Denial of problems

Dear friends,

According to the writer of Arab News*, Saudi Arabia, as well as the US, often deny some of their problems and their failure to deal with them, causes a huge problem later. Although he talks more about political issues, I would like to talk about issues that are more internal.

We all deny when something bad happens. We tend to brush it under the carpet, especially when it is a shameful issue. Maids being abused in Saudi is something that, despite being highlighted in the papers, are never heard of again. There was a recent outrage of a maid who falsely accused her employers of mistreating her. Will we ever get to hear about her case again? It is conveniently forgotten, as it was with the other cases. The only case of domestic abuse that was reported fully was Rani Al Baz’s case, which I think was reported fully because the international media had picked up the issue.

I somehow still don’ understand why this nation will not agree to sit down and discuss ways to solve these issues. Instead, the nation is keener to preserve the image of the country. I remember doing a one-semester project on Amnesty International, and I tried doing it on Saudi Arabia, which has been in the news recently for having poor human rights record. (A.I is an independent, autonomous organization and is not an American or British organization, so one cannot even say: The Americans are always picking on Saudi!) I was shocked to read about the cases of prisoners in Saudi on A.I. sites. I was equally shocked to read about such cases taking place here in Dubai as well. I primarily concentrated on the issues here in Dubai: prisoners being tortured and abused, people being kidnapped by authorities and murdered because they were a threat to the country, other men who were snatched away from their families only to be tortured and so on. I don’t remember reading anywhere in the Quran or the Sharia law that allows for beating, torture and punishments of prisoners. And I will not even get into the techniques they use to torture. (By the way, when I was in Saudi, I could not access A.I’s information on Saudi Arabia!)

I remember when I was in Jeddah last year, there was a small conference (about 20 people) on sexual abuse among small children. There were very few recorded cases, so that proved it difficult to deal with the problem, since most of the kids don’t know they can seek help. The lady doctor suggested of opening up a clinic to help deal with the abused kids, and it was not accepted! She mentioned of how much larger the problem is, much more so than we shall realize! Until we don’t acknowledge a problem, we cannot solve it. There are other cases as well such as domestic violence and rape that needs to be dealt with. We only get to hear about the beheading of drug traffickers and murderers. What about rapists? Sexual offenders? I know in the US they are active in hunting down such kinds of people. What are we doing here? Nothing!

Often times, I hear people here in Dubai and in Saudi talk about the deterioration of western societies: crime, rapes, murders, drugs, violence, sexual abuses and so on, and how the Eastern societies are doing so much better. Sorry to burst your bubble people! I guess these people don’t realize that these issues also exist here, albeit on a much smaller scale, but they do exist! Wouldn’t it be better to stop, look, acknowledge the problem and deal with it, instead of letting it be a full blown problem maybe 5 years down the road!

By denying or ignoring problem will only come back later to haunt you. I think we can all agree with that, be it a small problem or a big one!

Why do we cry foul at others when we have foul events happening in our own backyards?

Mansur
* http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=64147&d=22&m=5&y=2005