Ramadan Kareem: 7DAYS

This is the second bit of my deep thoughts for the weekend, or tirade, lecture, therapy - as you will! If you're going to plough through this, you might as well do the other bit first. See below ;P

I must salute the management and editorial team of 7DAYS for their success in providing UAE readers with the closest thing we have to Britain's Daily Mirror - your campaigning newspaper. With its gung-ho editorial style, its tireless self-promotion as the people's champion against - ohhhh - anything at all really - and its dedication to testing the limits of sensationalism in this socio-political context, 7DAYS has consistently coaxed and nurtured dissatisfaction and applauded self-righteousness in its readership since its inception.

The letters page has become a byword for complaint and frustration, attack and counter-attack. And now, in Ramadan, they've hit the motherlode: intercultural respect; societal norms; standards of public decency; personal codes of behaviour; and lots and lots and lots of name-calling. All that this sniping and self-righteous grandstanding does is erode goodwill and create bitterness. Ramadan Kareem. It is so sad.

Yes, I'm leaving soon. No, I don't like it here very much. Yes, there are issues to be resolved, progress can seem painfully slow, I strongly disagree with certain things, and sometimes I'd like to poke someone in the eye. The traffic sucks, the cost of living is rising faster than the hundreds of tower blocks, and you can't sunbathe naked as roast suckling pig on Jumeirah Beach with your Tequila Sunrise (not that I would want to!) But look at this place in the context of the rest of the Middle East. And in the span of time. Some countries are centuries old: this one's very young, and arguably trying to run before it can walk, but is home perfect?

And let us briefly consider the behaviour of the human race as a whole...... hmmmmm...... We're really good at getting on with each other, aren't we?

So maybe we should just sigh and get on with it. And make the most of the good stuff?

As for the press, I believe that press freedom is utterly essential to the development of a civilised and cultured society. I've said that before.
BUT. (I've said this before too!)

But.

How many times does it have to be said that with freedom comes responsibility?

Those of us who live in Dubai are all caught in the maelstrom of apparently unreined development. Many expats are reconsidering their presence here. Many Emiratis are bewildered at the way their home - both physically and culturally - is evolving into something unknowable. We need to keep our sense of perspective and our sense of humour, or hug a pillow, or moan at our friends, or gnash our teeth, or play squash, go hashing, eat chocolate, drink wine, jump up and down on a mattress yelling "GNEEEAAARGHGH!!!!"

Then again, there's always the option of writing an open letter to the moron in the silver 4x4 who cut you up at the junction, for publication in a national newspaper. Because this is what we have national newspapers for, yes?

Forgive me if I disagree. This isn't a democracy. We knew that when we came here, but of course, knowing it and living with it are rather different things!
(Of course, when you look at democracy at work in Britain and the US - ohhhhh - that's why you left....?! Ahhhhh... Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah...)

Most of us don't know who's in charge of what, and we're reluctant to write to anyone with real authority because we're not entirely confident that criticism won't have repercussions. The press is the vox populi. Free, fearless and objective, dedicated to the dissemination of truth and the encouragement of open debate in pursuit of a civilised society.

Yes, I know. I live in the real world too. I'm not suggesting for one moment that it's easy, but it is important, isn't it? The press here is freer now than it has ever been, certainly than in some neighbouring countries, and it has an important role to play in this developing nation.

And the letters page is important for all us anonymous drones who have a point of view on the place we live and times we live in: it's our forum for debate (not a whinge-fest); our direct and secure line to distant policy makers and executives; and a heads-up to the editorial staff on what we care about, good and bad.

Three months of letters from fed-up motorists is boring, depressing, and may ultimately encourage road-rage. An editorial brainstorm identifying the underlying issue in response to half a dozen similar letters, followed by an indepth investigation, interviews with the appropriate people, and follow-up features a month, and six months, and a year, down the line, with a view to getting something done - now that sounds useful. Both in tackling the immediate issue, and in countering the us-and-them mentality so easily engendered in a diverse society.

Where repercussions are a factor, the letters page is there for the lone voice, the whistle-blower. From time to time The Gulf News has carried letters from parents regarding, for example, inhumane or unsafe school transport or something equally unacceptable at a particular school, addressing their letter to 'the concerned authority' and with the tagline 'Name and address withheld by request'. They daren't complain to the school directly, out of anxiety that their child will be removed from the register for a spurious reason which will then appear on his school record. In the letters page, David has his weapon against Goliath.

In short (ok- medium) we need balanced and clear-headed reporting of local and international news; we need responsible investigative and campaigning journalism. We need a forum where the general public, the business sector, health and welfare professionals, government ministers and executive officers can find out what everyone else thinks and feels about plans, events, decisions and actions that affect them, and engage in the exchange of views. Bravo 7DAYS for tackling Etisalat over YouTube, Hi5 etc.

What we do not need, especially in this place, at this time, with the human race apparently hurtling scarlet-faced and screaming towards Armageddon, is a national newspaper sponsoring the polarisation of our society.

Ramadan Kareem: Emirates Today

It is now the middle of Ramadan. I have lived here for many years now, and Ramadan is part of the rhythm of the year: I know that it is about submission to Allah, and celebrating faith, family and community; I also know that, as with all things in Dubai, there is the private face and the commercial version (as there is for Christmas in developed Christian countries). I appreciate the difficulties of the devout of any denomination, who have to maintain their balance on a wire strung between the opposing poles of God and Mammon - thus has it ever been - but I don't really know about Ramadan. I thought I did, but really, as an outsider, I just put up with it.

Moreover, since my brain is hard-wired to my stomach, I can't get past the fact that my fasting colleagues (especially the wives and mothers, who I know have got their families up and out to school before work, and will be preparing Iftar and dinner for family and friends when they get home) must be dead-beat by the end of a day's teaching, so I don't like to bother them with questions, like some kind of religious tourist. So I don't know much beyond the obvious, except that two people have said the same thing to me about fasting: that normally they would not be able to do it, but that in Ramadan, Allah helps them. And everyone (even the weary cooks!) says how special this time is for friends and families.

Last year Emirates Today ran a Ramadan Diary written by Zarina Khan, journalist and Muslim daughter of a Pakistani father and an American mother. It was both illuminating and entertaining, and I never missed it.

This year's coverage has been expanded to a formal double-page feature of Ramadan news and photos from around the UAE; and Zarina's diary alternates with that of Adrian Murphy, a non-Muslim expat who has decided to observe the fast, actively engage with Ramadan, and report and reflect on his experience and conversation for us non-Muslim residents.

The Ramadan Special is sponsored by a property company whose billboards I first noticed in May; and is, I think, the culmination of a multi-headed campaign to establish its presence in the consciousness of potential customers, Arab, western - and probably NRIs too: I don't read the Khaleej Times, but I'll bet their green ink is there! The company has evidently spent hundreds of thousands of dirhams on their campaign which, I think, has been building to this current phase. However, while it may be strategic, it is not a gimmick. Good luck to them.

Certainly, there's nothing gimmicky or superficial about Adrian's diary. He's sincere, human, and doesn't take himself too seriously, in which he has much in common with Zarina. And like Zarina, he writes in a way that takes you there. His friends were obviously baffled by this at the outset, but they might be getting it now!

What got me thinking about this was the Fanoos link from M and J Adventures to www.ramadan.co.uk. Yes, I went for the cute icon, but it's a really interesting site that starts with an introduction to what Ramadan is all about, and links to other sites like a public science site called Moonwatch which begins with a fine picture of the new crescent moon in Oxfordshire at the beginning of Ramadan.

I think the Ramadan Special is timely too. There has surely never been such a bitter undercurrent to Ramadan before. With the whole of the UAE changing so fast, and Dubai fastest of all, there are more people, and under greater stress, than ever before. Oh yes, and the world's gone mad.

So there is plenty of scope for frustration and irritation, and there's probably never been a more pressing need for consideration and tolerance. Or objective journalism dedicated to the pursuit of high truth, not top dollar.

Shades of God and Mammon again?

Oh dear. You might want to get yourself a cup of tea before the next bit......

(Sorry) (Sir) You CAN'T COME IN!

Woke's a clever bunny. Spot the difference between the pic on the Gulf News racist doorman story













and his version on his post 'The First Strike' in the UAE Community Blog.












And since it's the weekend, here are my complete ramblings in response thereto! (Compressed version in Woke's comments.)

Racism is endemic here and just because almost any nationality is allowed in doesn't mean that everyone is valued equally. I am not taking a shot at the UAE, either: racism is a world-wide phenomenon, one of the darker elements of human nature. The deep-rooted ignorance and prejudice Woke ascribes to corporations unfortunately begins with individuals, and attitudes we absorb or develop without thinking. I'm as guilty as anyone else, and have to accept that my genuine desire to be open and fair comes from this self-knowledge. Oh dear.

Our sense of self naturally includes our membership of particular groups who have shared habits, traditions and attitudes - some more inclusive than others; I call it a comfort blanket of what defines 'us'. However, it must also define those with different habits, traditions and attitudes as 'them'.

I don't think this is a bad thing. How can everyone be the same? Why should we be? Let's hear it for individualism, cultural diversity and tolerance, for goodness' sake! Less of the suspicion, anxiety, and secret (or not so secret) desire to get other people to do it our way! (Thinking about governments as well as groups and individuals).

Most multi-cultural societies start out with clusters of enclaves, barrios, ghettos, quarters - so many terms for the same phenomenon! We could also call them halfway houses, perched between the old country and the new. With time, the edges blur as succeeding generations qualify for passports from their parents' adopted country, mix at school, at work, sometimes in marriage, and forge more inclusive identities, as Italian-Americans, Anglo-Asians, etc. And as one community comes of age, and moves on and up, the next wave arrives. Easier said than done, of course.

Even so, racism - the dark side of the comfort blanket - is difficult to eradicate; which is why most countries are eventually obliged to legislate against racist behaviour, and be seen to enforce their anti-racism laws.

The UAE is a special case, because the 85% foreign population is a transient labour force, not encouraged to remain after our working life is over, and national policy, quite naturally, is to encourage nationals to marry nationals.

Even so, many of our children grow up in schools and neighbourhoods which bring them friends of many nationalities and cultures: Emirati, Scottish, Indian, Tasmanian, Iranian, Croatian, South African, English, Serbian, Australian. (I'm running through the friends Habibi had in eleven years here.)

Some of these friendships last, some don't, but in these expat children we have a group of people who cannot, in conscience, make blanket assumptions about Emiratis, Scots, Indians, etc. etc. ETC!!!! because experience has shown them individuals - with various similarities and differences, and perhaps as importantly, they have seen themselves and their own culture through the eyes of individuals from other cultures. It may not always be easy, but it has to be a good thing!

Even if the 'melting pot' doesn't exist; even if the kids who go to single nationality schools and live in single nationality neighbourhoods never mix with other nationalities; and the housemaid phenomenon means that some categorise certain races as servant class, and others as Sir or Madame -on balance, the expat experience Dubai offers is a gift for the future to wherever Dubai's Emirati and expatriate children live their adult lives.

Returning to the present (and without wishing to criticise the specific hotel in the newspaper story) it is all very well for the General Manager to protest (quite sincerely, I’m sure) that they can't be racist when they employ forty three nationalities; but there are many who make a distinction between those they will employ and those with whom they will socialise.

In addition, racist attitudes and/or practices among employers seriously limit the spending power of some nationalities; meanwhile others have considerable spending power, and a drinking culture that keeps bar tills busy. I for one believe this is a factor in the unwritten but well-established door policies of some clubs, which makes entire sections of the expatriate population the victims of double discrimination.

It's a sign of the progress here that racist door policy - or behaviour - is being reported. 'Members Only' door policies have been applied in Dubai clubs for years, as Deepak testifies (but I can't find the thread - If you read this Deepak, where did you post about arriving here?). What has changed is that people now feel able to protest to authorities, and that the authorities act.

Of course, doormen can have prejudices and policies of their own.

Da Vinci Lode

I eventually gave in and read The Da Vinci Code. I don't like the way Dan Brown writes, and as far as I can tell he's only written one book, because a quick look at the other one - something about bones or blood? I forget - soon told me that it was DVC all over again, but with Illuminati instead of Opus Dei, a professor instead of a curator, a niece instead of......need I go on?

(A friend said he wrote the Illuminati one first, and DVC is actually an improved rehash. Two sets of royalties for one book - not bad. Something for those who buy one handbag in three different colours?)

What interested me, being female and having been brought up Catholic, was all the stuff about the suppression of 'the feminine'. I already knew that St. Paul and one of the St. Augustines had a lot to answer for. So I did a bit of research. Nothing. Nada. Nyet. Or at least, nothing to support Dan Brown's so-called truth. Opus Dei exists. Not secret. The Priory of Sion does not, having been invented by a French charlatan, Pierre Plantard. Quite disappointing really, as I was working up a nice head of steam about the sexism, if not mysogyny, built into the operations and directions of the Roman Catholic Church. Ah well.

So all this hoohaa from Christian groups regarding first the book and then the film strikes me as bloody stupid mob rule. Honestly! All that superiority about Muslim outrage about cartoons that most had not seen, and then this! Islam prohibits the depiction of the Prophet (pbuh) even (especially) in reverence. The 'west' has no such dictate, and in fact celebrates freedom of speech and freedom of the press (including all the media). For Christians to insist that we should not be permitted the opportunity to read a book or watch a film, when all the counter-arguments are out there too, for those who care enough to check their facts, is arrogant, hypocritical and downright self-indulgent.

There was the same fuss about The Life of Brian about a million years ago. (If God made us, and in his image and likeness (not in our bodies, but in our souls) does it not indicate a divine sense of humour? Er... not about making us.... unless all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, and we're coming to the climax of a century-long black comedy?)

The Roman Catholic Church abolished The Index (a list of banned books) a long time ago (I think! Good grief! Could it possibly still exist?) in support, I believe of the principles of Free Will and personal responsiblity. Anyone who would ban books is very suspect in my view.

Children must be protected.

Adults have the responsibility to make choices, and do their homework about those choices.

Hmph. I will now get down off this soap-box before I hyperventilate.

In case you were wondering, this started when a colleague sent me an email, 20 Big Lies in the Da Vinci Code. I found it on-line in a Christian magazine. If you're still interested.

(P.S. I preferred the film to the book.)

I've never met an Iranian I didn't like.

I mean it. Every Iranian I have ever met since I came here in 1993 has been cultured, generous and full of humour. They value their families and their faith, and they also enjoy music, art and long, long conversations. By the time I'd met a few I had to wonder how such people could come from the land of the ayatollahs? And how the ayatollahs have managed to establish and maintain their repressive and cheerless regime when Iranians seem so irrepressible and cheerful?

Those were my questions. Nowadays I know more now about modern Iranian history, the Pahlavis, etc. and also the limits of and on the international media. But I know almost nothing about how people live in Iran today, and what they think about themselves, their country, and the rest of the world. When my lovely neighbour and I get together for a chat, we talk about ourselves and our families. I don't turn up with a questionnaire on Iranian politics!

Today I wandered into Manal and Alaa's bit bucket, and saw the entry, Flame Wars: A Brief History of Blogging in Iran, in which Alaa reviews Nasrin Ahlavi's book about blogging in Iran, We Are Iran. I hadn't even thought about Iranian bloggers!

When I searched, I found the motherlode, Iranian Canadian Hossein Derakhshan's Blogs by Iranians site. So now I have no excuse for my ignorance. I'm going to need longer weekends.

One more thing. Alaa Abd El-Fatah is an Egyptian blogger currently in jail in Cairo, awaiting some kind of action after a protest in support of two judges who were themselves arrested for demanding an independent judiciary. Find out more on fellow Egyptian Sabbah's Blog.

The Mix

The good thing about a multicultural city like this (and I mean multicultural, there's contact and cross-fertilisation but no melting pot) is that sooner or later your phonebook and email contact page looks like something out of the UN directory. When you have regular contact with people from Lebanon, France, India, Ukraine, South Africa, the Philippines, Egypt, Scotland and Mexico, stereotypes begin to lose their power, and foreign ways become part of your landscape. I'll pass on Fatma's cardamom coffee, Rafael's gazpacho, and Hamad's mutton mansaf (arghgh!) and let you off peasepudding, haggis (Don't ask..) and Merlot. Eid, Diwali and Bonfire Night all within a week of each other? OK. Let's do our own thing, but enjoy everyone else's lights and fireworks too. Ramadan Kareem to you. Happy Christmas to me. It works here. We grumble about the bits we don't like, may be wary of the unfamiliar for a time, may find someone's cooking, religious observances or family traditions incomprehensible, but if it works for them, and ours works for us, then that's ok.

But it would be good if we could have a national standard on time management, some kind of protocol, like a published table of relative time to assist in cross-cultural appointment making, so that if you tell me 2pm I know you mean GMT, GMT+/-3/4/7, bukhara, insha'llah, toute de suite, mañana baby or in your dreams buddy!

Arab culture is very much about family, often an extended family. Even here in Dubai, where Emaratis live further apart than they used to and are outnumbered nationally by something like 85% foreigners, 75% from the sub-continent, and the rest of from all over the world (not sure, especially after recent expansion, but I've heard these sorts of numbers) family ties remain important, and people can place second cousins, aunts and nephews. I can do that up to a point, but there's no comparison. (I was reading a Spanish blogger who explained that, because women keep both their mother's and their father's surname on marriage, she can trace her relatives through four generations on both sides.)

Even in a social and cultural oddity like Dubai which is part New Town, part family business with global expansion plan, local culture remains family orientated, private. This, in a world with a global-information culture governed by the assumption that everything is or should be open to public view and tourism.

Here we routinely grumble about one another from time to time, and get on with it - isn't that the point of grumbling - a little grease to ease the axle? But when people elsewhere look at middle eastern culture (as in contemporaray life rather than heritage), there's not a lot to see, apart from exposés of hideous abuse and honour killings. Yes these happen, far, far too frequently, and it is important that they are reported because that's how ideas shift, consciences stir, and change begins - just as in Britain after poor Damilola Taylor was murdered by racist fellow students, and in Spain, where the tragic suicide of 14 year-old 'Jokin' has at last forced public awareness and official recognition of bullying in schools.

In KSA and here in the UAE private efforts are being made to curtail domestic abuse, through education, legal action and the provision of shelters, and while there is also opposition to all this, and the effort is piecemeal at this stage, attitudes and provision are changing. KSA presenter Rania al-Baz made international headlines last September when she showed her battererd face on TV after another severe beating from her husband - and said that 1) she was not the only wife this was happening to, and b) it was WRONG and what was to be done about it?

Here in Dubai, a newspaper article around about the same time (perhaps as a result?) on a shelter for battered wives, caused outrage among men and women, some of whom sympathised with the wives and condemned the husbands for brutality and betrayal of religious principles, and others who condemned the wives for their betrayal of family values and religious principles. The other immediate outcome was that disgruntled husbands were able to identify the shelter and go after their wives. The shelter relocated amidst continued public debate, which is increasingly supportive of the principle that a women should not live in fear of her husband, and that the 'rule of thumb' (A husband may beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb.) is outmoded. Newspaper coverage and debate continue.

In fact, despite the constant criticism of the local press, some of which is dire, it has come a long way in the last five years. In the past, as a public watchdog its best trick was bark, wag and roll over. Actually, forget the bark, because the occasional snap got journalists on the next plane out of here.

Nowadays there is proper national and international news coverage; there are features on contentious social and economic issues (and we certainly have plenty of those); there is public debate. And if you're not satisfied, you can get major international broadsheets at the supermarket, switch on a satellite news channel in virtually any major language, or go online.

So yes, the bad things you hear about are generally true, but they are not the whole truth by any means. Arab girls pursue degree courses, work for a living and run their own businesses in the UAE and Oman - and no doubt in Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. KSA, Afghanistan and Iran are topical, not typical! Of course it isn't perfect over here. But where is it perfect?

International and Personal

OK, this started out as a postscript to an earlier blog, but got too long, so I moved it here, but now – let’s face it, the woman wants to talk! So I’ll split it up and you just stop when you’ve had enough! I go back to work tomorrow so that will shut me up for a while.

We are shaped by experience as well as our own culture and family. As an educated but rather unsophisticated woman of limited political understanding (Just call me a bleeding heart liberal.) who hails from an idiosyncratic island and former colonial power off the coast of mainland Europe (The Continent - I love the absolute certainty of that phrase. Hello World, here we are!) living in the middle east, and particularly in Dubai, through a dozen years of globalisation, political, economic and military brinkmanship, alarming climatic change, increasing muslim and christian fundamentalism, and an increasingly deadly intercontinental, inter-religious, inter-cultural struggle for power, prestige, moral high ground - and survival - I have to say that my perspective has been shaped by all this - even if I don't understand it, and have no clue how we are to get out of this mess.

But I have also been shaped by exposure to the day-to-day life of people of umpteen different cultures. With what may be stereotypical English reserve, or a bad case of Roman Catholic female I'm-not-bothering-you-am-I? syndrome, I was at first overwhelmed and dogged by a sense of unworthiness at the warmth and hospitality of Arab and Iranian friends and neighbours who have almost dragged me over the threshold when I've popped round to say hi, who have brought out every sweet (My teeth! I have to develop some won't power or else stay home!), offered every kind of juice, tea and coffee, enquired after the health and well-being of every member of my family, and treated me as the most welcome and honoured friend. Wow. God bless them every one.

On the other hand, early tail-wagging eagerness to mix with neighbours and see my small son make friends first, and leave cultural analysis til he was older, was somewhat discouraged by the recognition that for many asians here I am a Brit - a non-acronym for spoilt-and-supercilious -(i.e. female)-educated-western-economic-interloper-from-former-colonial-power. It is not overt or particularly intentional, but given the racial inequities of the job market here, and the fact that for many people here the legacy of colonialism remains real, it's understandable. Plus there's the Jumeirah Jane syndrome which turns Mrs Ordinary from a small house in England into 'Madame', the bored lady of leisure, living in Jumeirah on her husband's employment package.

(Before Dubai embarked on its bigger-shinier-wackier-most exclusive development programme - who is it that they want to exclude, do you suppose? - Jumeirah was Dubai's elegant upmarket suburb - actually, its only suburb!)

Of course the JJ is a cliché and, as such, often masks culture shock, homesickness, and a feeling of purposelessness because school hours and holidays, combined with Jumeirah Jim's long hours and frequent business trips, mean that educated, sociable Mrs Ordinary can't work outside the home if she wants to look after her children, so what does she do when they're at school and JJ's at work, and how does she make friends? But she's white, has the 4x4 and the big villa, drinks latté and complains about the maid to her friends who are all manicured, pedicured and coiffed to the beautifully bronzed hilt, and I'm so jealous I could spit!!!!!!!!!!!!! Naturally, to all the under-paid, frequently over-qualified, Filipinas, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and Indians providing the pedicures and serving the lattés on ten-hour shifts, being a Brit looks pretty good.

Anyway, the times they are a-changing, the buildings are going up almost as fast as the rents, and the salary+accommodation+school fees+annual flights home package will soon be history, so I guess that equality is coming because Mr and Mrs JJ can't afford to stay here much longer, so unless there's someone else out there looking for maids, pedicures and caffeine, there are going to be several agencies, salons and Starbucks franchises on the market, and several million m.sq. of valuable commercial and residential real estate available from Golden Goose Enterprises.

Enough already. As I say, JJ is a cliché, a stereotype; and stereotypes are so seductive in the short term, so dangerous in the long term.