family needs feeding? We're talking about asymmetry the like of which people in the developed world cannot begin to comprehend, and that is the reason that unrestrained free markets can never operate effectively.
You are confused between criminal and civil courts. You only need a lawyer for civil claims. For criminal claims, the state is your lawyer (of course, if you're the victim), and the whole state criminal system was intended exactly to secure personal rights, before it was hijacked to prosecute such heinous crimes as barbering without license and smoking wrong species of plant. Libertarianism never fails on that because libertarianism claims exactly that - that the purpose of the state is to protect personal rights and nothing else. In this example, the state is failing spectacularly and the only task for which it may exist - how it is a libertarians problem? Libertarianism didn't fail these people, the state in whose jurisdiction they are did.
My point (and I am being serious) is that these worker abuses seem to be the result of a complete lack of government regulations surrounding the labor force.
However you do raise a good point, in this situation the workers are not free to pick up and leave, which invalidates it as an argument against free market advocation. I concede the discussion to you good sir.
It's not a lack of regulations, it's a lack of basic contract and law enforcement. If somebody promises you wages and does not pay, it's theft, plain and simple. One doesn't need any special regulations to prosecute theft, any basic legal system has prohibitions against theft.
You assumed his profile wasn't clicked on and the URL viewed, identifying him as male. And even if it weren't, the majority of people here are males, and even more so those that talk here about politics. So it would be a perfectly logical assumption to make.
Don't forget the most important underlying issue: a "free market advocate" should not want to contract with contract breakers (fraud, force) for the most obvious reason. Visible differences have historically been used as a Schelling fence on this issue. "Oh you can do business with me despite the fact that I use force and fraud, I only use it against people with dark skin."
The exit visa is a system that legally enables indentured servitude. Any country that has this system (pretty much just Islamic mideast countries) should be shunned by the US and the UN (won't happen of course given the US has a couple of bases in Qatar and BP has a huge investment there).