Are we racist? What would you do? Any Indian people here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most folks have covered the move out part..

On the swastika:

https://journalsofindia.com/ancient-indian-symbol-of-the-swastika/

The swastika is commonly seen in India today as a ubiquitous symbol adorning temples, homes, vehicles, and on walls above entrances and doors and it carries a purely auspicious and welcoming meaning.

Unlike the black hakenkreuz of the Nazis, the swastika used by Indians is usually red or yellow in colour, is not tilted to the right, and has dots at each corner, which are believed to represent the four Vedas.
Swastika symbol adoption by Hitler-

Despite its association for centuries with the symbolism and practice of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions, many people in Europe and America see the swastika only as the defining symbol of the antisemitic, racist, fascist Third Reich (1933-1945) of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, I understand what the swastika means in India. But Dubai is NOT INDIA. Just like the US is NOT INDIA. If drawing swastikas over someone's door is wrong in the US, which is not India, then it should be wrong in any country that is...not India.

You need to travel. Or read. Dubai was literally built by Indians. How can you be this ignorant and uninformed???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmmmm this is tricky. I'm Indian American and yes, that is a Hindu symbol that can be found all over India and has peaceful connotations there so they are not making that up. Obviously it's a hateful symbol in the US and Europe. So I can see why everyone is convinced that you are creating a problem that isn't there...But I agree that you have hostility with the neighbor, and the neighbor isn't Indian, and is probably trying to mess with you by drawing that symbol. He's using the prevalence of Indian people to try and get away with it. So IMO you are a little bit trapped. Don't focus so much on the symbol, but be very watchful of this neighbor. I can only see the hostility escalating.

Is it normal for people to just...smear it onto the wall in a nice apartment building with their finger? Because that is what this is. It is smeared on with some kind of brownish fluid, like water mud or similar (don't want to know). Do Indian people in India just do this in buildings?

Indian person here. Yes. It’s common to do this.

It could have been your neighbor in this situation but I understand why the building owners didn’t do anything. Dubai has a high proportion of Indian building workers.

Oh wow, how terribly bizarre. In that case I’m doubly glad I don’t have Indian neighbors!!

Multiple Indian origin posters have told you this is not done.

But you jump on the one troll poster as confirmation bias. What’s that say about you?

NP yup. I love my Indian neighbors so speak for yourself. And it's pretty evident that it is not the Indians nearby who did this/ Please be careful

[Anonymous]

Ex pat who has lived all over the Middle East and worked for royal families in Qatar and Saudi - Unfortunately you’re a double whammy, woman and a Jew. Sadly this is very intentional and for sure was written in excrement because that’s how this man feels about you. Women in the Middle East (even ‘modern’ places like Dubai, where I also lived) are invisible. You’re not even there to be seen and not heard, you’re irrelevant. Women aren’t ‘allowed’ to voice opinions or preferences and for this man, you insulted his manhood by thinking you could ask him to do anything or imply he was in the wrong. No smoking signs are everywhere and the only people who follow the rules are the Germans and North Americans. The German boss you want to speak to won’t help you, because as another poster said, his boss is Arab but more importantly, Muslim. This is 100% about you being a Jew first, then a woman. The Middle East is not a friendly place for you as a Jew and I think you know that. You can’t go into another country/culture with American/modern views and expect people to comply. You either deal with it or you leave.

Personally, I left.

[Anonymous]

The even bigger question is -- why Dubai in the summer? It's blazing hot. All the expats I know living in Dubai do their best to leave during the summer. It's unbearable! Looks like tomorrow has a high of 103F and a low of 88F.

[Anonymous]

Of course it was a Swastika. Anti-semitism in a Muslim country, no surprises there.

I don’t know how Westerners can even step foot into that stifling country with their hypocritical Muslim laws that they don’t have to follow.

Dubai has one of the worst records of human rights abuses in the world. That gaudy place was built on the backs of slave labor by people from India, Pakistan, and other struggling countries in the area.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm a former long term Dubai expat. It's not common to see the swatsika in Dubai and Indian cleaners definitely wouldn't place it over the door of a non-Indian resident's apartment. But I'm intrigued by other aspects of your story.

Based on what you tell us, you can't be resident expats as you normally live in another country and are only in Dubai for a few months. This means you do not have a resident visa, which means you can't have a normal rental contract. Which, in turn, means you are in a short term hotel-apartment style building. I'm not even sure if it's possible to have more than a month to month type arrangement because you can't have a proper resident visa that allows you to sign local rental contracts.

Some of the details of what you told us don't quite click and others are too convenient, you do have two options.

Option 1 is to speak to the hotel-apartment management and ask to be moved to a different floor or building. Most of these hotel apartments are owned by hotel/real estate companies that own multiple properties and moving you to another unit shouldn't be a problem, especially during the slow summer months when vacancies must be high.

Option 2 is to speak to your husband's employer, who must be behind putting you up in Dubai (in the summer? intriguing) and have them sort it out. If your husband is connected to a UAE-based company or office, which is the only reason I can see you being temporarily housed in Dubai while husband is elsewhere, they will have a PRO (public relations official), an Arab speaker, typically Lebanese or Syrian or Egyptian, whose job is effectively to sort out these kinds of situations.

Like others, I'm also unclear on how the smoker knew you were Jewish. You weren't putting up the mezuzah or traveling with something like a menorah at this time of year? Dubai is pretty cosmopolitan and there's growing relationships between the UAE and Israel in the last few years, including travel between the two countries. But even so. I lived in Dubai for years, knew Jewish American expats who had no problems living there for a few years or traveling there. But no one advertised it either.

[Anonymous]

India is fascinating

If you visit you’ll see six pointed stars that look like Star of David with a dot in the middle of the star painted or drawn with powder on sidewalk/walkway/porches

And then swastikas on large sfh houses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most folks have covered the move out part..

On the swastika:

https://journalsofindia.com/ancient-indian-symbol-of-the-swastika/

The swastika is commonly seen in India today as a ubiquitous symbol adorning temples, homes, vehicles, and on walls above entrances and doors and it carries a purely auspicious and welcoming meaning.

Unlike the black hakenkreuz of the Nazis, the swastika used by Indians is usually red or yellow in colour, is not tilted to the right, and has dots at each corner, which are believed to represent the four Vedas.
Swastika symbol adoption by Hitler-

Despite its association for centuries with the symbolism and practice of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religions, many people in Europe and America see the swastika only as the defining symbol of the antisemitic, racist, fascist Third Reich (1933-1945) of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, I understand what the swastika means in India. But Dubai is NOT INDIA. Just like the US is NOT INDIA. If drawing swastikas over someone's door is wrong in the US, which is not India, then it should be wrong in any country that is...not India.

You need to travel. Or read. Dubai was literally built by Indians. How can you be this ignorant and uninformed???

Dubai is plurality Indian

[Anonymous]

Why is your husband not helping you figure out next steps? That’s cruel for him to leave you there alone by yourself and with kids, to try and resolve by yourself against these foreign men and in the same place where you live. So you can’t even distance yourself or get away from it.

I couldn’t do it. I’d pack my sh!t up, take those kids and be on the first smoking back to the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm a former long term Dubai expat. It's not common to see the swatsika in Dubai and Indian cleaners definitely wouldn't place it over the door of a non-Indian resident's apartment. But I'm intrigued by other aspects of your story.

Based on what you tell us, you can't be resident expats as you normally live in another country and are only in Dubai for a few months. This means you do not have a resident visa, which means you can't have a normal rental contract. Which, in turn, means you are in a short term hotel-apartment style building. I'm not even sure if it's possible to have more than a month to month type arrangement because you can't have a proper resident visa that allows you to sign local rental contracts.

Some of the details of what you told us don't quite click and others are too convenient, you do have two options.

Option 1 is to speak to the hotel-apartment management and ask to be moved to a different floor or building. Most of these hotel apartments are owned by hotel/real estate companies that own multiple properties and moving you to another unit shouldn't be a problem, especially during the slow summer months when vacancies must be high.

Option 2 is to speak to your husband's employer, who must be behind putting you up in Dubai (in the summer? intriguing) and have them sort it out. If your husband is connected to a UAE-based company or office, which is the only reason I can see you being temporarily housed in Dubai while husband is elsewhere, they will have a PRO (public relations official), an Arab speaker, typically Lebanese or Syrian or Egyptian, whose job is effectively to sort out these kinds of situations.

Like others, I'm also unclear on how the smoker knew you were Jewish. You weren't putting up the mezuzah or traveling with something like a menorah at this time of year? Dubai is pretty cosmopolitan and there's growing relationships between the UAE and Israel in the last few years, including travel between the two countries. But even so. I lived in Dubai for years, knew Jewish American expats who had no problems living there for a few years or traveling there. But no one advertised it either.

+1
Something doesn’t add up in the story

[Anonymous]

OP is an expat living in Dubai
For Dubai the rules are:
Always remember that it is not your country
Never get into a fight or argument with a local

An Australian was deported because she took a photo of a car that had taken 2 parking spaces in her condo unit. She had posted it in her local facebook group that was closed to only members of the condo association

The car had belonged to a local and he was able to get her deported

Always be very careful with what you say or complain about, it is the Middle East
I am surprised that the management company accommodated you as much as they did

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is an expat living in Dubai
For Dubai the rules are:
Always remember that it is not your country
Never get into a fight or argument with a local

An Australian was deported because she took a photo of a car that had taken 2 parking spaces in her condo unit. She had posted it in her local facebook group that was closed to only members of the condo association

The car had belonged to a local and he was able to get her deported

Always be very careful with what you say or complain about, it is the Middle East
I am surprised that the management company accommodated you as much as they did

Spoken by someone who doesn't know Dubai. In the first place, this Arab is most definitely not an Emirati local. Only Emiratis have "influence."

I'm pretty convinced this is a made up story so I'm not going to keep posting on here. But people who have no experience with Dubai should be careful before offering advice on a place they know nothing aboht.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is an expat living in Dubai
For Dubai the rules are:
Always remember that it is not your country
Never get into a fight or argument with a local

An Australian was deported because she took a photo of a car that had taken 2 parking spaces in her condo unit. She had posted it in her local facebook group that was closed to only members of the condo association

The car had belonged to a local and he was able to get her deported

Always be very careful with what you say or complain about, it is the Middle East
I am surprised that the management company accommodated you as much as they did

Spoken by someone who doesn't know Dubai. In the first place, this Arab is most definitely not an Emirati local. Only Emiratis have "influence."

I'm pretty convinced this is a made up story so I'm not going to keep posting on here. But people who have no experience with Dubai should be careful before offering advice on a place they know nothing aboht.

Any Arab man is going to have more ‘influence’ than a non-Emirati woman. Add to that a Jewish woman.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all the replies, but I've lived in the Middle East for years, and -- sorry, it's very anti-Jewish in areas. Not as much in Dubai, but the symbol is likely what you think it is.
And the smoking is unlikely to stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmmmm this is tricky. I'm Indian American and yes, that is a Hindu symbol that can be found all over India and has peaceful connotations there so they are not making that up. Obviously it's a hateful symbol in the US and Europe. So I can see why everyone is convinced that you are creating a problem that isn't there...But I agree that you have hostility with the neighbor, and the neighbor isn't Indian, and is probably trying to mess with you by drawing that symbol. He's using the prevalence of Indian people to try and get away with it. So IMO you are a little bit trapped. Don't focus so much on the symbol, but be very watchful of this neighbor. I can only see the hostility escalating.

Is it normal for people to just...smear it onto the wall in a nice apartment building with their finger? Because that is what this is. It is smeared on with some kind of brownish fluid, like water mud or similar (don't want to know). Do Indian people in India just do this in buildings?

Indian person here. Yes. It’s common to do this.

It could have been your neighbor in this situation but I understand why the building owners didn’t do anything. Dubai has a high proportion of Indian building workers.

You’re not Indian, you troll. Stop lying.