EMIRATI THE LOCAL EXPAT

On some days more than others we are subjected to incidents, reactions or even words that rub us the wrong way. The reasons are many but the ultimate feeling is one. A feeling of shock and utter disturbance that tends to whack you upside the head and knock you off balance. No matter who you are I am sure that you have been whacked once or twice in your lifetime. People reacting to you differently, hesitantly, judgmentally. Reacting because you are on foreign turf, because you are a minority, because you do not belong to the familiar.

The United Arab Emirates is a country that is proud of its multicultural residents, and UAE nationals are known for their ever-welcoming and embracing attitude towards this continuous stream of newcomers. Ironically, the same cannot be said about the attitudes of some of the UAE expatriates.

As a UAE national I speak from personal experience when I say that I have been subjected to endless stares and been the topic of many hushed conversations after stepping into a number of different outlets in the country. And while in other parts of the world expatriates go to great lengths to fit in among the locals, it works quite the other way round in the Emirates. Granted, we Emiratis are a minority in our own land, for numbers rarely tell a lie, but that is by no means a reason for us to be treated as such.

This outnumbering has left many areas and outlets untrodden by the native Emirati and to many of their dwellers such a sighting is a rarity, hence the rubbernecking. When this native discovers a shiny new place and curiously wonders in he is treated as a rare species, at times an unwelcomed one. Once he is noticed, the patrons will size him up and immediately feel restless, his national dress offending them and disturbing their peace. The native immediately feels the prying eyes follow him and senses the gapers’ shoulders tense up in defence. Once he is settled and it becomes obvious that his presence is not the end of their world as they know it, things start to go back to normal, the incident is over, or is it?

For the Emirati it doesn’t quite die out. The agitation lingers through the day. It raises a barrage of questions and brings about an onslaught of reasoning in an effort to make sense of this meaningless subjugation.

Unfortunately, this issue is not constrained to looks and whispers, it has reached as far as affecting establishment rules. Some restaurants in certain Emirates can actually ban Emiratis, wearing their national dress, from entering the vicinity. Now allow me to say that such a matter is just unspeakable. Can you imagine if in Scotland a Scottish man is not allowed into a place for wearing a kilt, a Japanese woman sent packing for wearing a kimono in Japan, or Indians not allowed entrance into a restaurant in India proudly wearing their saris or kurtas? It is just unthinkable, not to mention humiliating.

Laws must be issued prohibiting establishments from enforcing rules like these on the grounds that they are purely discriminatory to both the nationals and the country’s rich tradition. For how can you fight for your rights not to be discriminated against in other parts of the world when you allow for it at home?

Nobody wants to feel like a stranger in his own home, an alien in his world. Shamefully, it is an ever-increasing phenomenon in the UAE experienced by many nationals in every aspect of their lives, be it the workplace, a random eatery or even public parks.

It is truly a sad feeling that I’m left with whenever I am faced with these head-turning, neck-breaking incidents. Once the anger of being discriminated against has subsided it is sadness that I feel. Sadness because we welcome and embrace, we speak in every mother tongue except ours and make every dweller feel at home, yet with every piercing look the price becomes painfully obvious. 

We the natives are the aliens dressed in black and white. 

This article was published in The Gulf Today on 28 March, 2010

NO LONGER THE FARTHEST MOSQUE

The Israeli occupation police have seized al-Aqsa mosque, assaulted Palestinian civilians and barricaded the mosque area in a first step towards their so-called “national heritage restoration project.”  This project is a $107 million plan to restore areas they claim prove Israelis’ connection to the land. Some 150 sites are listed. Among them many Islamic and Christian sites are named on this ‘heritage list’, devised and set into action by Israel’s Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu.

Many of the listed sites lie in the West Bank, which was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in 1994 under the Gaza-Jericho agreement. On the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own website the agreement states that “the Israeli Civil Administration in Gaza and the Jericho area has been dissolved and its powers and responsibilities transferred to the Palestinian Authority in the following civilian spheres” which lists among other things planning and zoning, archeology and religious affairs.

But in true Israeli fashion and with deceptive disregard to political agreements or promises, they took it upon themselves to restore these sites that are not in their territory. Zionists are masters of gradualism, they took Palestinian land slowly, brick by brick. Israel has built more than 100 Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where more than 500,000 Jews reside. The World Court has ruled that these settlements are illegal under international law yet they remain untouched. Because when it comes down to it, Israel does what it wants while the rest of the world merely condemns and watches.

Palestinian Authorities have expressed outrage at this clear violation and warned that Israel’s actions will hinder the peace process and ignite another religious war. Peace is not on the Zionists’ agenda. Judaisation of the state of Israel is. Therefore, the logical form of action is to seize, desecrate and stamp the Jewish mark on both Islamic and Christian sites in order to serve that purpose.

Since 1946 hundreds of mosques have been seized as the world stood silent, some were demolished and many were turned into restaurants and nightclubs. The Ibrahimi mosque was invaded with the same “restoration” excuse, a quite ridiculous one, because the Palestinians have been adequately maintaining it for more than a hundred years. Their request was simply to add a candle holder in the Ibrahimi mosque, once accessed it was seized. Now prayer times are regulated by Israel and “promises” to allow Muslims shared access to the Ibrahimi mosque have been given.

Today it is the same old excuse but on a much wider and more invasive scale. Israel wants to take hold of al-Aqsa mosque. Israel’s audacity is fuelled by the Arab and now Islamic nations’ silence. It is al-Aqsa mosque, one of the three holiest Islamic sites in the world. The direction every Muslim prayed towards before the Ka’aba was built. It is where Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) made his night journey. How far does Israel have to go for the Arab governments and Islamic nations to speak up and take action?

This is a clear sign from Israel that it wants nothing to do with the peace process and a slap in the face for the Obama administration that is trying to foster it. Governments should not constraint themselves to the issuing of condemnation notices to the press. All Arab governments should sever political and business relations with Israel immediately. Meanwhile, sadly in the same week as al-Aqsa invasion Egyptian courts allowed the sale of gas to Israel.

The person will riot, take to the streets, shout and scream but it is the government that should speak in our voice and echo what our hearts and minds are hollering. How long can we stay quiet, silenced by our fear of political rejection? We are fed up with the words condemn and denounce. If we take a stand, if we grow a spine we will not be prosecuted because what we are asking for is not irrational, it is a right.

We are asking for our history and our rights to be preserved and protected. For our political agreements to be honoured and respected, not disregarded and invaded. The United Nations condemned Israel’s restoration project but after the Goldstone Report we have come to realise the truth that left a bad taste in our mouths. The truth that even the United Nations cannot make a difference when Israel is on trial.

If our governments do not act, and act with serious vigour, then al-Aqsa mosque will slowly but surely crumble and fall. No matter how many stones are flung at the bulldozers, in thirty months’ time and as planned by Israel al-Aqsa will be owned by them. It will become a tourist attraction to bring in revenues for the Israeli government and will eventually hold Jewish names and recently etched markings of the Jewish so-called historical connection.

It is an outrage and a crying shame that while we go about our daily lives we leave it up to the people of Palestine to protect the mosque with a wall of their own bodies. Relentlessly trying to put a stop to the Israeli occupation army, which spares no means to combat a stone flung by a child towards their tanks.

Our governments are more powerful than they seem to think. End the era of Arab government passivity and impotence and use your power to stop this crime against history, human rights and religion.

This article was published in The Gulf Today on 7th of March, 2010.

BODY OF WATER TIRED OF NAME-CALLING

Iran has issued an ultimatum about its feelings over the naming of the waterway that lies between it and the Gulf States. The aggressive demand stipulates that no airline calls this body of water the Arabian Gulf. If it does, then airplanes are banned from flying over the country.

After hearing the news Body of water herself has decided to make her first ever public appearance. Speaking to reporters who gathered uniformly along its shoreline, she explained that for as long as she can remember she has felt tension among her neighbours. The neighbours that she has come to consider her family. She sensed extreme pressure closing in from both sides for her to pick one over the other. When she remained silent, her family members took it upon themselves to name her, so some called her Arabian Gulf and others named her Persian.

Body of water did not mind having two names, it made her feel unique, special even. After all, no other body of water or ocean for that matter had two names. It shifted, tossed and turned as reporters threw questions at her anxious to hear where she felt she truly belonged.

Body of water spoke softly, reminding the world that in the 80s her issue caused a stir between her neighbours. After much deliberation no official naming had been agreed upon. She kept silent then simply because everyone seemed happy with naming her what they felt she represented to them.

She wondered aloud what difference her name really made? She heard Shakespeare’s Juliet answer her saying “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” And she would be right because her name would not change the fact that she is as old as time, or that she has been the connector who enhanced trade and allowed for the intermingling of cultures. How did she now become a separator? It was definitely not her own ego that caused it.

Feeling uneasy, Body of water rested her palms on the shore in hopes of gaining some balance.  She expressed her fear and sadness at the situation of the world. Her largest family member is facing the United States head on and is suffering from political turmoil. Another is surrounded by political and media attention because a shocking assassination has come to upset its otherwise peaceful climate. Amidst all this, Body of water believes her name is of least importance.  She demanded to just let her be.

As the press conference came to a close Body of water breathed heavily with every ebb and flow and addressed her family directly:

I have been here long before you named me, and will be here long after I have been named. I shall never leave any of you. I remain for no other reason than my love for all of you. Do not let me be the reason you confront each other. After all, I am what I am, just a body of water.

Published in The Gulf Today on the 28th Feb, 2010.

NOTHING PRETTY ABOUT THIS WOMAN

Thanks to the master playwright Shakespeare, today’s cinema world has acquired some formulas that are sure-fire winners. In the romantic genre or what we have come to dub the ‘chick flick,’ as if there is no need for romance in a man’s life, the age-old story of the damsel in distress being rescued by a knight in shining armour is a no brainer.

But after Hollywood was done with it, it managed to replace the damsel in distress to suit the modern, independent woman who is not a doctor, an architect or a CEO but a prostitute who is rescued by a high-flier wealthy man in a white limousine. Queue tissue boxes everywhere for the movie Pretty Woman was re-released this year after twenty years of being the best-selling romantic movie to date.

Who of us hasn’t watched Pretty Woman? For me the sole reason that movie was even watchable is Julia Roberts. She is one actress that can make any character a lovable one.  As for the plot, to this day I cannot for the life of me see the romance in such a world no matter how hard Tinseltown tries.

The Academy has long rewarded such roles. Julia Roberts herself was nominated for playing Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, so was Jodie Foster for playing a teenage hooker in Taxi Driver. Elizabeth Shue also received an Oscar nomination for her role as a Las Vegas prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas.

Kim Basinger won one for her role as a high-class call girl in L.A. Confidential and so did Mira Sorvino for her role as a prostitute opposite Woody Allen in Mighty Aphrodite. Names like Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Portman, and Nicole Kidman also have a place in this list. 

In fact, the very first woman to win an Oscar was Janet Gaynor who played, you guessed it, a streetwalker in 1928’s Street Angel.

One other thing in common with all these movies apart from the words prostitute and Oscar, is the fact that they were all written by men. Which makes us wonder is this the man’s romantic formula?

The betterment of a tainted woman, and her redemption by the hands of a man that was caring enough to show her the way, seems to the writers and directors of Hollywood to be the new romantic story. Jane Austen’s romance no longer makes any sense or has any sensibility.

Taking cue from Hollywood, both Arabic cinema and Bollywood followed suit. Egyptian adaptations of such storylines sprouted everywhere. From the movie Khamsa Bab (The Five Doors Bar), where the lead actress Nadia El Guindy played a prostitute based on Billy Wilder’s 1963 film Irma La Douce starring Shirley McLaine, up to the movie Al Jeans (The Jeans) played by Jala Fahmi which is an exact copy of Pretty Woman. In Bollywood, Kareena Kapoor’s Chameli is one of the many movies casting the lead as a call girl.

This formula is so popular that it has seeped into television with shows like Secret Diary of a Call Girl. The show, based on a high-end escort/blogger’s life, remains on air despite the huge amount of criticism it has faced. Belle lives a stable life, wears designer clothes, has a personal assistant, high-end clientele, and maintains healthy relationships. Why then won’t young girls find this a possible career choice?

This issue is no longer restricted to females either. Recently a show called Hung (yes the pun is painfully obvious) has been aired. It tells the story of a high school football coach, who finds himself struggling to make ends meet, so naturally he chooses to become a prostitute. 

Seriously, why are they trying so hard to keep this so-called profession alive?

Hollywood’s stereotypical prostitute proliferates a false myth about prostitution and casts an invisibility cloak on its harm. As the world gets more cultured and aims for better education why are we still expected to sit through a two-hour long movie or follow a TV show season after season to watch a call girl’s frivolous escapades? Why is that entertaining?

Women today are making money and gaining power through all sorts of interesting professions, so why does Hollywood insist on the glamourising the flesh trade?

There is no mystery or glamour in walking seedy streets at night. The threat of physical and psychological harm to both the person and society as a whole is imminent. Just ask Jack The Ripper.

This article was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on 21st Feb, 2010.

TO BURN A BOOK ALL IT TAKES IS A KINDLE

Steve Jobs, the man behind Apple’s innovation train has yet again revealed to the rest of us a glimpse of the future. This month Jobs introduced Apple’s latest product the iPad. Putting the iPad’s ton of technology in a nutshell, it is basically a touch screen tablet computer crammed into a device the size and thickness of a notepad. Being a technology enthusiast myself this piece of plastic had me highly excited, I mean anytime Jobs is set to reveal a product it is big news. Like it or not he has changed the way we listen to music after all.

The reveal was impressive and the features of the iPad superb, but is it just me or did anyone else feel a slight pang of concern when the eBook reader application was presented?

The eBook, the digital book, the book of the future made up of compressed and digitalised words reduced to bits and bytes of memory. A technology allowing us to carry thousands of books in one device. Not a fairly new technology, in the sense that eBook readers have been around for a couple of years now but haven’t proved to be very popular until Amazon introduced its Kindle.

Kindle is an eBook reader that is equipped with an Internet connection allowing you to access the book selling Goliath’s website and download any book you desire in mere seconds.

Following in Amazon’s footsteps Jobs has created his own version, fit it snuggly in the iPad and sprinkled some Apple magic on it (the magic being his wondrous marketing and advertising techniques).

This is all and well, I mean we have all heard the list of benefits. It starts with the space factor and ends with saving the planet yet after going through them I still feel anxious. What happens to the book? Should we give it a new name? The ‘original book’ or the ‘paper book’ maybe? If Jobs is to do to the book what he did to the CD then my anxiety is justified.

Sometimes technology makes us believe that we cannot live without the features it provides. That we absolutely need it. Amazon’s data suggest that Kindle users buy more books than they did before owning the device, but does that necessarily mean they are reading more? It is true we can carry thousands of books in one device but while we can listen to hundreds of songs in an hour we cannot do the same with reading, so why the need to carry them all? Efficient yes, but a complete replacement? I find that hard to imagine.

The image of reading in bed does not conjure up myself curled up with a Kindle or an iPad. And although the sound of pages being turned is an option on your device it remains a simulation. And what of the smell of paper that wafts as you feel the texture of the pages being turned in anticipation of reaching the end? I am sure Jobs will soon think of something to shut me up. Yet the fact remains the way we read, the act of reading will be changed forever.

I am a collector of rare books but in the near future I will be a collector of books for all of them will at one point become rare. As for Kindle and iPad helping save the planet, buying used books could too, there is no shame in that.

Yes I dread living in a paperless world. I do not harbour the fear of a publisher that spurs from profit and copywriting concerns. My fear is that of a reader that has held a book in her hands throughout her life and cannot fathom ever saying goodbye.


This article was published in The Gulf Today on 14th Feb, 2010.

I HATE YOU, NOW GET IN LINE

“100 per cent of the Islamic terrorists are Muslims, and that is our main enemy today. So why we should not be profiling people because of their religion?”

“You could say that 80-85 per cent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists”

“We’re just living in a politically correct world to say we should be screening a Scandinavian grandmother the same as we do a middle-eastern male”

These hateful, outrageous and highly insulting generalisations are but a few of the hundreds that Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, who is currently serving his ninth term in the US House of Representatives, is spitting out to the media at every given opportunity.

As a member of the Homeland Security Committee King has used the terrorism angle to spread his obvious and unwitheld hatred for Islam. He went as far as criticising the Obama administration for not using the word ‘terrorism’ enough.

In 2008 he protested against an Islam awareness ad campaign aimed at educating people and demanded it be rejected. The ads were simple black and white panels with words such as “Head Scarf?” or “Prophet Mohammad?” and the words “You deserve to know” along with a Web site address.

His latest endeavour is to promote what he describes as a “half truth and half fiction” novel, “Vale of Tears,” which tells a story about future terrorist attacks by so-called Muslim extremists in Nassau County, N.Y.

After the recent foiled bomb attack on a trans-Atlantic airliner, bound for Detroit, King has opted for higher security measures in US airports. This is a predictable reaction considering he is a veteran of the Bush administration. Although if this strategy was ever successful in more than inconveniencing the general public this recent incident would have never been possible.

King’s proposed form of higher security measure is not only shocking but also demeaning to every Muslim and to the Americans themselves. He blatantly proposed on a radio show a Muslims-only screening protocol, which involves a full-body-see-through screening for any person carrying a middle-eastern name (basically full X-ray images recorded on film). His other suggestion is to have Muslims-only checkpoint lines at US airports.

This makes me wonder have they not learned anything from their past? Is this King’s way of going back to the segregated schools and water fountains when it was white versus black?

The mere suggestion of such an absurd broad-based ethnic profiling scheme is clearly nothing but a modern day witch-hunt.

Although this suggestion will not be adopted anytime soon, the sheer thought of it churns my insides. How is it in this day and age, after all that has been done by the Americans themselves to fight bigotry and prejudices, that a man like King and his followers are able to blurt out statements such as “It’s time to have a Muslim checkpoint line in America’s airports and have Muslims be scrutinised. You better believe it, it’s time.”

I wonder if the word Muslim was replaced by the word black or Jew would America have reacted differently to Peter King? This has gone beyond political correctness. This is what Americans must view as illegal, unethical and unconstitutional. The first amendment to the US constitution professes the freedom of religion and the fourth, “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

King has many followers urging him to run for the 2012 presidential nomination. If King has his way it would be shameful for any Muslim, let alone middle-eastern, to accept this insult. To willingly stand in Muslims-only queues, herded from the rest and happily be frisked and screened for no reason than our religion, that would be the end of Arab pride, and Islamic dignity.

How long are we going to remain silent and bow down to the barrage of insults that come in the form of France banning the Hijab (Islamic head dress) in schools, Denmark releasing shameful caricatures about Prophet Mohammed, Switzerland approving a constitutional ban on mosque minarets, Jewish soldiers invading Al-Aqsa mosque during Friday prayers and now Peter King. Our political strength lies in our solidarity. Muslim nations should find one united voice in which to speak with. Stand up to this tyranny, injustice and ongoing condemnation. Demand that we are given our rights and respected for we are no less deserving than any other nation or religion.

At last I wish to address my final words to Mr King:

Mr King, bigotry and prejudice are a contagious infliction that spread faster than the swine flu our world was so rattled by. Therefore, for your sake, and the sake of the American people, I wish you a full and speedy recovery.

Published in The Gulf Today on Jan 24th, 2010

EVERYDAY SAVAGES

Have you ever looked at certain people and couldn’t help think that they reminded you of a certain animal, a bird maybe? You could see the resemblance not only in their features but in their behaviour too. Fret not, that doesn’t make you a horrible person it just solidifies the fact that on this planet we are all connected.

Our relationship with animals is one that dates back to the beginning of time. For as long as humans roamed this earth they have walked side by side, or most probably ran in the opposite direction of animals, and therefore, we have a certain kinship to them. We have photographed them in amazement, studied them in wonder, we continue to raise them as pets. And some of us even worship them.

This bond humans have with animals has infiltrated art, and so we witnessed the likes of Leonardo Davinci incorporating them in his paintings, and devising contraptions in their likeness. Writers have made lead characters of them in works such as Aesop’s Fables and Kalīlah wa Dimnah. Religious texts are full of them, each animal representing a human flaw, a strength, a weakness. Each is portrayed as the image of good and evil personified. Why does it seem easier for us to accept reality when it is within the confinement of the animal kingdom yet so hard for us to face it in ours?

In children’s literature animals were used as a moral compass to direct them to the rights and steer them away from the wrongs of the world. One wonders if books such as Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would have been as influential if all their characters were humans. Children can easily relate to animals and understand human characteristics through them, as can adults. I guess it is easier to cast aside discriminatory and judgmental feelings when we are talking about Peter Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat.

George Orwell used animal characters in his portrayal of the evils of totalitarianism in the classic novel Animal Farm. Through the pigs, cows and horses that lived within the borders of a farm fence we learned of political manipulation and twisted agendas better than watching the real thing unfold on the news. There must be a connection between the world of politics and that of animals (no pun intended) because to this day the United States’ two major political parties are represented by animal images. The Democratic Party the donkey and the Republican the elephant.

In language animals make an appearance more often than not. We hear terms such as “crocodile tears” when speaking of hypocrisy in human emotions. But why use an image of a weeping crocodile to portray a characteristic reserved purely for humans? It makes you wonder why the slyness of a fox and the wisdom of an owl? Why not the slyness of politicians and the wisdom of monks?

In our so-called civilised world we pride ourselves on being so different from animals. We are not savages we say. Only animals hunt for survival and we hunt for sport. Animals kill because they have no choice yet humans kill because the choice is all theirs. If only people lifted their heads up once in a while, if they gazed at the faces passing them by or glanced over towards a nearby table in a restaurant they would see. They would see the fox in the face of a passer-by and glimpse the owl in another person’s eyes, only then will they realise that there is something beastly in every human and another thing humane in every beast.

This article was published in The Gulf Today on 17th Jan, 2010.