IMPOLITENESS: MISTREATING THE LESS FORTUNATE

rough first draft

Beirut!
...
I do not emigrate twice
[Nor would I] fall in love with you twice
And I don’t see in the [Mediterranean] more than a sea . . .

Mahmoud Darwish, “Beirut” (My translation.)

WHY NOT GO EAST, YOUNG MAN? WHY NOT ACCEPT MISTREATMENT?

(You can skip this first section. Too much personal stuff.)

Soon after I had completed my Ph.D. I had solid job prospects in Lebanon (the American University of Beirut and the American University College, renamed the Lebanese-American University). Too, through friends, I had decent job prospects at universities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and one job prospect in el-Ain in the United Arab Emirates. I didn’t go to Beirut in good part because Iranian intelligence had the run of that city. Unlike today, that intelligence service had been of a more insecure and aggressive nature, and could see in me me a prize as hostage.

Beirut is safer now. Thanks to the harmful idiots, that intelligence service now has relaxed. Dealing with harmful idiots, it’s found out, is rather easy once you realize that their elephant-like stature is only that. That the elephant is so Israel-anchored that it had shackled its own self down. The Israel-anchoring had so impacted the evolution of its brain, that it shrank. Worse, the Israel-shackled elephant had gone on a course (historic) of defeating progressive, secular, and nationalist forces in the Arab World, the same forces which could’ve been its best friend.

Even when brain-damaged the elephant rampaged its way through Arab Iraq, invaded it, it did it while allied to reactionary Iraqi expats. These had their own agenda, some of which Iranian, which the brain-damaged Israel-anchored elephant couldn’t see. These reactionary entrepreneurs knew to peddle love for Israel to the equally reactionary (Israel-obsessed) Jews, the right wing and the liberal. Now the brain-damaged elephant is paying the price: It’s put itself in the corner with Arab reactionary “allies,” fighting for them and for the “Jewish state.” The sad truth is that these “allies” can’t garner even their own people’s respect let alone that of others. Or raise a competent army. (Mubarak recently sent an Egyptian intelligence delegation to Lebanon. I started to write about the futility of the Egyptian regime and its I-can-be-useful-for-pay moves. Then I stopped. Isn't worth the ink. The non-Arab and non-Islamic Egyptian regime is useless to the harmful idiots. It’s a slave-regime; was so with Sadat and continues to be so. Just pay them and save us all from the illusion that they and their Saudi sponsors can make a significant difference anywhere that matters.) Their own people perceive these allies as traitors, as the Judas who’s delivered fellow Arabs to the Romans -- to the Israelo-American conquerors.

But I had already outgrown Beirut, anyway.

To the Gulf countries -- no, thank you; I wasn’t about to accept the status of a second class citizen. All said: “you go there as an Arab, and you’ll be treated like a parasite.” To be mistreated! I’m not a masochist. Older friends in the know had agreed with me, though a few faulted me for not pursuing the el-Ain option, an exception to the rule, they said. Steve, one of my closest friends then and now, who had brought me to D.C., and our rather sizeable circle then (mostly SUNY people) wanted me to stay. But then the S.O.B. left to New York, and the other S.O.B.s soon followed, migrating all over the country. They left me alone in the District of Celibacy.

My only regret: I love and need the sun. El-Ain would've given me that.

(Caveat: I’ve met many Arabs, Muslim and Christian, who had had a decent experience in the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. Still, it’s agreed that you get respect there if you’re Western, especially British or American. And not much respect if you’re not.)

SADISTIC, ARE THEY?

The rich Arabs of oil score low on the politeness scale according to one respected Arab newsman. On or about July 30 of this year, Abdel Bari Atwan of al-Quds al-Arabi (based in London) took a harsh view of the treatment given foreign laborers by Kuwaitis and other Gulf Arabs. He had been referring to workers from Bengladesh who had taken to the streets in Kuwait. Earlier, in February, in Bahrain 1300 Indian laborers had demonstrated , and in that month, too, tens of thousands of Indian laborers had demonstrated in Dubai. In Abu Dhabi in early July the authorities had arrested about 3100 Indian workers.

Mr. Atwan went on to remind his readers that Hannibal Qadhafi (Muammar’s son) had been arrested in Switzerland for assaulting a housekeeper at a Geneva hotel. And only days before Mr. Atwan had written his scathing criticism of the culture of the rich Arabs, Belgian authorities had filed charges against seven related to an Emirati Sheik. These had been alleged to have mistreated nine servants of various nationalities, including Arab, who had been attending to the floor the Emiratis were occupying.

Here’s Mr. Atwan:

“I don’t understand this Arab sadism, the treatment of others with such bestiality, especially that our Islamic faith is forgiving and mandates equality and humility... [and] the avoidance of even the appearance of enslaving [others].” (My translation from Arabic.)


PAUL THEROUX

I had forgotten about Mr. Atwan’s commentary, though I had noted it. But just yesterday, as I was reading Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008) I jumped when I read the following:

“Many Germans have second homes here, he said. But mainly it was a resort for Arabs.

“‘Saudis -- they have the money,’ he said. ‘But also Jordanians and Syrians. Their country is too hot -- they have to leave, but they don’t want to go to Europe and America. They know people hate them there. Americans say they’re terrorists. They get double-checked at airports. And they don’t want to be in a country where the women have to remove the veil.’

“‘They wear veils here?’ It seemed odd in a country where Muslim women were gracefully dressed in sarongs and tight-fitting blouses.

...

“‘Lots of Arabs?’

“‘Thousands, many thousands. Big planes, full of families -- women in black, men in suits. Children. They break things at the hotels and they fight when we ask them to pay. And rude when they talk to you.’

...

“‘So what do you think?’
“ ‘I think if you’re a good person, you don’t need religion.’
“ ‘They’ve got a lot of religion.’
“ ‘They pray five times a day, and still they are terrible. So rude!’”

[Theroux at 317.]

*****

I’m old enough to know that this generalized impoliteness is only rarely innate. I’ve amateurishly diagnosed individuals in my practice -- well, only one -- as sado-masochistic. (This is how rare a phenomenon it is.) But a majority in a cultural group? Can’t be. Something else is at work.