I had an amazing holiday from Abu Dhabi to Italy that apart enjoyment, gave me some insight.
Abu Dhabi was amazing. The wealth from oil can actually be seen…it is all constructions of amazing skyscrapers (true to be said, at the cost of their heritage), but also of a very controlled and scared society.
There are three levels of society: the ultra rich salafist (practically untouchables), the ex-pats and the rest.
The rest is a combination of Arabs, Pakistani etc that are doing the “basic jobs” at an amazing level and that have a serious amount of hatred toward the salafist (in a few taxi driver conversations it was pretty clear there is no love). But the population is low and very controlled (security cameras everywhere, the speeches in the mosques are Government dictated and the news very much in propaganda style). But what ensure security is the low level of the overall population.
Italy is always gorgeous, but in an economic depression without hope similar to a person before suicide. Everyday a new type of political scandal is uncovered and the real taxation of a small company now reaches 76%!! But the big issue is that there is no hope. And no hope makes for dangerous times.
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