a secret arabian journal: redux: November 2006

Monday, November 20, 2006

Khalas

FIN.

This blog is over for real now and by request, and will continue at:

http://secretarabianjournal.blogspot.com/

toddle loo...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The End of an Era

;-)

I've been told to check on Sleepless In Muscat over the weekend for updates.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Bidoon-ak

Not going to the promised 'diss' like I said I would before. Instead I am going to do a serious rant on an issue that is going to affect every Emirati in this country and perhaps damage our culture in years to come at its core.

October saw phase one of our Government's policies to boost the population come into effect. Nationals are to be made of some 10,000 people who have been living in the UAE for over 30 years. I never thought that the Govt would have the guts to do it, but it appears that someone somewhere does have a pair brass ones and make true to their promise and set the ball rolling for the cultural destruction of the UAE.

Let me pre-empt by saying I don’t have a problem with Indians/Pakistanis and Bengalis. I have a cousin married to one, and she is a beautiful human being and if any of my sisters or daughters wanted to marry an Asian from one of these countries, then I will judge him on his personality and character and not his race. I don’t mind having grandkids that are mixed raced…that’s not the issue…what I do mind is the selling out of our society based on some half baked ill thought through ideas.

I am all for the wholesale nationalizing of foreigners to being Emirati as long as their culture does not contradict or compromise our own culture. Really I sometimes wonder if some of the people making the decisions really studied for their education or just paid for it through wasta. Sub-Continentals are here in a big mass, their culture is so rich and full of life that a billion dollar world wide entertainment and fashion industry has come from it because it is so strong. So what does the brains in the Department of Naturalization do…they give a huge number of them passports.

Yes we need more Local because we are currently a minority, and the only way our numbers will get stronger is if we nationalize others, but not in this way. I am sorry to say this, but racial discrimination maybe a bad thing…but sometimes it's essential.

If the decision is mine, I will only nationalize those who have been disenfranchised from their own countries or those from former colonies of ours and have a strong genetic link back to us. Us Khaleeji took slaves from East Africa and Iran and gave them culture and they gave us back culture. So nationalize them. Balushi/Iraniain people are similar to us so their culture compliments ours. East Africans is a different story, but some Africans nationalities have a knack of being able to assimilate into any host culture and become part of it while keeping enough of their identity. So they are good. But you don’t nationalize those from the Asian Subcontinent in such numbers. You do it case by case.

Can you imagine the division you are opening this country up for if you nationalize a segment of society that is different (yet similar in all the most dangerous ways). We already have silly divisions based on which Emirate a person comes from. (The slickers in Abu Dhabi are always jealous of us in Dubai, while the Ajmanites are always trying to remind the rest of the GCC that they are really are a real Emirate and not a piece of sand sticking out from Sharjah…and don’t get me started on RAK. What the fcuk is up with your Emirate???) Plus the remaining two Emirates…if ever a state or nation needed a PR company to get even a bit of recognition for existence…it is those two. Ya3ny Fujer-who?)

Anyway, point is, Emirities are divided enough as it is. You start granting passports to a group (which we all have to admit, are perhaps the least popular ethnicity in the GCC) then you are opening up a can of worms.

If the true reason behind nationalizing so many Asians is a way of saying sorry for mistreating you, then how about fixing the problem in the correct way. Give them equal rights NOT passports. The Emirati passport is a treasure and the culture it is coming from is small in its population and needs to be preserved.

I know I am not the only Emirati who is worried that the national language of the UAE will become Urdu or Hindi. Ok someone can say that considering the amount of other foreigners that have been given passports, we still manage to speak Arabic and not Farsi.. But hey if we are going to start nationalizing thousands of Indians, maybe we should start Nationalizing thousands of European origin people…and lets not stop there, how about Koreans and Filipinos…oh yeah and you Filipinos are next, the Polls from the previous post are still open.