Job Discussion Forums

[secretsquirrel]

In light of the press-dubbed 'Arab Spring', it's now very clear that the authorities in the UAE are taking precautions to secure the privileged position of the ruling families.

What many lecturers and teachers have been secretly dreading for a long time has finally occurred. Two professors, world-renown human rights advocates, were arrested last week by the UAE police goons.

Their apparent crime was simply discussing political reform. Not being good little citizens and keeping their mouths shut and doing what they were told may well cost them their jobs and lives, it seems.

Main links to the case are here:

Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE25/001/2011/en/0c9cfcb7-97c4-49d4-81dd-35e51657d716/mde250012011en.html

New York Universityhttp://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2011/04/12/uae-detains-prominent-professor-raising-questions-about-academic-freedom-at-nyuad/

Ahmed Mansoor Activist on Twitter[url]http://twitter.com/#!/ahmed_mansoor[/url]

Now, do you STILL want to come and teach in the UAE? Comparisons to Iran and China are valed here, I believe.

[Cleopatra]

I think the UAE's wealth and glitzy, luxury beach resort image blinds a lot of people to the fact that concepts such as human rights and freedom of speech are essentially non-existent. Same goes for all the other GCC countries. If you come to this part of the world, you should know that all discussions regarding politics are completely off limits in the classroom, and that you should also be very careful about what you say in informal conversations with locals. As you say, comparisons to China or Iran are not that far off the mark in this regard.

I see that one of the men arrested worked for the 'Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne' (I kid you not!) Will his university's 'mother institution' have anything to say about his detention?

[Sheikh N Bake]

NYU-AD admin simply repeats the usual platitudes: "We are a diverse group....by focusing on our core mission of being a powerful center of ideas...blah blah blah...."

[2buckets]

Maktoons and Nayahans: your time is coming too.

[veiledsentiments]

[republocrat]

I see in this report from The National that calling for universal suffrage is now viewed as "threatening UAE security"?!?!

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/five-emiratis-arrested-for-threatening-uae-security

Clearly the place can't be that secure if a mere call for voting rights threatens to destabilise it!

Yeh, let's just watch those dominos fall, guys! But not before I pick up my gratuity (12 years!) and fly out of here!!

[veiledsentiments]

By "universal suffrage" do they mean all Emiratis? or all residents?

Yes... I know the answer...

Likely they want even... Emirati women... to vote. The horror...

VS

[Warning Bells]

[Pikgitina]

I agree with Warning Bells. I guess it comes down to choosing your battles...carefully. If Bahrain is anything to go by, then there is still no room for political reform nor dissent.

If Emiratis really want change, they can try and bring it about. Without really wanting it, why would they risk everything they've worked so hard for?

[Sheikh N Bake]

Ha ha. That they've paid foreigners to work so hard for. Including essentially slave laborers.

[2buckets]

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/

An interesting analysis on GPS (Global Public Square), with Fareed Zakaria on CNN this morning with the following guests suggested that no country in the Middle East including S.Arabia, Qatar and the UAE will escape the winds of change, although in some places it may take years.

- Martin Indyk, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.
- Fawaz Gerges, the Director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics
- Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera English�s Cairo-based correspondent who was recently named one of TIME Magazines 100 most influential people in the world.
- Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and former deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush.

[D. Merit]

[2buckets]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html?hp

They must be expecting trouble.

[veiledsentiments]

You knew that would happen when the sleazeball that started Blackwater moved there to be able to avoid any litigation related to their agenda. Next you convince each country in the Gulf to form a mercenary group by working on their paranoia and suck out the big bucks... since they are already sucking wads of money from the US Treasury.

It will be the next Gulf ruler fad... then in a few years, they can all be doing black ops against each other, us, and the rest of the world.

Grand idea...

VS

[caliph]

Well, at least some of those petro-dollars will be heading back to the west, and it's non-polluting.