Wake me up when slavery ends

I apologize to all my readers, few as they are, but I have been lacking any inspiration, not because of anything, just that I guess my mind went blank. Now that’s out of the way I would like to come straight to the point. Most of us work, and most have office boys in our places of work. Almost all of those office boys are Indians or coming from the subcontinent. The question is have you ever had a conversation with him/her? I mean a true person to person conversation, not the regular hello or good morning. It could be an eye opening conversation if you only would listen to them.

Most of you wouldn’t have heard of a company called "Basma" or Bahrain Services and Maintenance Company. Actually it's very ironic that it's called Basma, which is Arabic for smile. I certainly don’t see any real smile on any of their janitors or office boys, although they do have to have a fake smile on their faces when greeting you. I have a different name for this company, how about "Bahrain Slave Driver Company"? Sounds just about right when you see their ugly faces. In my work place we have got several janitors from this particular company, and I have had befriended some of them who I see on a regular basis. I have noticed one thing about all of them though; they all seem like circus animals that have been whipped so many times that they are laid broken, tamed and helpless. They have a constant fear in their eyes even after working with us and knowing us for so many years. I have tried to talk to some of them honestly but they seem to think that I would go behind their back and talk to their company, but some of them have opened up slightly to me and I didn’t like what I heard. I have learned that they have to wake up every day around 4:00 AM, and they go back to their labor camps after 11:00 PM. All of these hours of course are hard working labor with little or no rest periods in between. You might see your office boys work in your workplace and think that like you they head home to rest after working hours, the answer is no, they have to go somewhere else to either clean or some other hard job until every drop of energy in their body is taken and some more. Our office boys have to work here for 11 hours, and then go to Standard Chartered bank to clean up and come back here to secure all doors and windows before leaving for some place to clean up again and finally go to City Center to clean up. About their pay, just take my word that they get very little. So little that they are practically slaves with a tip. If you must know its 40 BD but wait, they got free food and accommodation. So basically a prisoner with unemployment pay here in Bahrain would get a better deal. They also get sacked for the least mistake, and get shipped back to their home on the first flight.

So now that you have known, what do you think about your life? What do you think about your work or your boss? More importantly what would you want to do about it if you think this is wrong? Sadly not many people care nowadays to do much about it. This might only be one example of many here.

Oh and just when I was about to upload this post, one of the office boys have told me that he might have his contract terminated because he refused to go stay in another camp located in a crappy area. WOW!

Deus Vult (God Wills It)

This is the mantra that the crusaders have taken up as the permission to go to the holy lands In Palestine and murder thousands upon thousands there and on the road. Back then wars were fought under the disguise and collaboration of corrupt religious leaders who pretend to get their orders directly from God, or who spread lies that they have a mandate from God to kill people. Back then people fought believing that they were insuring their place in heaven. Other types of wars didn’t involve religion as much but had involved race as a major factor, or to despise a certain type of people just because they might have another shade of skin color or even just another language. In reality though, it was just for power and money, and those who did the actual fighting were better dead anyways. Then with the dawn of the twentieth century, humanity witnessed another reason for killing, this time it had nothing to do with God, this time it was about ideologies. Except here in the warm waters of the Arabian Gulf, we still fight for race and religion; why? Because "Deus Vult" of course.

Admittedly we did get some stints and hints of Arab nationalism movements in the area and even some communist influence here and there, but on the major part it was failed attempts in the six GCC countries. Nowadays we have reverted back to what seems like a religious struggle once again. I have to admit though that one big catalyst to this religious struggle is the so called Islamic revolution in Iran, which if you would notice hasn't finished "revolting" since 1978; I wonder why. Lines were drawn again dividing religious beliefs and creed, which have halted so much progress in this particular region. Ever since, we have gone from developing nations to nations locked together in a state of cold war. What's more is that within these GCC nations we have seen more and more divisions of religion take place. So in a nutshell we have went from developing countries to countries struggling from religious zeal. You might notice that I dedicate a fair amount of time to criticizing religious leaders, and that does not come out of nowhere, to be honest with you all I have found out that most of the blame should be placed on religious leaders who have pretended to be politicians in our society, although I do believe that religious leaders could be politicians only if they start to accept that religion is a private matter and that the people are not just a bunch of ignorant sinners who need spiritual guidance when all they want is food in their stomachs. All of those against my point of view can only look to our greatest teacher, the Prophet (PBUH) and tell me the shape of his government when he ruled Medina or when he eventually united the Arabian Peninsula. He has never proclaimed himself king and he sure never held elections to the office of God's prophet nor did he have a Soviet style "Politburo". He did though rule and die in Medina while so many Jews were freely practicing their own religion. So now tell me again, you think those religious leaders you love so much are better than the Prophet? Ask yourselves another simple question; why do they mostly preach fear of the other? Be it another religion or another sect or even just another language. It's simple really; "Fear" has always been the door that religious leaders use to accept them as the ultimate authority.

On the other hand there are many religious leaders who I have only the utmost respect reserved to them. Simply because they have understood what this religion is talking about, and that the people need more than spiritual guidance for them to survive. People need jobs, education, security, health and much more which is no less important than spiritual guidance. But these other ignorant clerics of hate foolishly think so much of themselves that they actually believe that they can achieve what the Prophet and his companions could not achieve.

One thing for sure is that when politicians try to meddle with religion and/or money they become corrupt. One last thing that has made me laugh so much is when the Grand Ayatollah in Iran commended the Egyptian revolution and has claimed it to be influenced by the Islamic revolution in Iran. I tell you dude that the Egyptians have risen up because they want to live, not because they want to know where the Qibla is.

The Land of the Cruiser

Qatar, where the Toyota Land Cruiser is considered a proof of citizenship just as much as a passport. Where new skyscrapers are pointing towards the hot sun. Where in some areas the spaces between neighbors is a block. It is considered by many Bahrainis as the land of milk and honey, the land of opportunity. It also happens to be where a good chunk of my family calls home. I came back last night from Qatar and this is what I felt.

It wasn’t long ago that I last visited my family there and the scenes of downtown Doha was not a surprise to me, nor was the new road networks being built to facilitate the establishment of new suburbs. What struck me was the fact that Qatar has got plenty of two main things, oil/gas which is evident in the wealth of this little populated country and the amount of land being opened up for new communities. Just like the UAE they do lack the native population and so they are forced to import labor from overseas. From the basic Asian blue collar laborer to the blue eyed Brit CEO, they all now call Qatar home. It is known that Qatar is also one of the major upcoming economies in the region and is a major competitor to Dubai. What makes it so different from Bahrain is only three words. Standard of living. Across the little stretch of water that separates Bahrain from Qatar we usually look to our neighbor with envy at the high standard of living. Not long ago though we Bahrainis thought ourselves superior to Qataris in term of education, not anymore. The huge steps taken up by HH Shaikha Moza towards overhauling education is simply amazing. She has single handedly, with little support from the people I should point out, she has taken it upon herself that the Qatari educations programs be improved ten folds with new and upcoming high standard universities take Qatar as a home away from home. All of this does come at a cost, and I do not mean monetary cost. More education means more open minded people, means more distance from the old habits and traditions of the past that go against education. It can be seen that there is a crisis of identity being fought in the hearts and minds of Qataris with both sides giving valid points to its respected arguments. Nevertheless I consider it only as a generational struggle that will pass, like so many generational struggles in the Arab countries.

During my visit there I have noticed that not once had I heard any reference of wanting or needing any form of representative government or that of democratic flue that seems to have infected so many minds around here. Who needs politics when your standard of living is that of Sweden if not more? Even in the UAE, you can notice the same feelings. Also in Qatar it can clearly be noticed that their royal family of Al-Thani considers itself as citizens rather than super citizens or aristocrats, yes they do have wealth but so does many Qataris who are not from Al-Thani. They have so wisely chosen to share the wealth and blessings that their country holds and in doing so have become as inseparable as the sand that covers Qatar. On one occasion I have personally greeted their Amir and their prime minister once in the Four Seasons hotel as they were having lunch next to our table. He greeted me with his traditional big warm smile and welcomed me to Qatar along with my colleagues. You can hear many such stories of his warm friendly feelings from any Qatari should you ask.

When taking all those facts about Qatar and more that I have failed to mention you could clearly see an emerging country. Ready to stake its claim in the world scene, not just because of its mass wealth but rather that Qatar has adapted the form of a huge land cruiser; it can fit all the family and can ride through any hardship. I only wish that everyone can learn something from them.

The Keyboard Warriors

I have a daily ritual these days. I tend to log onto two forums whenever I can and read what people are posting. These two forums are bahrainforums.com and fajrbh.com, and they represent two opposite views of what is happening in Bahrain. Sometimes it’s very informative and sometimes it just makes me want to punch the screen of my laptop. I do talk about both of them, as I'm neither with this nor with that one. I try to be a neutral in a time when there is no such thing. In this post I would like to convey what I have noticed and observed from months of closely watching the cyber space battles take place for the hearts and minds of confused Bahrainis.

They say that the Egyptian revolution started out with a facebook event invitation or something like that, and it grew to cover the millions of accounts of Egyptians until. It wasn’t so far ago that we saw the first signs of using facebook and twitter to fuel a revolution as what had happened earlier in Iran. All of this brings to my memory the old song by the late Gil Scott-Heron "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Of course the song's name should not fool you as it speaks about changing what is in your skull before you think of making your life better, but nevertheless even after more than 40 years since that song came along, and with so much technological advances in the field of communication we still can see that there is no such thing as a "fashionable revolution", and that a revolution that is not involving everyone is not a revolution at all. The use of social media is a must part in our daily life these days; I don’t think there are many here in Bahrain who do not have a facebook and/or twitter account. Ok now that we have settled that point we can safely go to the other more interesting one, which is how people have been fighting on those social media networks. I was blown out of the water reading some of the comments that people are so happy to write with their own fingers aiming at another human being. Sometimes I feel that the internet is a sort of a channel to let some steam off, but this is beyond steam, because if half of the comments on facebook and twitter were true then I would not be surprised to see fighting on every street in Bahrain. But funny enough it's a lot more quieter on the real world. When did people get so scared of saying what they have in their minds? Why do people lie so much on the internet? Why are people so violent on the internet? I do not expect a direct and clear answer to these questions, but they are nowadays considered to be facts of life. Do you know what is the major efforts people are doing on the internet to help heal this country? By "liking" and "disliking" a page on facebook, oh and they actually call these concentrated efforts "battles" where one side would celebrate all night long over closing a facebook page that belongs to the opposite side. "Reporting" someone's twitter account is another weapon in the glorious arsenal of those who are so brave to fight for their cause.

How hard is it to use the internet to a more noble cause. How stupid it is to research on the internet how to rebuild a shattered community. On the other hand God will reward you if you send a message to all your contacts urging them to report a page or twitter account and show the world that we are right and the other is always wrong or that there is no other in the first place. Arabs sure do know how to abuse technology.

One thing should be said about something I have noticed on my daily scanning of the internet is that this is an Apache  

 And this is an Apache

And we got neither here in Bahrain.

Baby Steps

I have to apologize for not posting for quite a while now, but I’m back and let’s leave it at that.

For the past three months Bahrainis have gone from watching the news to making the news, and I do not see it as necessarily a bad issue. In fact if you pose an optimistic point of view you would try to find out the good in all of that. I would like to call what has happened as a wake up call to us Bahrainis who have so comfortably kept our heads under the bed sheets or have lived all of their lives ignoring those around us. In terms of social change we can already see a more active and aware society, yet it’s still lacking.

One of the issues I have with Bahraini society is that there was little or no action taken by individuals or groups. I mean that apart from established charity or political societies there is hardly any groups or individuals that take upon themselves to act in the hope of making Bahrain a better place. I remember that I have been to “Think Pink” charity dinner once and I was struck by the lack of Bahrainis in that charity dinner, and that the ones who were there were sadly just using it as either a place to hook up girls or because their boss was attending. Why is it that a society, and by that I mean the old Islamic state one, that was once famous for having established the basis for social cooperation is now a fading shadow of that. The funny thing is that when this society was much less wealthier it was much more socially conscious. This basic idea of social consciousness is what is needed in order to take those small but steady steps into having a society to be proud of being into. Why do we have to let the expats take those first steps for social cooperation? We lack neither the money nor the education to make our own society a better one.

We cannot expect government to take our hands for every single step; we need to be ahead of government in this aspect, and it doesn’t have to be more of the traditional charity organizations. We can have hundreds of different and innovative ideas that would target a sector of society or more. We see many new ideas coming into the world and we could use them and tailor them to fit our own moral and religious values. Also we have a UN representation office here in Bahrain just like everywhere, we can approach them and as them for guidance since they have so much experience. It is so easy to do yet people are reluctant and look to others to start any initiative before participating. This form of wrong thinking needs to be eliminated from our culture, and replaced with a more social conscious one instead.

There are so many needy sectors here in Bahrain as it is around the world, and the key to start is to take a look, listen carefully and choose which idea you support the most. Them all you need to do is to take some individual steps towards clearing all the government red tape that is required. The most important thing to do is not to look for others to join you from the beginning, but start as an individual and work from there, and believe me that others would eventually join in. another thing to keep in mind is to have your heart in the right place when taking this kind of venture.