Mon 29 Nov 2004
Yesterday, I was in Kuwait Airport. There were several flights at the same time, one of which was Sri Lankan Airlines going to Sri Lanka. Apparently they have new areas for check in counters and luggage. You know how the entrance on the left is Kuwait Airways only, the one on the right is a bunch of airlines, well now they have more counters inside past the bookstore and so on.
Funny enough, the Sri Lankan Airlines has been given a place in the new area. Remember the old airport design? when during any Indian or Sri Lankan flight there would be what seems like thousands of them coming to say bye to their friends. The police would kick them all out of the airport. So why now put their counters all the way inside when you know there would be many of them.
Anyway, yesterday, a policeman (bearded nonetheless) literally was pushing all the Indians away from the counter area and screaming at them like they were animals exactly!! What the hell is wrong with us?? NO respect whatsoever! If they were Americans he would be asking them politely with the biggest smile on his face! If they were high ranking Kuwaitis he would be on his knees thanking them for their presence and kissing their feet!
If it wasnt for the oil we have, we would be sooo many years behind the Indians, thats a fact! They have an amazing work ethic, they always want to learn, education is their highest priority, and they are really hard workers! Even the housemaids in Kuwait, its a full time job, away from home, away from family, getting paid peanuts which is mostly sent to family, and they probably know the house’s “bachas” better than their own parents!
Walla 3aaaib! We all know that the day will come when oil is gone or useless, 50, 100, or even 200 yrs from now. What will we do then?? Imagine this, poor people who dont want to work, too proud to work for someone, and dont have the skills to do simple jobs anyway!
Inshallaaa iyyiy ilyoom illy this same policeman yinthal o yitmaskhar jidaaam ilnaas just like he was doing to all these poor people! Put yourselves in place of the little Indian kids who dont understand why someone is pushing their father and screaming at him, or the Kuwaiti kid who is in the other spectrum and doesnt understand why someone is doing that to someone else only because they look Indian!! We will NEVER advance with the mentalities we have.
25 Responses to “Respect”
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November 29th, 2004 at 12:32 pm
My God… where do we start? I think this whole mentality of كيفي كويتي started in schools, and passed down from one generation to the next and into our households.
If a child gets used to his parents being total snobs and abusing certain nationalities, that child will accept this behaviour as perfectly normal. It’s bad enough we’re mean to other nationalities, but now we’re nasty to each other too… Lets say you’re a Kuwaiti walking along the waterfront and you see another Kuwaiti throwing his/her garbage all over the place. Now imagine if you walked up and POLITELY asked them to throw garbage in the designated trash cans.. ALL HELL WOULD BREAK LOOSE and they would scream at you to mind your own fucking business!!
And I really don’t get this exaggerated sense of privilege. Sure we’ve got money and oil, and life is very comfortable here thanks to that… but what kind of people have we become in general? Was the oil wealth used to raise a generation of brilliant hard working geniuses… or a nation of spoiled brats??
Whats worse is that many people (not just here, btw)confuse patriotism with this sense of privilege.. and interpret the love of one’s own country as a ticket to disrespect others!
November 29th, 2004 at 12:38 pm
Why did you go to the airport?
making giz-giz at starbucks?
November 29th, 2004 at 1:30 pm
Raise your kids to respect others.
That is all what you could do.
November 29th, 2004 at 1:32 pm
Your right zaydoun….Another thing, we dont even smile!! If we travel to the US or London, you see Kuwaitis smiling sometimes to other people as a sign of politeness, and as soon as they come back here, its like 3aib to smile in public!! If you just look at someone, u might be starting a fight! Imagine what would happen if u smiled?? If it was a girl, ya3ny inta sarsary o imghazilchy o maa 3indik akhlaaq o kalb bil 16, if u smiled to a guy, akeeed qasdik shay? titmaskhar??? We HATE HATE HATE HATE…..
November 29th, 2004 at 1:41 pm
True Faith, ur right, or as the case is to many Kuwaitis, let the maid raise their children to respect others!
November 29th, 2004 at 4:45 pm
Q. disrespect is common disease and definitely cannot be linked 2 bearded men only! ..
and Just Smile and screw them all ………..
November 29th, 2004 at 4:52 pm
borashid, im sure by now u realize i have an issue with bearded people, not all obviously, i have friends and family members with long beards and short dishdashas, but generally, i dislike these people’s ideas and their strategies towards me and my country.
Anyway, I just pointed out the guy was bearded for the hell of it! Not bcz i want to say that bearded ppl treat others with no respect
November 29th, 2004 at 7:27 pm
did ya hear about the filipino maid that got pushed out of the balcony?
its sad to hear that we still cant smile in public..
November 29th, 2004 at 8:57 pm
Yes, raise your kids to respect others no matter what they will learn from their peers at school. The values you instill at a young age will remain with them.
We should smile and trust others more- but how can you when the values you were so rightly taught at school turned out to be baloney- and no one believed in them anyway.
However, with regards to your comment concerning the way the official would have treated those people if they had been Kuwaiti or American, I would just like to say that an Indian, Pakistani or Srilankan official would have probably have shouted at them in the same manner in the same situation. It is not unusual to verbally abuse and be abused in our part of the world (including Asian subcontinent). It is not right but it happens.
November 29th, 2004 at 9:30 pm
They’re ignorant. I’m not excusing it. I’m just pointing it out. Maybe it’s how they (the parents) were raised. They were abused physically so they did the same to their children. The children grow up to be violent, and also physically abuse their children in turn, and helpers, and so on.
Personally, I still get shocked no matter how many times I see a Kuwaity man mistreating an Indian man, especially at the airport. It just leaves me with a nasty after-taste.
On one hand, I wish we’d run out of oil so the kuwaity people (the ones mentioned in the paragraph above) will learn to actually act like civilized people. On the otherhand I suck at taxes, and I’m living a pretty cushy life right now and I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up.
Q - About the smiling thing, if I DO go out and smile at some random guy, he’s gonna take that as an invite to hook up. If I smile at a random girl she’s going to think I’m either a) making fun of her or b) a lezbo. Very rarely is it c) just a friendly smile.
I totally agree with what Mink said and I speak from personal experiance. My dad taught us (my brothers, sisters and I) that we (humans) are all equal. None of us have ever bullied foreigners just for the sake of them being foreigners, be it at school or otherwise. We know that it’s wrong. I’m thankful and grateful that I was born into a Kuwaity family and think it’s just luck that I wasn’t born into another family from another country.
Also even if I see little kids at the co-op for example yelling at their helpers, it’s not my place to tell them off for it. It’s the parents’ job to educate their kids. As I said before, it all boils down to ignorance and how educated (not necessarily book-wise) you are.
November 29th, 2004 at 9:57 pm
البارحة بالصدفة كنت سهران مع واحد من الاولين اللي اشتغلوا مع الكي او سي اول ما بدات . قال ان الهنود في ذاك الوقت كانت لهم مكانة وان لهم سينما خاصة فيهم ممنوع على الكويتيين يدخلونها وان هذا تغير فقط في منتصف الخمسينات بعد اقتحامات عديدة لدار السينما وهوشات بين الكويتيين والهنود . هم قال ان الكويتيين الصغار في ذلك الوقت كاناو يركضون وراء الهندي وينادون ” رفبق بخشيش” يعني الهندي كان يتصدق على الكويتي في ذلك الوقن .. هذا تهليق كيو عبى
Inshallaaa iyyiy ilyoom illy this same policeman yinthal o yitmaskhar jidaaam ilnaas just like he was doing to all these poor people!
جاء وراح بس مع الاسف ما احد يعتبر
November 30th, 2004 at 12:08 am
mishu….its ridiculous! what about all the suicides and rapes and unbelievable crap u hear about?! And also remember the maid that supposedly killed the little kid and nearly killed the other? then they found out after the kid awoke that there was a kuwaiti man who killed the other kid and tried to rape the filipina!
Mink….i agree its all bil tarbiya no doubt! And u see that with many people thankfully, but not the majority unfortunately! But I doubt anywhere in the civilized world would treat other people this way only bcz they’re from another country!
D&G, we absolutely need to set an example to kids! The worst part of the whole thing is that the person doing the shouting and screaming and acting like a total animal is a policeman, which to the kids is a figure of authority and law and someone to look up to as an example!
q8tv…..ur so right…and the story u said was excellent, ma3a a7la kilma ingaalat!
الوقت جاء و راح بس مع الأسف ما أحد يعتبر
November 30th, 2004 at 12:27 am
Q… I doubt that this will make you feel better, but we are not alone in this problem. Our neighbors are just as bad. I’ve also seen many of Egypt’s fat cats totally abuse their domestic staff of all nationalities
November 30th, 2004 at 12:56 am
Zaydoun, i know, but u have to admit its really really bad in Kuwait. I havent seen anything similar in Bahrain or Dubai. Saudi is bad in every sense in terms of respecting humans and their rights. And when u say Egyptian fat cats mistreating their employees, thats a dif kind of disrespect! Im talknig about not respectnig other humans because you think they are lesser than you just bcz they were born from a certain culture, u knwo what I mean?? I mean if u take this same policeman to the US, lets say NY or Boston or whatever, when he sees an Indian, he will not hesitate in disrespecting him or her no matter how respectable or wealthy or successful the person is! Its an idea in his head that he is better than him no matter what! The egyptian fatcat, and even saudis, and kuwaitis, would treat their workers and employees like crap bcz they feel they own them, they pay them, its dif! Im talking culture to culture, not rich person to poor person!
November 30th, 2004 at 7:13 am
Q. u r missing the lovely mornings;p
November 30th, 2004 at 7:28 am
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November 30th, 2004 at 7:32 am
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November 30th, 2004 at 7:40 am
بصراحة انا ما كنت اشوف الاضطهاد اللي تتعرض له العمالة المنزلية لانه ربما في عيونا احنا الكويتيين ان هذا عادي ومقبول . لكن كنت في نقاش مع احدى الاوروبيات المتزوجة من كويتي تقول حسب روايتها ان المشكلة ليس في الضرب وحتى في الحرق الذي تتعرض له الخادمات لكن المشكلة في الاهانات اليومية المتواصلة . حسب قولها انها متزوجة كويتي وعايشة مع امه واخواته الثنتين في بيت حكومة . عندهم بالطبع خادمة وفي يوم من الايام سمعت في ساعة متاخرة الاخت الصغيرة تنادي او بالاحرى تصرخ على الخادمة . طبعا الخادمة على السطح في شبرة . صراخ الاخت دفع صاحبتنا الى الخروج من غرفتها الوحيدة والذهاب الى الصالة لاستطلاع الامر.. يمكن يكون جدي حسب مااعتقدت . الاخت ظلت تواصل المناداة او الصراخ الى ان جاءت الخادمة .. بعد ما زفتها وبهدلتها تفلت العلك اللي كان في فمها الكريم وقالت لها حطيه في الزبالة ..!! صاحتنا تقول انها ليست خبيرة طاقة لكن لو تم قياس الجهد والكوابروهيدرات اللي الاخت اهدرتهم لمناداة الخادمة لتم رمي كرتون علوك في الزبالة ..!! هذه هي النهوعية اللي تستخدم الخدم … خدم يستخدمون خدم … او طبقة فقيرة وجاهلة ومحرومة تضطهد من هو اكثر حرمانا وفقرا وجهلا منها وهذه يا سادتي هي المشكلة
November 30th, 2004 at 9:56 am
borashid, i dont like u! I will be up friday and in mubarakiya before 9 am, i guarantee it ;P
November 30th, 2004 at 10:37 am
q8tv…..hal yaahil lamma tikbar shloon?? ana shaayif yaaahil gaa3iz izif o i6ig khadaama ib mujamma3! Yaaahil no way more than 5 yrs old! shloon ta3allam hal 6ab3? shloon mako i7tiraam for someone kubur his mother? you know why??
because his mother and father were watching and smiling at the whole thing, like it was cuuuute!!!???!
November 30th, 2004 at 10:50 am
Funny enough, Zaydoun was talking about a child gets used to his parents being total snobs,
Well here is a little story for ya.. no it’s not the ninja story Q.. But one day while driving, there was this child (maybe 7 or
in a 4X4, and he’s sitting in front next to a driver (Indian I’m assuming here) in front of me on a traffic light, and what grabbed my attention is that this kid was playing around by hitting the driver, and grabbing his hair, and so forth.. of course the driver had a yellow smile on his face, taking all the abuse for the little kid.. so far it’s ok, as soon as the car started moving on the road, he started pulling tissue papers from the box and throw them out (I was behind their car at that time). I went next to him and gave him the dirtiest stare ever (the stare of the angry biker LOL) He didn’t even blink, and I kept on staring at him to stop.. never did.. Then he started pointing at me and making fun of me that he was very scared of me (NOT!!).. we get to a round about, and funnily enough, the car pulled in to the gate of Dasman palace.. enough said..
November 30th, 2004 at 11:04 am
Only 90 more years till we run out of oil…
November 30th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
Don,
You always have such interesting anecdotes.
December 4th, 2004 at 3:19 pm
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December 8th, 2004 at 8:53 am
To a certian extent kuwaitis can be disrespectful to other ethinicities, we have no reason to kiss some peoples asses while screwing others,however, the thing with indians and philipinoes is that they are everywhere, taking over everything, as as soon as there is no opportunity, they are out of here, same sdeal with americans, but its more of a stereotypical thing. ooh well not everything is fair.