After the now famous case of the deported British couple after they had sex on a public beach, Dubai has officially issued a code of conduct for its 1 million, more or less, foreign residents and millions more tourists.
[The sex-on-the-beach couple. I was all for their arrest and subsequent deportation. Not because I object to sex on the beach, but because a couple that looks like that just should not be having sex at all. I mean, that is just awful. The thought of them too … ugh.]
The commission behind the code was chaired by Sheikh Hamdan al-Maktoum, the crown prince of Dubai, so this was a priority for the regime. The code, which has yet to become law, will regulate public dancing, dress, drinking, and affection.
“The code stresses tolerance and respect for diversity as cornerstones of Dubai’s success,” but then goes on state that those who fail to respect local morals will face consequences of jail, fines and deportation. One, presumably, may fall victim to more than one of the aforementioned punishments.
The law may undermine Dubai’s effort to become a global hot spot. Deporting a couple for public sex may seem harsh, but at least it was it was an unacceptable public act that the state is reasonable in prosecuting. After, in the United States public indecency cares a fine. But Dubai’s rulers are not prosecuting people for engaging in private behavior that is not any of the state’s business, regardless of the moral merit.
A British woman, a mother of two, was recently arrested for adultery. This treatment is extremely regressive and akin to the Wahhabi-style justice found in neighboring Backward Arabia [or Saudi Arabia].
And Dubai’s so-called morality campaign have targeted homosexuals as well. Again, say what you want about the morality of homosexuality, but it is not the state’s responsibility – in a decent society, anyway – to interfere in the private behavior of consenting adults.
The law will go further: “confining dancers to enclosed places, drinkers to designated bars, swimsuit-wearers to [select] beaches.”
So I guess Dubai’s big plan was to set the country back 500 years.
But, as The Economist notes, “Dubai will still look ragingly liberal compared with its neighbours.”
There isn’t a country with a more contemptible establishment – save for North Korea – than Saudi Arabia. This is a nation that is under the thumb of a bunch of breaded, religious fanatics. At a recent Saudi book fair – where no doubt only a limited aura of state-approved texts were showcased – “religious police . . . patrolled the city’s annual book fair earlier this month to prevent any hint of mingling between the sexes. Three Saudi writers complained that they were hustled off for interrogation after trying to get a novel signed by its female Saudi author.”
But this almost decent compared to this: “Last week a Saudi judge sentenced a 75-year-old widow to four months in jail and 40 lashes for inviting two young men into her house. The errant youths, one of them a nephew of the woman’s late husband, said they had simply been kind enough to bring the elderly lady some loaves of bread.”
What the fuck is the matter with these ass-wipes? Why isn’t Saudi Arabia the daily concern for the UN’s human-rights council? I’ll tell you why: because the UN is a bought institution via Saudi oil money. Do you really think that an institution that is the recipient of largess is going to attack that hand that feeds it? Of course not. The UN is only interested – mostly – in protecting tyrants from criticisms. It has been corrupted by dictators. That is why there should be a new League of Democracies so that a world body is not tarnished by including indecent members like the Saudi government.
