I was recently in Abu Dhabi and learned that the population of the United Arab Emirates is about 90 percent foreign born. And it’s peaceful. Part of that has to do with surveillance, but I think there’s more to it.
Ireland had riots this past weekend over immigration concerns. But immigrants only make up about 20 percent of the Irish population.
Why is 90 percent okay in the UAE and 20 percent a problem in Ireland?
I’m not trying to pick on Ireland. We see the same problem in many countries. It’s just that Ireland is in the news right now.
I don’t know all the details, but it seems to me that it has to do with whether the leadership in the country believes in their national culture. The UAE has an unapologetic Muslim culture. They’re tolerant of other cultures, but they make no excuses for being Muslim.
Western countries, by contrast, don’t seem to know what they are, or what they stand for.
What does it mean to be an American, or an Irishman? We don’t seem to know.
The West seems to be suffering from an identity crisis, and I don’t think they’ll be able to come to terms with immigration issues until they decide what they are, and why, and what they want to be.
Is there any more precision in the stats you’re citing?
For instance, it’s easy to understand 90% foreign born. Now, foreign born could mean Saudi Arabia and the difference between someone from SA and UAE is negligible. In fact, UAE only exists because the Saudis let it. If they wanted to swallow it up, who could stop them? Plus, all the entitled in SA can go play in UAE and do things the law won’t allow them in SA…. But, I digress… The 90% easy to understand, what percentage is basically the same culture is a number not broken out.
Same goes with Ireland being 20% immigrants… Are you saying 20% are foreign born? Some might lump the anchor babies as part of the immigrant population…although “anchor baby” is more of a US term. Are we talking northern Ireland (UK) or southern Ireland (the republic)? Does the 20% number include those born in Scotland, England, or Wales?
I talked online with someone from the Philippines. She was a maid for a period in UAE. Her employers/masters took her passport when she arrived and would occasionally beat her… because they could. Why they might have less of a problem in the UAE with the foreign born population is because they are deathly afraid of what might happen to them. Sidewalks are cleaner in Singapore, right? Sidewalks are cleaner in Germany, too, but that’s more of a cultural re-inforcement whereas in Singapore it’s more of a legal matter… Germany vs Singapore = “I don’t want to be shamed” vs “I don’t want to be caned.”
Certainly there are a lot of questions. Anecdotally (based on my very limited experience) is that the 90 percent are from all over. Africa, other ME countries, Europe. But I don’t know what the actual percentages are.
My real point is that the question of national identity doesn’t seem to be raised often enough in conversations about immigration.
The beautiful thing about the west is that it allows us to be who we want to be: that is to say, individualism. National identity, from that standpoint, is and should be secondary.
The other question to ask is it immigration for citizenship or just work visas?
For instance, visited Mackinac Island in Michigan this summer. Almost all the workers (95+%) are imported. The number of full time residents is small. Sometimes the workers are imported from Indiana like one waitress we met. Other times, they are imported from Romania–like a horse tour driver who was a med student back in Romania. Obviously, the Romanian girl was just here on a temp work visa. I imagine the same is true in the UAE with lots of people there on temp visas. I imagine Filipinos working in the UAE have no desire to settle down there… they are just there to work to send the money back home.
And, the “immigrants” in UAE are probably there for specific jobs, whereas the immigrants in Ireland are there because they were fleeing strife in Africa or the ME and they are fighting the citizens for jobs. For UAE citizens, I don’t think they do the hard jobs. All the manual workers are imported. The UAE citizens want the immigrants because they do the jobs UAE folks won’t do whereas the Irish feel their jobs are being stolen.
So many differences.
Yes, as I understand it, the Gulf States are basically run on guest workers from poorer countries and the natives are the elite who do little manual labor of any kind. I’m not sure we’re talking about anything comparable to the genuine immigration (good and bad) that happens in the US.