Infidel stronghold on Muslim land
"Symbol of decadence" -- not to mention Disney characters (who, accordingly are liable to receive death fatwas) -- must go. "Al-Qaeda planning to bomb Atlantis," by Dylan Bowman for Arabian Business, September 29:
The Atlantis hotel’s grand opening party is at the centre of a terrorism scare after British spies uncovered plans to target the lavish event in Dubai, to be attended by 2,000 VIPs.There are fears Al-Qaeda is planning to bomb the event on Nov. 20 because it is seen by Islamic extremists as a symbol of decadence in a Muslim country, according to the UK's Sky News television.
Business leaders, politicians, actors, musicians and members of the Dubai royal family have all been invited to the grand opening, which is estimated to be costing $28 million and will be headlined by pop princess Kylie Minogue.
[...]
The launch of Atlantis has become one of the most talked about events on the Dubai calendar, with several global superstars linked with the grand opening, including Michael Jackson and Madonna.
The 1,539-room resort encompasses a 46-hectare site with 17 hectares of water-themed amusement parks, an open air marine habitat, beaches, boutiques and restaurants.
So does this mean that all those mosques here in the West are muslim strongholds?
Anyone? Anyone?
Michael Jackson and Madonna? Wow! That is decadent.
Welcome to Sin City, UAE.
Those who used to sing the praises of the Arabs, of the vast starlit desert, and the presumed effect of that vast starlit desert on the leather-faced noble Bedu, hawk on hand, standing barefoot on an outcrop of rock (see Freya Stark, see Wilfred Thesiger, see Lawrence, see them all) did not live to see what, with the unmerited wealth that came from an accident of geology, the Arabs have managed to do -- in Riyadh, in Jiddah, in Dubai -- with their vulgar pleasure-palaces out-topping one another, the xanadus that mimic Western buildings, and then some.
Dubai may be an offense to Muslim sensibilities, but for other reasons, it is an offense to good taste and a sense not only of aesthetic, but moral proportion. The whole project of modern, empty Dubai, hollow Dubai, nothing Dubai, where each building represents an attempt to outdo another with gimmicks (this building turns with the sun, and that one can stand on stilts, and this one prostrates itself five times a day) and the most grotesque and unappealing luxury (Warren Buffett won't be impressed), merely put on display all the comic bad taste of the Arabs and Iranians much of Dubai real estate is owned by Iranian) who, with the money they do not spend on mosques and madrasas around the world, on weapons purchaes and weapons projects, and on buying armies of Western hirelings, use to build the kind of thing, more or less, on display in the picture above.
In the rich Muslim states, the best of the West --which has nothing to do with money, but with intellect and the imagination -- is not being emulated. Instead, much as they denounce that West, it is the worst of that West that in the rich Arab and Muslim states is being sedulously aped.
The luxury of Dubai is nauseating to contemplate. There is nothing there but that. No art, no science, no thought. Luxury, money, gold in the souks. Perhaps the locals will rent some paintings for display from the Louvre, rent a succursale or two of Western universities looking for loot, in order to pretend there are minds to be cultivated and something like civilization to be found in Dubai. But it's not to be found. All of Dubai is not worth a single star in your personal Michelin. Dubai is merely a cheesy holiday resort with elephantiasis, the result of the hundreds of billions that are so freely spent because they have been not earned, but merely accidentally acquired.
The photograph above tells you all you need to know, not only about Dubai, but all the other pleasure-towns that the Arabs have built up with the oil money lavished upon them.
Civilizationally, they remind me of the story -- a true story, told to be by a former member of the staff-- about the famous London bookseller Hatchard's. One day a rich Arab entered the store. It seems he had bought a country estate, with a large library, and he asked that that library now be filled -- he motioned around the vast bookstore --with "one of each."
There are fears Al-Qaeda is planning to bomb the event on Nov. 20 because it is seen by Islamic extremists as a symbol of decadence in a Muslim country
Yep, that's what it is alright, decadent.
Obviously it must be destroyed. Preferably when filled with Kufirs...
Maybe we can't not buy OPEC oil but how about refusing to set foot in any Muslim country until the people of those countries do something about the terrorists living among them?
No tourism dollars allowed.
Sorry, but this would also include the next Muslim country to be hit by a natural disaster. If they're hungry we can drop the food from the airplane and then head home. Let Allah take care of them.
Then there's the question of how much of an "ally" Dubai is. DPW would be operating many US ports were it not for the "dumb" Americans who stood up and said no.
How come no one's yelling about the "conspicuous consumption" by these wealthy Arabs?
Telling, that silence.
Hard to sympathize with the two potential victims here--rich Muslim supremacist monsters and ignorant, treasonous Western sun-worshippers.
http://bravenewsworld.blogspot.com
Its appearance is almost a duplicate of the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas of which I visited a few years ago. Some parts of the public access areas where impressive but for me some of the big hotels in Vegas make the Bahamis Atlantis seem a bit drab.
What kind of mindset wants to create a duplicate of this hotel, let alone the array of non stop building of impressive but outrageous structures such as the indoor snow ski resort? Billions upon billions of dollars invested in this tiny little country through oil and now large business ventures?
Maybe there is a silver lining somwhere here if there is a strong Iranian connection. If Al-Qaeda threatens, or attacks this perceived decadence, will they win the wrath of the Iranian Mullahocracy just across the Straits?
Is a form of American or western capitalism and imperialism reflected in all thses shining towers that make up Dubai? Remember President Bush wanted to turn over the management of our US shipping ports to a Dubai company. There is this desire to connect the dots as to whether the Iranians really want to have a war with the West over their Sheite religious Ideology. And yet their dangerous sabre rattling still continues through Mahmoud A-mad-nut-job at a risky cost to all.
Slightly OT
Just came across Billy Connelly's take on Islamic splodeydopes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F53KqJS_TkU&feature=related
Needless to say language warning in effect, funny though.
OT - Am I the only one to notice that Scott Adams' "Elbonians" sometimes bear an eerie resemblance to... guess who?
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-09-29/
"Dubai is merely a cheesy holiday resort with elephantiasis ..."
Oh Hugh ... Hugh ... now that mental image won't LEAVE MY BRAIN! Ewwww, blecccch!
On topic - I have long been awaiting an AQ attack on Western celebs - British Open, Tour de France, Formula I event (recall that Paris-Dakar was cancelled due to threats - although it was traversing Dar al-Islam), Cannes Film Festival, etc.
And I have always wondered why Dubai, clearly decadent by AQ standards, had never been hit. Maybe if this story is true they will try to kill 2 birds w/ 1 stone, and make up for lost time...
sarcasm on/
when is infidel day, so I may take my wife and not be afraid if she is walking without a burka someone will throw acid on her?
Hugh is right. I'd add the following:
Those who cite the exportation of decadent "Western culture" to the rest of the world as a reason why so many people find Islam attractive make a crucial mistake: It isn't Western culture that's being exported; it's the debris created by the disintegration of Western culture. Western culture isn't Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Hollywood, Oprah Winfrey, and Dubai's flashy architecture. It's Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Einstein, and everyone else who is no longer studied in our schools because there's no time left after instruction in multiculturalism, safe sex, and driver education. I've observed intelligent people unable to reply when confronted with the aforementioned argument about our decadence; let them find their tongues, and emphatically deny that those horrors are NOT what Western cultures (note plural) are. It's what we've been forgetting that has made Western cultures great; and Muslim values have not contributed one mite to that treasury.
Are Dubai's water theme parks segregated to male only/female only areas/hours?
Are females limited wearing Burkinis only?
Do Dubai's water theme parks prominently place the "Mutawa not welcome" mat out?
I've been to the Caribbean version, and with the largely South American & American tourist population there - there was not a burkini in site.
Memories of Dubai:
An airport large enough to fly a plane through. The only people in the service industry are Philippinos and Indians (who live there as near slaves). Arab men and women in flowing robes. American women in platinum hair, halter tops, and massive boob jobs. A 5x8 Confederate flag hanging from a high-rise apartment. This CAN'T end well.
Hugh - "...it is the worst of that West that in the rich Arab and Muslim states is being sedulously aped."
Shouldn't that read "... aped and pigged." ???
I agree with Hugh - the whole UAE enterprise is, indeed, a monstrosity that exceeds even Las Vegas and Atlantic City in its vulgarity. It's ironic that it takes al-Queda's inimitable attention for the world to notice.
Michael Jackson built a huge 'state of the art' mosque next to his palace in Bahrain which of course is generously stocked with little boys. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but the whole thing gives me the creeps.
What's the "carbon footprint" of this monstrosity?
Al? Hello?
Michael Jackson built a huge 'state of the art' mosque next to his palace in Bahrain (which of course is generously stocked with little boys). Maybe I'm old-fashioned but the whole thing gives me the creeps.
Dubai is reminiscent of Citizen Kane's Xanadu. A palace of pretension. The difference is that the sundry sheiks who have created this kitsch philistine hell do not even have a memory of a long lost Rosebud,which was at least some comfort to Kane, because they probably never had one or it was thoroughly buried when the rot set in. They have no relationship with beauty and innocence
Meanwhile,here's a Christmas cracker joke for the ages:
What do you call an Arab dairy farmer?
A milk sheikh.
'Let them eat cake'. Rich muslims of questionable connections, flaunt their richness in the faces of their poor muslim brothers...
You know, the muslims who keep rioting and killing because of unemployment...those muslims.
Soon the peasants will rise against the aristocrats, and the beheadings will begin.
The Saudi's know of this also, but they were smart enough to take preventative measures.
Those opulent in Dubai have not taken the same measures as Saudi Arabia, and are wide open for
attack from the hungry, disenfranchised, rejected, and unemployed muslim peasantry, represented in this case by Al-Qaeda.
The peasants are not upset because the opulent have opulence, but because they don't share in it.
Is a muslim street begger welcome in the lobby of the Dubai super motel Atlantis??
I thought not...REJECTION, The peasants shall get revenge.
'Let them eat cake', is not in the Quran, and certainly Mohammad never said it.
4/5th's of that loot is supposed to go to the peasants...The peasants are getting robbed.
This is a bad omen for Dubai. The peasants will eventually take over and bulldoze or blow up those big fancy symbols of decadence.
Then the opulent will have to move to Venezuela, and build huge complexes in the name of Hugo.
Venezuela could easily become the become the next Dubai when Al-Qaeda evicts the current opulents...
This obscene structure should be called Phallus Palace given it's architectural design.
Islam, the religion of horn dogs.
....and look....the design directs your heart & soul up towards Sex Heaven. Why, of course.
I guess now the rulers of Dubai will have to question why they are paying Al Qaeda millions per year in protection money and perhaps their neighbours over in Qatar should do the same.
You cannot buy civilization.
Makes one kind of glad not getting an invitation.
For some, life above ground is Just unacceptable. Some Caves are available but that is the high rent district.
Sand Castles on stormy shores never last long. Some are just impatient and give them a kick.
tanstaafl--
The original quote, from a Franco-Armenian acquiantance who lived many years in Saudi Arabia, building "military cities," goes like this:
"Money can buy everything, except civilization."
It applies not only to the Saudis, but to rich people everywhere. In the past more of them, one suspects, were given better educations, or at least better educations in art, or at least knew to whom to turn (as Mrs. Jack Gardner with Berenson, and through him, with Duveen), and a good thing, too, because otherwise you get the saatchi or eli-broad collections, and overspending on sillinesses -- "Formaldehyde" Hirst and balloon-doggy Koons -- that offend Art and offend real artists.
One more good reason for giving the rich a good education. Few of them may deserve it, but we need more Lincoln Kirsteins, and a Medici or two. Nowadays, the money is not being spent correctly.
If, by the way, you happen to be one of those intelligent, as opposed to unintelligent rich, and want to know where best to lavish your (diminishing) largesse to further American culture, merely drop me a line. I'll set you straight, in the old Barzunian line, with just a hint of Eugene Thaw.
I have a power point presentation of some luxury hotels in Dubai, but I can't figure out how to link it here. The Atlantis complex above and the hotels look a combination of Donald Trump, Walt Disney and Leopold II on LSD.
champ - Agreed. The sex on the brain architecture shows in the penis head archway of muslim buildings, this one is more obvious than most.
KM,
Thank you for sharing the link, it was hilarious. My favorite part was when he blessed Mecca with his favorite chant.
Anyway, whoever decided to build that grand hotel in Dar Al Suicide Bombing (House of Suicide Bombing) must be a certified idiot. This hotel cannot last in Dar Al Suicide Bombing. And any Westerner who goes to Dar Al Suicide Bombing must be an idiot too. Don't sell yourself short - a Westerner's live is worth hundreds of Muslim lives.
Let’s abandon The Dar Al Suicide Bombing even if they kiss our feet and butts. Let the Muslims stink in their feces.