William T Vollmann Central discussion
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2018 No Good Alternative - Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies
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Nathan "N.R."
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Sep 09, 2017 09:33AM
Coming June 2018.
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Wow, what luck! Thought they would split it up over a year at least.
It's already available for preorder on Amazon
Chris wrote: "It's already available for preorder on Amazon"BUMP
My December issue of Harper's came in the mail today. It include a long article by Vollmann in which he interviews foreign oil and gas workers in the United Arab Emirates -- an excerpt from Carbon Ideologies, of course. I dashed through it immediately -- a pretty good appetizer.
Tom wrote: "My December issue of Harper's came in the mail today. It include a long article by Vollmann in which he interviews foreign oil and gas workers in the United Arab Emirates -- an excerpt from Carbon ..."Thanks for the tip! Here's the page ::
https://harpers.org/archive/2017/12/i...
subscribers only. I'll have to look into getting a hardcopy (if this town has newsstands anymore)
“…those who liked Las Vegas might feel at home in, say, Dubai.”So this is how Mr Vollmann described my city! and we all know how he feels abt Vegas...
Two weeks is not enough to know a city & he gave that amount of time to a country, UAE in this case.
I read all the 11 pages of the Harper article & so many things are wrong with it: to begin with, the timing of his visit. Last year, the summer had turned out to be an extended one, & this summer, temperature even reached 50 degree Celsius on a couple of days! Usually, September onwards the weather turns bearable, & from November, the tourist season begins. So, had he visited during the cooler months, he would’ve been able to enjoy himself & might have been more charitable towards Dubai 🙂
It’s a fact that temperature has been steadily rising year after year. There was a time, before the discovery of oil in the Middle East, when Bedouins lived in the desert in houses made from mud & palm fronds, with their goats & camels & their dates trees. They managed without ACs & SUVs. They must’ve been tough people. Today even a Californian Vollmann wilts under the UAE sun. Strangely enough, despite the year-round sunshine, ppl here suffer from vitamin D deficiency coz nobody wants to go out in the sun.
It’s also a fact that Middle East has been built by the blood, sweat and tears of foreign labor; the local population being either scarce or not willing/ competent for those backbreaking jobs. Mr Vollmann has raised points about their salaries & living conditions: several factors determine that— the job sector- some jobs are more paying than the others. I’d guess the Oil & Gas sector workers are better paid than their counterparts in the construction sector. The hospitality employees enjoy better housing & mess facilities than the others. Then, the respective nationalities determine the respective salary packages, so, while 650 dirhams basic salary looks extremely low (my houseboy earns 8 times more than that), do keep in mind that dirhams to specific currency ratio varies widely: 1 AED= 28.68 Pakistani Rupee, 41.86 Sri Lankan Rupee, 22.91 Bangladeshi Taka, 13.76 to Philippine Peso & so on. Unless they are earning comparatively far more than they would back home, no worker would want to prolong their stay—as the article’s headline says, “I am here only for working”, the idea is to make hay while the sun shines & then go back. Because frankly, on such salaries they won’t be able to make a life here.
So, are they being exploited? Yes, right from the time of the recruitment when the local agent illegally charges them for placement for which the employer is already paying them the commission, to the low wages paid by the employer who can always find a willing replacement for them— it’s a vicious cycle, so if they get slightly better living conditions, they make their peace with it. There are labor laws & minimum wages are fixed but most of these services are outsourced to contractors so the government doesn’t come into play in this. Adnoc though, is a reputed government company & their workers are certainly taken better care of.
On all these fronts, Vollmann’s take turns out to be a wishy-washy one, probably because he was meeting the workers surreptitiously & was wary of being caught out. Compared to his writing, this NYT article created a strong impact & led to real changes in the Abu Dhabi construction workers condition.
There was really no reason to meet them sneakily— he could’ve arranged for all of them to see him on a Friday, their weekly day off. There is nothing in this article about the workers condition that a local resident doesn’t know! Such stories have appeared umpteenth times in the local newspapers. To think he endured such hostile weather & wasted his precious dollars for such lukewarm results is disappointing to say the least!
Mr Vollmann must have traveled incognito coz search results for Vollmann UAE visit fall 2016 yielded just the Harper article.
How sad that people he sought out to speak to him had no clue they are meeting a great writer! And the one confirmed Vollmann reader in Dubai missed meeting him in the Dubai Mall (of all places!) because he kept his visit a secret one!! I could’ve gotten my books signed & taken a few pics for you guys, would’ve told him abt the Vollmann Central too. Damn.
If you ask me, the right way would’ve been to approach the relevant authorities via the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi. They would’ve fixed his itinerary & ensured his stay was a memorable one. That way he would’ve enjoyed the famed Emirati hospitality & seen more than two locals. They would’ve happily taken him on a tour of the refineries & shown him the bed spaces too. He would’ve been able to meet the workers & they would’ve told him exactly the same things that he got to hear anyway, coz there was nothing damning in those testimonies, those simple men were simply stating the facts!
Maybe Mr Vollmann felt making his visit public would’ve compromised his story & given a skewed view. Truth is, it turned out to be a skewed view after all because this story nowhere mentions this.
The rulers of UAE are enlightened ones: they know the oil wealth won’t last forever. Already the tumbling oil prices is bringing VAT to a Sharia upholding country! The days of income tax too won’t be far. We’ll see then who rushes to buy the biggest SUVs in town. New year will be bringing heavy taxes on luxury vehicles, maybe that’ll slowly force the people to switch to this.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy your Caribou dinner!
Edit: I forgot to mention that Dubai has a very good public transport system: Dubai Metro, RTA buses, water taxis/abras, all of these serve an endless stream of commuters, but the hot weather here is not really conducive to walking to & fro to these pick-up points & that’s why people are forced to use personal vehicles. The doubling of parking charges in most areas is an attempt by the government to discourage residents from buying more & more cars.
Oh & btw, Abu Dhabi was recently selected as the second most desirable/livable city in the world! I guess they must be doing something right after all.
Mala wrote: "If you ask me, the right way would’ve been to approach the relevant authorities via the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi."Not his way of going about things!
But I think the best way would've been to have contacted his best Dubai reader. A little pissed about him passing you over like that. [good to see you around again!]
N R wrote: Not his way of going about things!Well, if the writer’s distrust of authority is getting in the way of quality journalism, then he needs to rethink his strategy.
Looks like I’m stuck with this thread! I formatted the links properly, don’t know why they are not working. Anyway, here they are in their proper order:1) https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/ar...
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_...
3) http://www.arabianbusiness.com/interv...
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Tom wrote: "My December issue of Harper's came in the mail today. It include a long article by Vollmann in which he interviews foreign oil and gas workers in the United Arab Emirates -- an excerpt ..."https://harpers.org/archive/2017/12/i...
That's a free article right now, but who knows how long it will last?
I finally got a hardcopy of the Harper's issue. Means I can finally read it ;; thanks for those wonderful gr=angels who made it digitally available to me (and others!).
My copy arrived today, June 4 - a day early.
“The True Story of William T. Vollmann’s Research Assistant,” an essay by Jordan A. Rothacker, William T. Vollmann’s Reasearch Assistant for CARBON IDEOLOGIEShttps://heavyfeatherreview.org/2018/0...
"Carbon Ironies: William T. Vollmann on the hot dark future"by Wen Stephenson
https://thebaffler.com/latest/carbon-...
In which WTV is taken to task for his supposed climate nihilism.
And I have a little conversation with Stephenson taking him to task for misreading CI (I think writer and reviewer agree overall and the 'criticism' is based on an uncharitable reading)
https://www.goodreads.com/user_status...
"No Good Alternative shows Bangladesh is a case study for the existential threat of climate injustice"by Chris Juergens
http://www.iexaminer.org/2018/07/no-g...
