UAE is well on its way to being the Switzerland of the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Your rhetoric sounds like it’s from 2003.
Not something that directly concerns me, but I'm personally more worried about restrictions on freedom of speech, but regardless not somewhere I'd be willing to live (I currently do live in Switzerland).
These laws are also pretty much never enforced in UAE, as far as I understand.
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/united-arab-emirate...
They are never enforced, until you become a target, then you're arrested and charged with a list violations.
I mean, we do this too, to some degree. But this is naive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_rape has some more examples.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Alexandre_Robert
A number of particularly nasty elements to the response—including that the authorities knew that one of the rapists carried HIV, and had previously segregated him in custody to prevent him spreading the virus to other prisoners, but they fabricated medical tests to the contrary and lied to the boy’s family.
This one is better: a woman in UAE went to the doctor(gynecologist) and ended up in jail because doctor found out she is pregnant but not married.
In many American states a raped woman has to carry her rapist off spring to term
In America black people are significantly over represented in jails, poverty, illiteracy, single parent families.
I’m sure the 5 largest western democracies have similar issues
Formally documented de jure discrimination is hardly the only available approach. For example, the term "grandfather clause" stems from Southern states applying severe voter restrictions (poll taxes, literacy tests, etc.) but exempting anyone whose ancestors had the right to vote on a particular pre-Civil War date.
Functionally? Permitted poor/uneducated whites but not blacks to vote without ever mentioning a race in the law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinn_v._United_States
"No person shall be registered as an elector of this state or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be able to read and write any section of the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma; but no person who was, on January 1, 1866, or any time prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote because of his inability to so read and write sections of such Constitution."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-coalition-report-us-money-...
Which is also excellent not just for stealing, but also for murder. Half a year ago a German-born Pole killed a family in a car crash and run away to UAE.[0] They tried to extradit him but without success.
[0] https://bnnbreaking.com/breaking-news/accidents/suspected-fa...
If you look into it you'll find that it's a nice marketplace for israeli oligarchs running operations in DR Congo, e.g. for diamonds which Israel exports unexpected amounts of, and you'll also find that the Rapid Support Forces/Janjaweed in Sudan are buddies of the UAE. Unlike Switzerland the UAE is quite aggressive militarily, e.g. occupying part of Yemen.
Main export of Israel: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/diamonds/repo...
Local presentation of mining sites: https://en.israelidiamond.co.il/wikidiamond/diamond-mining-m...
Some historical background and interesting sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_industry_in_Israel
As mentioned, reading up on Dan Gertler is a good idea too.
Sudan complaining recently about foreign involvement: https://sudantribune.com/article283888/
If you look into Omar al-Bashir's 'career' you'll likely find it enlightening about the degree of Gulf involvement in Sudan. The Gulf states are really, really good at PR, they can afford the biggest, most efficient firms to run it for them, but there are a lot of books about the colonial history in the region and how trade and economics have evolved over the last century.
The strategically importantly located island of Socotra has a really interesting history, lots of pirates and stuff. Since 2018 UAE is occupying it and lately Yemen news sources have claimed that Israel is in on it, and the US DoD has been asked whether they're there too. Starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Emirates_takeover_...
Funny you mention Switzerland because they have some of the highest skilled labor in the world.
The Gulf countries have more than enough expertise to manage and run their wealth for the foreseeable future. To say they’ll be poor again without oil is simply ignorant of the facts and probably related to the point I made above.
But I wouldn’t somehow think it’s accurate or acceptable to claim Greeks are all lazy and rude.
It's not possible to run a functioning country (which SA undeniably is) without a large number of people who are at least somewhat competent, at least somewhat hardworking, and at least somewhat loyal to the country. You may be able to rely on cheap migrant workers for the hard physical labor, but not for the planning and administration that makes the whole thing work.
The oil money printer can hide a lot of problems. A small percentage of somewhat competent people aren't guaranteed to be able to provide for a huge number of useless freeloaders if the gravy train stops. Look at Venezuela for a somewhat similar situation.
I wanted to reply "But Sheikh Mohammed himself said so!" but then trying to back up my claim I realized it's false. [0] It's amazing how many false things we take for granted just because they align with our world-view (and make a good story).
[O] https://factcheck.afp.com/sheikh-mohammed-did-not-say-great-...
Yes, this is how you compare populations.
There are all kinds of promises when times are good, that change as soon as the economic winds change. This project is more evidence of that.
This project was a side project and always has been. Its success or lack thereof has very little to do with the overall financial position of the country.