Showing posts with label western. Show all posts
Showing posts with label western. Show all posts
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Vamps, victims and videotapes
By: Paromita Vohra
2010-10-03
MidDay Mumbai
Last week a YouTube video called VAMP Protests 'Prostitutes of God' went viral. Produced by Vaishya Anyaya Mukti Parishad (VAMP), a sex worker rights organisation in Sangli, it features some very pi**ed off folk calmly addressing a British filmmaker, Sarah Harris, director of a documentary Prostitutes of God, featuring them and
playing on the VBS network's website.
The film is about sex work around the cult of Goddess Yellamma--linked to the Devdasi tradition.
VAMP's video is nothing fancy but it is power-packed. One after another, the interviewees ask the filmmaker why she betrayed their trust by insulting their gods, misinterpreting their culture and portraying them as craven victims.
It's not the first time people have felt this way about a documentary made by a first world filmmaker/network about an 'Indian problem'. The producers usually have two responses: we are people who care, and some things have to be 'simplified' so that our audiences can understand the unfamiliar.
The VAMP video, as a direct testimony of the people the film is about, is hard to ignore as carping. In the flabby verbiage about the power of digital media, this stands out as a politically creative moment. It also throws a light on how documentaries work, and so, how not to make them.
Watching the film, you see that Harris, like others before her, is not a bad person. But niceness does not prevent mediocre analysis or filmmaking. The hard work of questioning your assumptions might. There's little space for that in this format of filmmaking.Beginning with the never-before 'insight' that 'India is a land of extremes, ancient tradition and modern capitalism', the filmmaker 'bonds' with sex workers--giggly chapati-making and sari shopping--overlain with a commentary about how 'these people' have terrible lives, exist in a superstitious society, suffering the iniquities of tradition.
While there's truth in this, is this the only way to understand the truth?
Documentaries can explain something simply and clearly. Or they can provide a textured experience of the unknown, and by making you see people as complex individuals, not examples or types, provide a compassionate understanding and awareness about the issues, subjects and our prejudices.
Neither happens in this style of filmmaking. Despite many bonding gestures on camera--we never understand the humour, sensuality or choice of subjects as individuals--evidence of the filmmaker's connection to the people. Nor do we understand sex work differently from the common perception as a terrible fate to be rescued from, or the difference between an empowered sex worker and one who isn't.
There's a declared incomprehension about the Yellamma myth--as some bizarre story featuring 'fat gods in gold bikinis'. If the Indian informants were inarticulate (as the film makes clear by using translators who can't speak English well, and using that for feeble humour), there's Wikipedia.
Reading the entry, I found it comprehensible as a myth that's a way of legitimising courtesans/prostitutes to ensure respect and livelihood unlike the moralising which renders sex workers illegal, unorganised, improverished and vulnerable.
Responses on the film's website indicate what this kind of storytelling achieves: most comments are in the unthinkingly racist "what's wrong with these barbaric people" category. The simplification excuse-- turning people's lives into baby food to feed babies--doesn't hold, and a different filmmaking style is needed.
Noble intentions (sometimes called 'human interest stories') can be dangerous, for they absolve us of interrogating ourselves.
We must cast others as fallen victims so we can be seen as their noble saviours. Sometimes being the devil, or his advocate, may give us something to chew on and help us grow up.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. She runs Devi Pictures production company.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
"The Swedish are tired of walking around in their own neighborhoods and feeling like they're in Saudi Arabia"
Anti-Muslim feelings propel right wing
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
STOCKHOLM - On the heels of elections that stunned many in this famously progressive land, Kent Ekeroth and his peers marched through the castle-like parliament doors this month on a mission to combat what they call Sweden's greatest problem: Muslim immigration.
The 20 Swedish Democrats - the first national lawmakers from a party initially spawned in the 1980s by white supremacists - are working to impose a moratorium on new mosques, ban the shroud-like coverings worn by some conservative Muslim women and largely halt immigration from predominantly Muslim nations.
Alarm over the anti-immigrant wave intensified recently as authorities warned "dark-skinned" residents in the southern city of Malmo that one or more snipers are targeting immigrants, killing one and wounding eight in 15 separate shootings this year.
The rise to office of the Swedish Democrats in September's elections touched off a heated debate in this country, home of the Nobel Prize and known as the "conscience of the world" for aiding refugees and pioneering laws for women's equality and gay rights. Yet even here, the Swedish Democrats made it into the Rikstag by tapping into a surge of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping across many nations in Western Europe, propelling right-wing and nationalist parties to their biggest gains in years.
"The Swedish are tired of walking around in their own neighborhoods and feeling like they're in Saudi Arabia," said Ekeroth, an intense 30-year-old and founder of the new Anti-Islamic Fund, which promotes criticism of radical Islam. "It is time for the Swedish to be comfortable again in their own country."
At the same time, resentment is brewing in nations like Sweden over a rising tide of Muslim immigrants and the reluctance of some to adopt local customs, testing the limits of tolerance in some of the world's most open-minded societies.
Unlike in the United States, where Latinos dominate the immigration debate, European angst is increasingly focused on waves of Muslims - Turks, Iraqis, Somalis and others - who have become the hottest-button issue in recent elections. In Austria this month, the far-right Freedom Party made massive gains in regional elections after an anti-immigrant campaign that included a "Bye Bye Mosque" Internet game. It allowed players to target virtual minarets in elegant Vienna and pastoral Alpine villages with a single word: "stop."
With climbing unemployment rates and painful spending cuts in the aftermath of the economic crisis, even mainstream leaders of the center right, including France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, are noting the growing anti-immigration undercurrent. Through measures including a ban on the full-length veils worn by conservative Muslim women, critics say, Sarkozy is seeking the support of the far-right backers of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French nationalist who made a strong presidential bid in 2002.
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued her toughest line yet on immigrants. For weeks, Merkel has condemned Thilo Sarrazin, a former Central Bank board member turned folk hero in Germany who penned a shocking bestseller arguing that Turkish and Kurdish immigrants are genetically inferior.
But the book also ignited a debate in Germany over the unwillingness of many immigrants - particularly Muslims - to integrate. Merkel last week appeared to side with immigration critics, saying at a party conference that Germany's experiment to build a "multicultural" nation had "failed, absolutely failed."
The long-liberal lands of Scandinavia and the Netherlands are also seeing a nationalist party renaissance. Last week, a conservative Dutch government came to power with the support of the anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders, who is standing trial on a charge of inciting racial hatred against Muslims. In exchange for his support, Wilders extracted promises that the new government would take dramatic steps to curb immigration and follow the French in banning full-length Muslim veils.
In recent months, right-wing and nationalist parties have also consolidated or are now poised to expand their power in Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Farther south, Italy's Northern League - which is already part of the government's ruling coalition and has opposed the construction of a mosque in Milan - won key victories in Venice and Piedmont last March.
"In many parts of Europe, the debate over immigration and Islam are now the same thing," said Lisa Bjurwald, an author and journalist based in Stockholm who has written about Muslim immigration.
Influx touches nerve
The number of immigrants in Sweden rose from 58,000 in 2000 to 102,000 last year, including refugees from Somalia and Iraq. Last year, 1.3 million people out of Sweden's population of 9.3 million were foreign-born.
The influx has touched a nerve in communities like Almgarden, a blue-collar suburb of cement-block apartment buildings and well-tended green parks outside Malmo in the Swedish south.
Tensions are running high in this traditionally more-conservative part of Sweden. Police are more frequently clashing with Muslim youths in one immigrant neighborhood; during a riot last year, dozens of angry teens torched cars and broke shop windows.
After the shootings in Malmo, authories warned immigrants to be extra vigilant. Police have not revealed details about suspects, saying only that they are looking for at least one male and that the crimes appear to be racially motivated.
The case has echoes of the "Laser Man" shootings here in the 1990s that took place around the time another far-right party briefly managed to enter the Swedish parliament. Starting in summer 1991, John Ausonius - known as Laser Man for his rifle's red-laser targeting system - shot 11 immigrants, killing one, before being caught and sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
The Swedish Democrats earned only 2 percent of the vote in liberal Stockholm but 35 percent in Almgarden.
"It isn't racist to want to preserve your culture," said Leif Johansson, a 64-year-old carpenter. "I'm open to immigration, but these people come without a thought to integration, no interest in learning Swedish or being part of Swedish society."
Indeed, the Swedish Democrats, like more and more nationalist parties in Europe, have tried to go mainstream, purging former white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Ekeroth, for instance, has a Jewish mother and strongly backs Israel. In addition, he said the Swedish Democrats no longer oppose gay rights, and he cites instances of gay-bashing committed by Muslims in Sweden to bolster his party's position on immigration. The party doubled its support from the last elections to almost 6 percent of the vote in September, allowing it to sit in parliament for the first time.
The Swedish Democrats are denounced as xenophobes by the ruling center-right coalition, which has vowed not to cooperate with their agenda. Nevertheless, even the government is rethinking parts of Sweden's immigration policy, among the most liberal in the world.
Voting from fear
While there have long been vocal anti-immigrant groups in Sweden, most Swedes in recent decades have embraced "multiculturalism," or the notion that immigrants have the right to preserve their language, customs and values.
But with a recent poll showing that 73 percent of Swedes consider the lack of integration a problem, the government is set to announce a new measure in December that would compel more immigrants to learn Swedish.
In addition, one of the major coalition parties is supporting a more limited ban on full-length Muslim veils in schools and this month came out against a panel recommendation that all major religions should be given equal time in lesson plans, saying Christianity should maintain a special status in Swedish schools.
In Stockholm's predominantly immigrant neighborhood of Rinkeby, the mood in the kebab houses and coffee shops is still one of shock at the success of the Swedish Democrats.
But Alma Adan, a 32-year-old Somali immigrant and youth counselor, said the Muslim community should also look inward. New immigrants, she said, should settle across Sweden, not just in neighborhoods like Rinkeby, and learn Swedish. Through workshops and counseling, she is trying to help young Muslims - including those who rioted in her neighborhood this summer, burning down a school building and setting cars on fire - feel more at home in their adopted homeland.
"That vote was about fear," she said, referring to support for the Swedish Democrats. "Fear among Swedes that their country is being taken away from them. But it is up to us to show them that this is not the case."
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
STOCKHOLM - On the heels of elections that stunned many in this famously progressive land, Kent Ekeroth and his peers marched through the castle-like parliament doors this month on a mission to combat what they call Sweden's greatest problem: Muslim immigration.
The 20 Swedish Democrats - the first national lawmakers from a party initially spawned in the 1980s by white supremacists - are working to impose a moratorium on new mosques, ban the shroud-like coverings worn by some conservative Muslim women and largely halt immigration from predominantly Muslim nations.
Alarm over the anti-immigrant wave intensified recently as authorities warned "dark-skinned" residents in the southern city of Malmo that one or more snipers are targeting immigrants, killing one and wounding eight in 15 separate shootings this year.
The rise to office of the Swedish Democrats in September's elections touched off a heated debate in this country, home of the Nobel Prize and known as the "conscience of the world" for aiding refugees and pioneering laws for women's equality and gay rights. Yet even here, the Swedish Democrats made it into the Rikstag by tapping into a surge of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment sweeping across many nations in Western Europe, propelling right-wing and nationalist parties to their biggest gains in years.
"The Swedish are tired of walking around in their own neighborhoods and feeling like they're in Saudi Arabia," said Ekeroth, an intense 30-year-old and founder of the new Anti-Islamic Fund, which promotes criticism of radical Islam. "It is time for the Swedish to be comfortable again in their own country."
At the same time, resentment is brewing in nations like Sweden over a rising tide of Muslim immigrants and the reluctance of some to adopt local customs, testing the limits of tolerance in some of the world's most open-minded societies.
Unlike in the United States, where Latinos dominate the immigration debate, European angst is increasingly focused on waves of Muslims - Turks, Iraqis, Somalis and others - who have become the hottest-button issue in recent elections. In Austria this month, the far-right Freedom Party made massive gains in regional elections after an anti-immigrant campaign that included a "Bye Bye Mosque" Internet game. It allowed players to target virtual minarets in elegant Vienna and pastoral Alpine villages with a single word: "stop."
With climbing unemployment rates and painful spending cuts in the aftermath of the economic crisis, even mainstream leaders of the center right, including France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, are noting the growing anti-immigration undercurrent. Through measures including a ban on the full-length veils worn by conservative Muslim women, critics say, Sarkozy is seeking the support of the far-right backers of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French nationalist who made a strong presidential bid in 2002.
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued her toughest line yet on immigrants. For weeks, Merkel has condemned Thilo Sarrazin, a former Central Bank board member turned folk hero in Germany who penned a shocking bestseller arguing that Turkish and Kurdish immigrants are genetically inferior.
But the book also ignited a debate in Germany over the unwillingness of many immigrants - particularly Muslims - to integrate. Merkel last week appeared to side with immigration critics, saying at a party conference that Germany's experiment to build a "multicultural" nation had "failed, absolutely failed."
The long-liberal lands of Scandinavia and the Netherlands are also seeing a nationalist party renaissance. Last week, a conservative Dutch government came to power with the support of the anti-Islamic party of Geert Wilders, who is standing trial on a charge of inciting racial hatred against Muslims. In exchange for his support, Wilders extracted promises that the new government would take dramatic steps to curb immigration and follow the French in banning full-length Muslim veils.
In recent months, right-wing and nationalist parties have also consolidated or are now poised to expand their power in Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Farther south, Italy's Northern League - which is already part of the government's ruling coalition and has opposed the construction of a mosque in Milan - won key victories in Venice and Piedmont last March.
"In many parts of Europe, the debate over immigration and Islam are now the same thing," said Lisa Bjurwald, an author and journalist based in Stockholm who has written about Muslim immigration.
Influx touches nerve
The number of immigrants in Sweden rose from 58,000 in 2000 to 102,000 last year, including refugees from Somalia and Iraq. Last year, 1.3 million people out of Sweden's population of 9.3 million were foreign-born.
The influx has touched a nerve in communities like Almgarden, a blue-collar suburb of cement-block apartment buildings and well-tended green parks outside Malmo in the Swedish south.
Tensions are running high in this traditionally more-conservative part of Sweden. Police are more frequently clashing with Muslim youths in one immigrant neighborhood; during a riot last year, dozens of angry teens torched cars and broke shop windows.
After the shootings in Malmo, authories warned immigrants to be extra vigilant. Police have not revealed details about suspects, saying only that they are looking for at least one male and that the crimes appear to be racially motivated.
The case has echoes of the "Laser Man" shootings here in the 1990s that took place around the time another far-right party briefly managed to enter the Swedish parliament. Starting in summer 1991, John Ausonius - known as Laser Man for his rifle's red-laser targeting system - shot 11 immigrants, killing one, before being caught and sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
The Swedish Democrats earned only 2 percent of the vote in liberal Stockholm but 35 percent in Almgarden.
"It isn't racist to want to preserve your culture," said Leif Johansson, a 64-year-old carpenter. "I'm open to immigration, but these people come without a thought to integration, no interest in learning Swedish or being part of Swedish society."
Indeed, the Swedish Democrats, like more and more nationalist parties in Europe, have tried to go mainstream, purging former white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Ekeroth, for instance, has a Jewish mother and strongly backs Israel. In addition, he said the Swedish Democrats no longer oppose gay rights, and he cites instances of gay-bashing committed by Muslims in Sweden to bolster his party's position on immigration. The party doubled its support from the last elections to almost 6 percent of the vote in September, allowing it to sit in parliament for the first time.
The Swedish Democrats are denounced as xenophobes by the ruling center-right coalition, which has vowed not to cooperate with their agenda. Nevertheless, even the government is rethinking parts of Sweden's immigration policy, among the most liberal in the world.
Voting from fear
While there have long been vocal anti-immigrant groups in Sweden, most Swedes in recent decades have embraced "multiculturalism," or the notion that immigrants have the right to preserve their language, customs and values.
But with a recent poll showing that 73 percent of Swedes consider the lack of integration a problem, the government is set to announce a new measure in December that would compel more immigrants to learn Swedish.
In addition, one of the major coalition parties is supporting a more limited ban on full-length Muslim veils in schools and this month came out against a panel recommendation that all major religions should be given equal time in lesson plans, saying Christianity should maintain a special status in Swedish schools.
In Stockholm's predominantly immigrant neighborhood of Rinkeby, the mood in the kebab houses and coffee shops is still one of shock at the success of the Swedish Democrats.
But Alma Adan, a 32-year-old Somali immigrant and youth counselor, said the Muslim community should also look inward. New immigrants, she said, should settle across Sweden, not just in neighborhoods like Rinkeby, and learn Swedish. Through workshops and counseling, she is trying to help young Muslims - including those who rioted in her neighborhood this summer, burning down a school building and setting cars on fire - feel more at home in their adopted homeland.
"That vote was about fear," she said, referring to support for the Swedish Democrats. "Fear among Swedes that their country is being taken away from them. But it is up to us to show them that this is not the case."
Friday, January 8, 2010
Racism in Dubai
from Just Landed (a Blog)
Hi guys! I found this thread with experiences from other expatriates on Gulfnews - this should answer some of your question
Clubbers in Dubai have claimed that they are often turned away from some nightspots because of their race.
Many Dubai residents have stories about being refused entry to various clubs in the city because it is 'couples and reservations only', and a recent Gulf News online poll revealed that 70 per cent of people thought they had been turned away from a club due to racism.
Club and bar owners in Dubai deny that they have racist policies - some saying that groups of men often cried racism after being denied entry, others said they were often too busy to let people in.
Do you think some clubs in Dubai have racist policies? Do you think you've been turned away from a bar because of your race? Are people using the race card simply because they've been refused entry? What can be done to alleviate any problem that may exist?
Thank you for your response. This topic is now closed. No more emails will be published on this page
Last night my friend and I were refused entry to a club for no apparent reason. First they said it was a private graduate party, but then they let some Europeans in. Little did the bouncer know that I was in fact a guest of the graduate party, however they did not care. I think the policy of the night club makes me sick; I’m an Indian who’s been in London, Australia and California for the past six years and I have never experienced such treatment.
Abhijeeth
By email
Bouncers are not only racist, but they are also rude. If the argument is don't blame the bouncers they are working under management orders, then I believe that they have also been told to treat any dark skinned men, i.e. Arab, Asian or African, like an animal, while they graciously open the door to any white clubbers. Not only do we get refused entry, but they stand 'in your face' with a disgusted look on their face. Once we were not allowed in and left outside the club for being an uneven ratio of males to females, five guys and three girls. They claimed it was couples entry only and during our argument three young, white lads walked right in and received a smile on their way. It's outrageous, just disgusting. Have we forgotten where we are? Last time I checked this wasn’t London or Berlin or Paris, but an Arab/Asian country.
Anonymous
By email
As an Indian born in Dubai and having lived in Dubai my entire life, but currently residing in Australia, I have seen both sides of the proverbial river. I can safely say that I have yet to face racism in Australia, but while in Dubai it was almost a daily occurrence. In Dubai racism is prevalent; it seems to be encouraged and segregation enforced, for example the discrimination that occurs when attending/entering night clubs and this it just the tip of the iceberg.
Anonymous
By email
I'm a black African and when I was in Dubai I was turned away from several nightclubs and it was obvious to me that it was because of my race. I was also almost in a fight for just trying to speak to a woman in Dubai. Some men did not take kindly to me speaking to an Arab woman and threatened me with violence. We must stick together to some degree or the Europeans will destroy us both.
James
By email
Clearly racism is part and parcel of life, as anybody living in the UAE should know. You just have to pick up the classifieds to know what I am talking about. Anyway, I would think that this is a much more serious issue for a progressive society than being barred from clubs. We all know what half of them are like anyway. Trust me, you are not missing much.
Jabber
By email
Racism exists in Dubai's nightclubs but I would not say to a large extent. I've frequented numerous clubs in the past but have been turned away only thrice from three different clubs. Quite obviously, the rejections were race-based. How else could one explain a no-stags policy when hoardes of White men are allowed in at the same time? What else would you understand when you are not let in since you have no reservations or you are not a guest while other nationalities are given entry without a whimper? But please don't blame the bouncers...they are under the management's orders. Racism is not only obvious at the entry point, some clubs have the serving staff instructed not to entertain certain race so that they don't stick in there for long. I guess, they are only trying to create a perfect world! On a positive note, there are so many wonderful nightclubs waiting with their arms wide open and they even entertain better.
Rizwan
Dubai
Racism does exist in clubs in Dubai. The bouncers often give a suspicious look to certain 'Dubai residents' from an Asian decent. I have myself faced this. I think its time tht the management of these places take a note of this and understand that these groups are large in numbers and may even contribute more to their bottom line numbers (if given a chance) than the other expats.
Anand
by email
Hello, I'm born Canadian of African/Arab roots who looks Indian and I'll vouch for the comments above there is huge racism in clubs here. If I go to the pub with my white friends they bend over backwards to welcome me in but if I'm meeting them inside or come on my own there are instances where they won't let me in. I was at a bar in Bur Dubai, was a regular there for a few months (no longer) went in with my girlfriend they asked for her ID after looking at it and seeing her nationality they said 'no I'm sorry reservations only' and then let the five white people behind us go in no questions asked. So I'm sorry there is blatant racism here, no question. Dubai has changed considerably and the colour of your skin is not indicative to your income or education level and it is about time that people realize this.
Fayz
Dubai
Every time. That's how many times we face racism in UAE's Nightclubs. Even though I am fair, and most of my friends are from India, we (mixed groups) are denied entry at Dubai and Abu Dhabi nightclubs. It's absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes we flash stacks of money to show these bouncers that we are monetarily eligible to be entertained at their nightclubs. Its embarrassing. My boyfriend personally tips the bouncers 100 bucks to remember his group of friends. How sad is that? DTCM needs to take severe action. We Indians have the money to buy you guys out and yet they treat us like trash. And if you ask any Indian, they will tell you the same thing, "Yeah! Only reservations or guests are allowed". But then you see flocks of white stags and couples walking in. It's frustrating and extremely embarrassing. Look at the nightclubs in Toronto or NYC. 100 times better than Dubai's nightscene and yet very gracious to every colour of human race that walks in.
Emilie
Dubai
I think this whole article is shameful and should not have been published. The racism in this country is probably the lowest in the world. And all I see this article doing is firing-up racism between people and encouraging it even further. From my point of view, nightclubs are private businesses and not some sort of public parks made to amuse the public. The owners have every right to let-in or stop people in whichever way they see serves the interest of the business. I hope not to see such articles in your newspaper in the future as it is only gives negative impressions about your newspaper and the country.
Hani
by email
Once, a friend and I were walking in to a club on Shaikh Zayed Road. Prior to walking in, we were talking in Arabic, then to our surprise the bouncer wouldn't let us in! He said only couples are allowed (the oldest excuse in the book). To our amazement, two guys walk past and go in without hesitation, why? Well because they were blonde haired guys speaking in a heavy British accent. After yelling and screaming, we told him we are Lebanese and proud, but to make them feel stupid, I took out my Australian passport, and my friend took out his Canadian passport. That's right, I was born in Australia and my friend in Canada, even though this, i am not ashamed of my roots and heritage. To make things worse, he said that, "I didnt know you were foreign". They begged us to go in, but my pride was worth more than a glass of beer.
Elmo
Dubai
I do understand the reason for an enterprise to maintain the male to female ratio in a night club, but blatant discrimination is certainly not the remedy. If companies recruiting in the UAE can boldly state the nationality of the candidate they are seeking, then I don't see anything wrong for a nightclub to clearly state who their target audience is. It's high time they clean up their act. They welcome everyone on a weekday, when business is low and then keep the same client out during the weekends, when they wish to patronise a particular section of the people. Ridiculous.
Arjun
Dubai
Hi guys! I found this thread with experiences from other expatriates on Gulfnews - this should answer some of your question
Clubbers in Dubai have claimed that they are often turned away from some nightspots because of their race.
Many Dubai residents have stories about being refused entry to various clubs in the city because it is 'couples and reservations only', and a recent Gulf News online poll revealed that 70 per cent of people thought they had been turned away from a club due to racism.
Club and bar owners in Dubai deny that they have racist policies - some saying that groups of men often cried racism after being denied entry, others said they were often too busy to let people in.
Do you think some clubs in Dubai have racist policies? Do you think you've been turned away from a bar because of your race? Are people using the race card simply because they've been refused entry? What can be done to alleviate any problem that may exist?
Thank you for your response. This topic is now closed. No more emails will be published on this page
Last night my friend and I were refused entry to a club for no apparent reason. First they said it was a private graduate party, but then they let some Europeans in. Little did the bouncer know that I was in fact a guest of the graduate party, however they did not care. I think the policy of the night club makes me sick; I’m an Indian who’s been in London, Australia and California for the past six years and I have never experienced such treatment.
Abhijeeth
By email
Bouncers are not only racist, but they are also rude. If the argument is don't blame the bouncers they are working under management orders, then I believe that they have also been told to treat any dark skinned men, i.e. Arab, Asian or African, like an animal, while they graciously open the door to any white clubbers. Not only do we get refused entry, but they stand 'in your face' with a disgusted look on their face. Once we were not allowed in and left outside the club for being an uneven ratio of males to females, five guys and three girls. They claimed it was couples entry only and during our argument three young, white lads walked right in and received a smile on their way. It's outrageous, just disgusting. Have we forgotten where we are? Last time I checked this wasn’t London or Berlin or Paris, but an Arab/Asian country.
Anonymous
By email
As an Indian born in Dubai and having lived in Dubai my entire life, but currently residing in Australia, I have seen both sides of the proverbial river. I can safely say that I have yet to face racism in Australia, but while in Dubai it was almost a daily occurrence. In Dubai racism is prevalent; it seems to be encouraged and segregation enforced, for example the discrimination that occurs when attending/entering night clubs and this it just the tip of the iceberg.
Anonymous
By email
I'm a black African and when I was in Dubai I was turned away from several nightclubs and it was obvious to me that it was because of my race. I was also almost in a fight for just trying to speak to a woman in Dubai. Some men did not take kindly to me speaking to an Arab woman and threatened me with violence. We must stick together to some degree or the Europeans will destroy us both.
James
By email
Clearly racism is part and parcel of life, as anybody living in the UAE should know. You just have to pick up the classifieds to know what I am talking about. Anyway, I would think that this is a much more serious issue for a progressive society than being barred from clubs. We all know what half of them are like anyway. Trust me, you are not missing much.
Jabber
By email
Racism exists in Dubai's nightclubs but I would not say to a large extent. I've frequented numerous clubs in the past but have been turned away only thrice from three different clubs. Quite obviously, the rejections were race-based. How else could one explain a no-stags policy when hoardes of White men are allowed in at the same time? What else would you understand when you are not let in since you have no reservations or you are not a guest while other nationalities are given entry without a whimper? But please don't blame the bouncers...they are under the management's orders. Racism is not only obvious at the entry point, some clubs have the serving staff instructed not to entertain certain race so that they don't stick in there for long. I guess, they are only trying to create a perfect world! On a positive note, there are so many wonderful nightclubs waiting with their arms wide open and they even entertain better.
Rizwan
Dubai
Racism does exist in clubs in Dubai. The bouncers often give a suspicious look to certain 'Dubai residents' from an Asian decent. I have myself faced this. I think its time tht the management of these places take a note of this and understand that these groups are large in numbers and may even contribute more to their bottom line numbers (if given a chance) than the other expats.
Anand
by email
Hello, I'm born Canadian of African/Arab roots who looks Indian and I'll vouch for the comments above there is huge racism in clubs here. If I go to the pub with my white friends they bend over backwards to welcome me in but if I'm meeting them inside or come on my own there are instances where they won't let me in. I was at a bar in Bur Dubai, was a regular there for a few months (no longer) went in with my girlfriend they asked for her ID after looking at it and seeing her nationality they said 'no I'm sorry reservations only' and then let the five white people behind us go in no questions asked. So I'm sorry there is blatant racism here, no question. Dubai has changed considerably and the colour of your skin is not indicative to your income or education level and it is about time that people realize this.
Fayz
Dubai
Every time. That's how many times we face racism in UAE's Nightclubs. Even though I am fair, and most of my friends are from India, we (mixed groups) are denied entry at Dubai and Abu Dhabi nightclubs. It's absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes we flash stacks of money to show these bouncers that we are monetarily eligible to be entertained at their nightclubs. Its embarrassing. My boyfriend personally tips the bouncers 100 bucks to remember his group of friends. How sad is that? DTCM needs to take severe action. We Indians have the money to buy you guys out and yet they treat us like trash. And if you ask any Indian, they will tell you the same thing, "Yeah! Only reservations or guests are allowed". But then you see flocks of white stags and couples walking in. It's frustrating and extremely embarrassing. Look at the nightclubs in Toronto or NYC. 100 times better than Dubai's nightscene and yet very gracious to every colour of human race that walks in.
Emilie
Dubai
I think this whole article is shameful and should not have been published. The racism in this country is probably the lowest in the world. And all I see this article doing is firing-up racism between people and encouraging it even further. From my point of view, nightclubs are private businesses and not some sort of public parks made to amuse the public. The owners have every right to let-in or stop people in whichever way they see serves the interest of the business. I hope not to see such articles in your newspaper in the future as it is only gives negative impressions about your newspaper and the country.
Hani
by email
Once, a friend and I were walking in to a club on Shaikh Zayed Road. Prior to walking in, we were talking in Arabic, then to our surprise the bouncer wouldn't let us in! He said only couples are allowed (the oldest excuse in the book). To our amazement, two guys walk past and go in without hesitation, why? Well because they were blonde haired guys speaking in a heavy British accent. After yelling and screaming, we told him we are Lebanese and proud, but to make them feel stupid, I took out my Australian passport, and my friend took out his Canadian passport. That's right, I was born in Australia and my friend in Canada, even though this, i am not ashamed of my roots and heritage. To make things worse, he said that, "I didnt know you were foreign". They begged us to go in, but my pride was worth more than a glass of beer.
Elmo
Dubai
I do understand the reason for an enterprise to maintain the male to female ratio in a night club, but blatant discrimination is certainly not the remedy. If companies recruiting in the UAE can boldly state the nationality of the candidate they are seeking, then I don't see anything wrong for a nightclub to clearly state who their target audience is. It's high time they clean up their act. They welcome everyone on a weekday, when business is low and then keep the same client out during the weekends, when they wish to patronise a particular section of the people. Ridiculous.
Arjun
Dubai
Monday, July 13, 2009
On Chinabounder
08.31.2006
So You Want To Be A China Sex Blogger
Idlewords (blog)
Sometime this May there appeared a weblog called Sex in Shanghai, detailing the adventures of a British expatriate seducing various ex-students from his English classes. The blogger, who called himself chinabounder, was in his mid-thirties and had been living in China for five years. His sexual experience prior to moving to China had been limited to one long-term relationship, but after initially shacking up with a woman in Shenzhen he had decided to take full advantage of his new circumstances and start increasing his bedpost notch count in earnest.
He was not the first Western guy to treat China as his own personal sexual buffet. To put it in the D&D terms that many of the guys who benefit most from the effect will readily understand, living in China gives you +4 attractiveness. The love handles (metaphorically) shrink, the hairline advances, teeth straighten, previously soupy eyes blaze with a new rakish light. You are in a country where people actually *choose* to have brown hair. You find that things that are off-putting back home have magically transformed into positive attributes in your new environment. You're a computer programmer? You're quiet and like to read? You live with your parents? You never drink? You are sexually inexperienced?
HEARTTHROB!
And not only do your most pedestrian habits and opinions take on the shine of the exotic, but you'll find that expectations of you as a Western man have been conditioned by American movies, American television shows, and whispered stories about minor Casanovas like chinabounder. You're halfway to James Bond before you even step off the plane.
Most guys are able to take this in stride (so this is what it feels like to be a woman!), but there is always the small minority of men who find themselves up at one in the morning, writing blog posts entitled Undressing Tingting.
'Sex in Shanghai' started with big aspirations. It was to supposed to be a pornographic Notes From the Underground (you had the sense that the author wanted someone to call his journal 'unflinching'). Between lurid descriptions of how sore he was making his various conquests there were David Brent-like interludes of introspection when our hero would peer into the spiritual abyss (glancing from the corner of his eye to make sure we noticed), and sigh over his inability to ever truly love. Behold, reader, the noble heart of Man!
Grappling daily with his conscience, Chinabounder unfortunately neglected to grapple with his writing style. As his taste for windy political and social commentary grew stronger, the site began to sound less like the confessions of a soulful libertine and more like Penthouse Forum as interpreted by Rush Limbaugh. Chinabounder found the Chinese press servile, Chinese men undersexed and passive, Chinese society paternalistic, the Communist Party a criminal gerontocracy, the city of Shanghai a loosely-disguised group of peasants, and he was not afraid of interrupting the sexy bits to go on and on and on and on about it.
Less forgivably, he was careless about hiding the identity of his lovers. These were women who never dreamed that their most intimate moments and words would find themselves on one of the most popular sex journals in China. While their names were changed, many details of the encounters were not, and the long verbatim chat transcripts and text messages chinabounder posted were simply mortifying. Where was the admirable, unflinching honesty in letting other people read your lovers' email? So I had no sympathy when the inevitable happened.
Chinese censorship is a bit of a creaky machine. There is no master blacklist of sites that are disallowed; instead, service providers are supposed to use their own good judgement about what hurts China. Naturally this leads everyone to err massively on the side of safety, but still the political mood has its ebbs and flows, and the list of blocked sites grows and shrinks accordingly.
A few days ago, Blogspot sites were taken off the banned list, and then it became a matter of time before someone with a Chinese audience found that weblog.
The lucky winner was Zhang Jiehai, a nutty professor of social sciences at a university in Shanghai who might charitably be said to have some issues regarding foreigners dating Chinese women. When Zhang visited chinabounder's site, he became very, very upset and decided to alert the Chinese Internet to what this 'piece of garbage' was up to in Shanghai. His lengthy post (translated in full at EastSouthNorthWest) was a call to arms to all patriotic, red-blooded Chinese 'netizens' to ensure that chinabounder was expelled from China. Zhang's jeremiad ended with a two point plan:
Phase One (From today to early September)
"During this phase, will various compatriot netizens please send this essay to all your friends via email and then ask your friends to send to all their friends? After sending this out five times, this may reach everyone who owns a computer in China. Through the forums and blogs, we will let more people (especially Chinese women) know about this affair. Since the affair occurred within the universities, we ask that this to be posted at all the university BBS's in Shanghai.
Only letting all the Chinese women know about this affair can have a truly educational effect. By reducing the number of that kind of Chinese women, we can destroy this kind of ugly foreigners. Otherwise, we get rid of one piece of garbage but many more pieces of garbage will come.
Phase Two (Early September to Mid September)
We let the Shanghai (and even the national) media pay attention to this affair and apply pressure to the relevant departments in Shanghai. With sufficient pressure, I believe that this piece of garbage can be kicked out of China. My goal is to kick him out of China before National Day! [Oct 1]"
Chinabounder responded almost instantly with an angry rebuttal that did his prose no favors. But events were moving quickly; Chinese readers had decided to skip straight to Phase Two of Zhang's plan. A Blogspot site called whoischinabounder was launched, with the goal of unmasking chinabounder's true identity based on details culled from his blog posts. This site was so successful that by the first day they had already found three of him, with signs that more were to come. English teachers in Shanghai had reason to be nervous.
By August 29th, after a massive spike in traffic, chinabounder closed his weblog. By August 30th, the story had hit many of the major mainland and Hong Kong websites. One of my posts from 2002 is titled 'sex in shanghai', and you can see the spike in collateral search hits that accompanied the kerfuffle:
As of today, Zhang's weblog post (in Chinese) has received almost 100,000 hits, and the story is spinning into one of the predictable storms that race across the Chinese internet. With its perfect blend of sex, politics, race and the inevitable Japan angle (one of chinabounder's rants ridiculed the anti-Japanese obsession here), the story looks ready to become a smash hit.
Net culture in China works a bit the way television media works in the States. People fix on one or two big stories of the day, and these get a national audience. There is also a tradition of online vigilantism in cases where someone has done something particularly vile - had an extramarital affair within the World of Warcraft online game, for example - and people will readily mobilize to defend good morals and the national honor. Chinabounder's case, which hits the trifecta of national pride, sex and Japan hatred, will be interesting to follow.
In autocratic and authoritarian countries there are often folk tales that involve someone with a grievance making his way past evil advisers and local powerful people to get to the benevolent but unaware monarch to seek redress. This is a universal theme - bypassing the Sherrif of Nottingham, reaching the tsar, telling your woes to Comrade Stalin, whomever - implying that justice can always prevail. The internet has added an interesting populist twist to this. Tell your story convincingly, and online heroes will take up your cause and fix your problem. In China, these 'heroes' take the form of stalkers who will work hard to track down and harass the offending party. This is the fate likely to befall chinabounder.
So now we have two sides - an unappetizing sexual taxidermist and a nationalist, racist mob whose response seems pretty evenly divided between blaming the dissolute sluts who allow this kind of shame to descend on their homeland and calling for the head of the filthy foreigner teachers who abuse their station. The only hero of the story is the indefatigable Roland Soong, author of the EastSouthWestNorth weblog, who makes it his mission to translate a river of material from the Chinese language press (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese) into English every day. Having worked for a while as a short-notice translator, I can't begin to understand how he can find the time and energy to translate so much material, let alone provide context and very balanced commentary, but there it is. For anyone who wants to learn more about online culture in China without speaking the language his blog is a superb resource.
--------------
a reasonable western take - here
a much more common and typical western take - here.
So You Want To Be A China Sex Blogger
Idlewords (blog)
Sometime this May there appeared a weblog called Sex in Shanghai, detailing the adventures of a British expatriate seducing various ex-students from his English classes. The blogger, who called himself chinabounder, was in his mid-thirties and had been living in China for five years. His sexual experience prior to moving to China had been limited to one long-term relationship, but after initially shacking up with a woman in Shenzhen he had decided to take full advantage of his new circumstances and start increasing his bedpost notch count in earnest.
He was not the first Western guy to treat China as his own personal sexual buffet. To put it in the D&D terms that many of the guys who benefit most from the effect will readily understand, living in China gives you +4 attractiveness. The love handles (metaphorically) shrink, the hairline advances, teeth straighten, previously soupy eyes blaze with a new rakish light. You are in a country where people actually *choose* to have brown hair. You find that things that are off-putting back home have magically transformed into positive attributes in your new environment. You're a computer programmer? You're quiet and like to read? You live with your parents? You never drink? You are sexually inexperienced?
HEARTTHROB!
And not only do your most pedestrian habits and opinions take on the shine of the exotic, but you'll find that expectations of you as a Western man have been conditioned by American movies, American television shows, and whispered stories about minor Casanovas like chinabounder. You're halfway to James Bond before you even step off the plane.
Most guys are able to take this in stride (so this is what it feels like to be a woman!), but there is always the small minority of men who find themselves up at one in the morning, writing blog posts entitled Undressing Tingting.
'Sex in Shanghai' started with big aspirations. It was to supposed to be a pornographic Notes From the Underground (you had the sense that the author wanted someone to call his journal 'unflinching'). Between lurid descriptions of how sore he was making his various conquests there were David Brent-like interludes of introspection when our hero would peer into the spiritual abyss (glancing from the corner of his eye to make sure we noticed), and sigh over his inability to ever truly love. Behold, reader, the noble heart of Man!
Grappling daily with his conscience, Chinabounder unfortunately neglected to grapple with his writing style. As his taste for windy political and social commentary grew stronger, the site began to sound less like the confessions of a soulful libertine and more like Penthouse Forum as interpreted by Rush Limbaugh. Chinabounder found the Chinese press servile, Chinese men undersexed and passive, Chinese society paternalistic, the Communist Party a criminal gerontocracy, the city of Shanghai a loosely-disguised group of peasants, and he was not afraid of interrupting the sexy bits to go on and on and on and on about it.
Less forgivably, he was careless about hiding the identity of his lovers. These were women who never dreamed that their most intimate moments and words would find themselves on one of the most popular sex journals in China. While their names were changed, many details of the encounters were not, and the long verbatim chat transcripts and text messages chinabounder posted were simply mortifying. Where was the admirable, unflinching honesty in letting other people read your lovers' email? So I had no sympathy when the inevitable happened.
Chinese censorship is a bit of a creaky machine. There is no master blacklist of sites that are disallowed; instead, service providers are supposed to use their own good judgement about what hurts China. Naturally this leads everyone to err massively on the side of safety, but still the political mood has its ebbs and flows, and the list of blocked sites grows and shrinks accordingly.
A few days ago, Blogspot sites were taken off the banned list, and then it became a matter of time before someone with a Chinese audience found that weblog.
The lucky winner was Zhang Jiehai, a nutty professor of social sciences at a university in Shanghai who might charitably be said to have some issues regarding foreigners dating Chinese women. When Zhang visited chinabounder's site, he became very, very upset and decided to alert the Chinese Internet to what this 'piece of garbage' was up to in Shanghai. His lengthy post (translated in full at EastSouthNorthWest) was a call to arms to all patriotic, red-blooded Chinese 'netizens' to ensure that chinabounder was expelled from China. Zhang's jeremiad ended with a two point plan:
Phase One (From today to early September)
"During this phase, will various compatriot netizens please send this essay to all your friends via email and then ask your friends to send to all their friends? After sending this out five times, this may reach everyone who owns a computer in China. Through the forums and blogs, we will let more people (especially Chinese women) know about this affair. Since the affair occurred within the universities, we ask that this to be posted at all the university BBS's in Shanghai.
Only letting all the Chinese women know about this affair can have a truly educational effect. By reducing the number of that kind of Chinese women, we can destroy this kind of ugly foreigners. Otherwise, we get rid of one piece of garbage but many more pieces of garbage will come.
Phase Two (Early September to Mid September)
We let the Shanghai (and even the national) media pay attention to this affair and apply pressure to the relevant departments in Shanghai. With sufficient pressure, I believe that this piece of garbage can be kicked out of China. My goal is to kick him out of China before National Day! [Oct 1]"
Chinabounder responded almost instantly with an angry rebuttal that did his prose no favors. But events were moving quickly; Chinese readers had decided to skip straight to Phase Two of Zhang's plan. A Blogspot site called whoischinabounder was launched, with the goal of unmasking chinabounder's true identity based on details culled from his blog posts. This site was so successful that by the first day they had already found three of him, with signs that more were to come. English teachers in Shanghai had reason to be nervous.
By August 29th, after a massive spike in traffic, chinabounder closed his weblog. By August 30th, the story had hit many of the major mainland and Hong Kong websites. One of my posts from 2002 is titled 'sex in shanghai', and you can see the spike in collateral search hits that accompanied the kerfuffle:
As of today, Zhang's weblog post (in Chinese) has received almost 100,000 hits, and the story is spinning into one of the predictable storms that race across the Chinese internet. With its perfect blend of sex, politics, race and the inevitable Japan angle (one of chinabounder's rants ridiculed the anti-Japanese obsession here), the story looks ready to become a smash hit.
Net culture in China works a bit the way television media works in the States. People fix on one or two big stories of the day, and these get a national audience. There is also a tradition of online vigilantism in cases where someone has done something particularly vile - had an extramarital affair within the World of Warcraft online game, for example - and people will readily mobilize to defend good morals and the national honor. Chinabounder's case, which hits the trifecta of national pride, sex and Japan hatred, will be interesting to follow.
In autocratic and authoritarian countries there are often folk tales that involve someone with a grievance making his way past evil advisers and local powerful people to get to the benevolent but unaware monarch to seek redress. This is a universal theme - bypassing the Sherrif of Nottingham, reaching the tsar, telling your woes to Comrade Stalin, whomever - implying that justice can always prevail. The internet has added an interesting populist twist to this. Tell your story convincingly, and online heroes will take up your cause and fix your problem. In China, these 'heroes' take the form of stalkers who will work hard to track down and harass the offending party. This is the fate likely to befall chinabounder.
So now we have two sides - an unappetizing sexual taxidermist and a nationalist, racist mob whose response seems pretty evenly divided between blaming the dissolute sluts who allow this kind of shame to descend on their homeland and calling for the head of the filthy foreigner teachers who abuse their station. The only hero of the story is the indefatigable Roland Soong, author of the EastSouthWestNorth weblog, who makes it his mission to translate a river of material from the Chinese language press (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese) into English every day. Having worked for a while as a short-notice translator, I can't begin to understand how he can find the time and energy to translate so much material, let alone provide context and very balanced commentary, but there it is. For anyone who wants to learn more about online culture in China without speaking the language his blog is a superb resource.
--------------
a reasonable western take - here
a much more common and typical western take - here.
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