Statistics on some Gulf countries... having been to Bahrain, Qatar and Oman once and the UAE a couple times, these places have very high populations of foreigners.
*approximately only 11.6% of the population in the United Arab Emirates are Emirati nationals
*approximately only 12% of the population in Qatar are Qatari citizens
*approximately 46% of Bahrain's population are native Bahrainis
*approximately 56.4% of Oman's population are Omani citizens
@SiRrogueKnight
The same for Saudi, they have over 46% of the population are foreigners.
Arabs have a lot of land, lots of money and not enough workers to maintain their quality of life.
It's basically apartheid were the citizens are 1st class citizens and everyone else are 2nd class. It works pretty well, specially because they don't normally charge income taxes.
They copied that model from the golden age of europe and since they're not white, they can do it freely.
@SiRrogueKnight
There are cases of them mistreating foreign workers, but normally it's the Philippinas who go there to work as nurse or maids or the pakistanis/indians who go to Saudi to take up the blue collar work (normally construction, taxi drivers, sewer cleaners, etc).
It's brutal specially under their crazy sun: working outside in Saudi is not for the faint of heart.
From the arab perspective, they don't have to take these crazy jobs, they could have just stayed in their country.
@SiRrogueKnight
Plus, I have never heard of them mistreating europeans/americans or the high-skilled workers they hire. On the contrary, the relationship is actually pretty cordial and from personal experience, they are a good people to work with.
Yup, that's who I'm talking about, as in the Filipinos, Indians, and Pakistanis. The funny thing is, back before oil times, when that area was pearl diving... Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar were the poor ones, diving for pearls and selling them to the wealthy Indians... 🤣
Times change.
@Zeb
Yeah... I thought someday I'd visit Saudi Arabia, especially if they loosened alcohol bans for foreigners visiting, which they might have been on the road to doing. Who knows how the region will be doing now, after a couple years from now.
I've seen lots of articles on some of the nasty treatment many workers in UAE get. But hell, that happens everywhere. It happens here in Korea too with SE Asian workers.