SLR McLaren Wreckage - Doha, Qatar

Earlier this year, on the morning of 15th July, a horrible 'crash' took place on the south bound highway between Al Khor and Doha. The 'accident' happened about 10 kilometres from the northern outskirts of the city.

I returned to Qatar from field leave a few days later (I work in Ras Laffan) and viewed the photos (which I include here) with absolute horror. During my work rotation, I travel this particular highway back and forwards every day for 28 days. I took a particular interest in this spectaular accident because I became increasingly intrigued how it could have happened. The rumour was that it took place mid-morning, so there would have been very little traffic on the road. This is also a very long stretch of highway with no bends or swellings on the surface. In fact it is as smooth as a Forumla 1 race-track.

So how did it happen? Well from what I gather, this incident was not reported in the local press. Why? I have also done many Google searches and can find scant information on the subject. All I have to go on is the rumour mill. What seems to be certain is that it was a 22-year-old man but it is my understanding that he was a member of the ruling family. Other speculation is that he was accompanied in the passenger seat with a 'senior manager' in Qatar's gas industry in Ras Laffan.

So how did it happen? There was another rumour that a speed camera captured him at the equivalent of 205 mph! Going by my own knowledge of sports cars, I would suggest that he hit a sharp object that punctured a front tyre and, due to the velocity of the car, the tyre exploded. At 200+ mph, the driver would have lost immediate control of the vehicle, and it rolled and rumpled over and over and 'exploded' into parts. But where were the flames? Have a close look at the photos - can you see any evidence of smoke or burned / charred parts? No you cannot.

What is certain is that the car did not collide with another vehicle. When you study the pictures, however, you might be drawn into forming your own conclusions. Someone proffered in one blog that this was the result of a bomb! What do you think? Had the owner of this vehicle been up to no good? Was terrorists involved?

You make up your own mind.

Pushed or Shoved

Here was a good one that appeared in the Kuwait Times (from the Al-Rai Daily newspaper) last year. This is another example of how an innocent maid can become embroiled in a domestic situation that can end in disaster.

I retype the story here word-for-word.

Kuwait City, April 26: Police are currently investigating the mysterious fall of a Bedoun man from an apartment in Salmiya, reports Al-Rai Daily.

A police source said an unidentified man suspected his wife of having an affair with another man – a suspicion which was confirmed by the maid who claimed that his wife had a lover.

To further confirm his suspicions, the man made an arrangement with the maid for him to leave the apartment earlier than he used to and for the maid to call him as soon as the suspected lover arrived at the apartment.

A fight then erupted between the two men and the husband called his relatives to act as witnesses. The lover, a Bedoun, also asked his family to go to the apartment but they were informed that the man jumped out of the window when they arrived at the apartment.

Police are now waiting on the health conditions of the Bedoun, who is currently confined at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Jahra Hospital, to improve so they could determine if the man really jumped out of the window or the husband pushed him out.

You would have thought that, according to the report, if the relatives of both men were present, then somebody would have seen whether he was pushed or if he jumped! Or am I just being a cynical twat?

Middle East Office Toilets

It has never failed to amaze me about why office lavatories in the Middle East provide those little waste paper bins into which one discards the soiled toilet tissue. I am, of course, referring to Western toilets as opposed to Arabic toilets! When working in Kuwait last year we had a rather heated exchange of words in a safety meeting about the use of Western-style toilets and the toilet tissue issue.

There we all were sat around the boardroom table, partaking of slices of Lebanese pizza and pickle. One of my colleagues brought up the subject of why it is unhygienic to NOT flush the toilet paper. He stated that human shit contains disease-causing organisms, including viruses, bacteria and the eggs or larvae of parasites. He cited that the faeces retained in toilet tissue potentially could cause cholera or typhoid to exist. My colleague went on to explain that flies often are attracted to human dung and that they could carry such diseases as trachoma and Shigella dysentery.

Our Lead Engineer, a Lebanese arab, disagreed and he defended the company policy that soiled toilet tissue should be ‘wrapped up’ and discarded in the waste paper bin. There followed a heated debate with my colleague asking the poignant question that what if the individual had diarrhoea? The Lead Engineer was stumped for a moment and then said that if someone had the shits, then that person would simply have to use more tissue!

My colleague disagreed and continued to maintain that toilet paper that is not flushed down the toilet is a chronic health hazard and a sanitary nightmare. And then the Lead Engineer came out with his masterstroke; he proceeded to take a piece of paper tissue from a box and gave a running commentary of what he was doing. He started by saying that if you folded the tissue in a certain way then it would not be a problem.

So he started by folding the tissue in half. He then suggested that you now wipe your ass and proceeded to fold the tissue in half again. Continuing, he said that you once more fold that in half and ‘crumple’ the paper in your hand. At that point, the little bundle of retained shit was ready for disposal in the bin. It was quite simple really but he did not convince anyone in the room.

I am going to stop this blog now before some of you think that I am talking a lot of bullshit!

Middle East Untouchables

I suppose someone, some official body, somewhere knows roughly how many expatriates from the Indian sub-continent are currently working in the Middle East - perhaps not. I am only surmising. But when I look around certain areas of Manama, Kuwait City, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai - well all I can say is there are thousands! In fact there is one small area of Kuwait City that looks like downtown New Delhi, and I know what New Delhi looks like, I’ve been there twice!

So what are those people doing here? Are they all employed? Are some illegal aliens? Just what is their status? Well, I can tell you something that does depress me from time to time and that is what I am calling the ‘New Untouchables’.

What is an Untouchable, I hear you ask? An Untouchable was a member of, usually, a large variety of Hindu group that was, and in many cases still is, an outcast in their society. They were (and still are) known as Dalits or Harijans. Traditionally Indian society was/is broken up into four castes, or classes, those being:

Brahmans – the priestly or teaching class
Kshatriyas – or warrior and ruling classes
Vaishyas – the merchants and trading classes
Sudras – peasants and workers

The Untouchable found him/herself even below the Sudra. Let me give you an example of how dire these peoples’ lives are and why they are held in so much contempt in their own land.

If a Hindu had the occupation of taking life for a living, such as fishing, butchery, disposing of carcasses or tanning leather, then he or she would be considered an Untouchable. If a person’s job involved any contact with human emissions such as sweat, urine, feces, or spittle, such as street sweepers or toilet cleaners, then they too would be considered to be Untouchables. Also, the activities of a person that include eating meats such as cattle, domestic pigs, and chickens made them an Untouchable also.

Untouchables today are greatly deprived of many rights and activities that are everyday occurrences for higher caste members. Many educational and occupational opportunities are unavailable to these outcasts of society. These victims of racism are also forbidden to enter temples, most schools, and are not even allowed to draw water from the same well where higher castes might draw water. Untouchables are subservient, usually illiterate, and poverty-stricken, who basically lead a life of long humiliation. And it has to be said that higher caste members have inflicted some of this humiliation upon their fellow human beings over the centuries.

So what is this blog all about? Well, here in the Middle East you have a kind of ‘unspoken caste’ system that is loosely based along similar socio-racial-economic lines. You can have the local arab executive-standing company owner, oil executive, or entrepreneur ‘sitting at the top’ of the system. Following closely is the arab higher manager who will usually have an American reporting to him. Then we cascade down the various nationalities or ethnic groups: the British (who usually report to an American – it’s always been like this) together with European and other ‘white face’ nationalities, Australians for example. Depending on which side of the divide you stand, you will get the odd Egyptian or Lebanese coming close behind.

Coming ‘under’ these are the ‘educated’ Indians who would be characterized as the Vaishyas, and I also include educated Filipinos and Pakistanis who usually constitute the upper secretarial and technician class in our system. At this level we will find other nationalities but for this blog we need to dip a bit deeper to reach this New Untouchable.

There is no getting away from it – when we get literally get down to street level, we are talking Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans who ‘end up’ doing all the menial tasks. You will never ever see an arab doing such sub-human work. This appalling pecking order has existed in the Middle East for 25 years and, when I returned here recently, I saw that things hadn’t changed. It is one thing to deploy these people as menial labourers on building sites and for maids to be on call 24 hours a day to their ‘masters’ or ‘mistresses’ but when passports are withheld, overtime isn’t paid, and ‘other abuses’ are rife, then things need to be addressed.

Now you’d think that it would be bad enough for a street sweeper to be paid a pittance for a day’s graft – typical wages would equate to about $0.20/hour for these New Untouchables – but it gets worse. I mean, look at the basic arithmetic. They work a 60-hour week (usually more) x 20 cents/hour = $12.00 per week. Multiply this by 52 and you arrive at the miserable figure of $624.00 per year!

What’s worse?

Workers can typically pay US $2,000 to $3,000 in fees for air travel and visas to local recruitment agencies in their home countries before leaving for the Middle East and, ostensibly, for a better life here. But in the UAE, for instance, this contravenes the Labour Law No. 8 of 1980, which states that such fees should be paid by the employer.

So one comes across such scenarios as, “I borrowed the equivalent of $2,500 from my brothers and cousins to pay an agency to come to Kuwait.” Or, “I’ve been here for 22 months now and am still paying off this debt. With the wages we get, it is very difficult to pay our way, pay off our debts and support our families back home,”

Yesterday, I watched from my apartment window a New Untouchable getting on with his work. His work? Seemingly, his job was to climb into a garbage skip and remove all metal and plastic objects. This constituted mostly tin cans and plastic bin liners and carrier bags. Then I got to thinking. I used this skip for my garbage maybe twice a week. So there would be the leftovers from numerous breakfasts, evening meals and weekend snacks, empty milk and yoghurt cartons, dried-up teabags and God knows what else. But when you imagine perhaps a half-ton of stuff baking under 40oC of unrelenting heat, then you get to appreciate why this is an Untouchable’s job. And no, he wasn’t equipped with face mask or gloves! Who else would have the sheer gumption to climb into that stinking, decaying morass and earn his $0.20 and hour for so doing?

Yes, these are the new Middle East Untouchables!

Saudi Male Flirts - Shocking!!

This was posted on the BBC world news website earlier this year. It is a good example of the sexual frustrations of young Saudi males who simply cannot just chat up a girl and start courting her. But look at my end note to this story.
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"Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca. The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.

They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The mutaween enforces Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine's Day.

The ban is partly because of the connection with a "pagan Christian holiday", and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.

The Prosecution and Investigation Commission said it had received reports of such "bad" behaviour by 57 young men at a number of shopping centres in the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi Gazette said.

The guardians of some of the men defended their actions, however, saying they would regularly get together at the weekend to have fun without ever violating laws governing the segregation of the sexes, it added."

When I used to work in Kuwait, which we all know is dry, we used to go down to Bahrain for the weekend to sink a few pints. We stayed at the Gulf Gate Hotel and, every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night, the two bars were jammed packed with thobe-cladden Saudis drinking and chatting with the girls. They would get utterly rat-arsed and then start chatting up the female Ethiopian bar staff. In fact they were just a pain in the ass. Added to this, the number of gay Saudis arriving in the Western bar after 10:00pm was uncanny to witness!

Is it no wonder then that incidents such as those in Mecca (of all places) happen? In maybe 50 years' time, the Saudis will bring their laws into the 21st century and we can all live happy ever after!

Highways to Hell

The Most Dangerous
Motorways in the World

This is a post I added to an old blogsite that I published when I worked in Kuwait last year. I include it here (edited) for all our Kuwaits exprats who risk life and limb on that contry's hellish motorways.
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We, my friend and I, live in Mangaf and we enjoy nothing more than driving up to Salmiya on a sunny Thursday morning to drink some nice latte in any of the various cafes and to have a look around the shops. It’s an innocent pastime, even a pleasure, after a long week’s work. We actually look forward to it . . . but wait a minute . . . in a way, I don’t look forward to it any more.

You see I have only been in Kuwait for 3½ months and, like everyone else who comes here, I just cannot comprehend the total disrespect there exists for one’s fellow drivers and passengers on these motorways. I was probably only in Kuwait a matter of days when I decided never to drive a motor vehicle here (I have a colleague and friend who is kind enough to drive me to and from work and to the shops, etc). And as a passenger, I feel doubly at risk. – very at risk.

My observations have been, and I have to mention this upfront, that the crazy, reckless driving I see going on all around me is committed by none other than local Kuwaitis. Day after day, week in and week out, all I read about in the local press is yet another Kuwaiti having been involved in yet another fatal accident. In the UK, we have the Highway Code, a respected, legal document that tells one how to drive sensibly on Britain’s highways and byways. I presume Kuwait has the same and yet I have heard nothing of it. Why? Nobody has officially informed me or handed me anything resembling such a document. I mean, do Kuwaitis have to pass a driving test?

The misuse and abuse of the motorways from the Arabian Gulf Street down as far as the 6th Ring Road (and the Highway to Hell – the 30th!) and beyond amounts to a catalogue of shame. I have personally witnessed one car crash, endless near-misses; I have seen manoeuvres that border on sheer arrogance, a disdain for human life and an absolute selfishness never witnessed in my own country or any other I have visited in my life. Only in Kuwait do I perceive totally fanatical driving, uncontrolled overtaking manoeuvres, the constant violating of red lights, incessant tail-gaiting, the supercilious bullying of Kuwaiti drivers by tooting horns, flashing headlights, making rude gestures with their fingers – I’ve seen it all. It leaves me sad.

I am going on my first field leave in exactly three weeks’ time and I will have to travel on one of these highways to get to the airport. Thankfully, my check-in time is 6:00am in the morning – at least there will be very little traffic on the road at that time of the day. Problem is – I have to come back!

This photo was one I took at the Friday Market just south of Kuwait City - I was told the driver didn't stand a chance. What do you think?

Drinking in the UAE - Watch Out!

I came across this piece of information the other day and thought it was worthy of inclusion in my blog. This extract is taken from the Worldworx website and it should be heeded.

"Drinking or possession of alcohol without a Ministry of Interior liquor permit is illegal and could result in arrest and/or fines and imprisonment. Alcohol is served at bars in most major hotels but is intended for guests of the hotel. Persons not staying at the hotel who use the bar technically are required to have their own personal liquor license. Liquor licenses are issued only to non-Muslim persons who possess UAE residency permits. Drinking and driving is considered a serious offense. Penalties generally are assessed according to religious law."

The all-important word in the paragraph is "technically" and that could mean anything!

It sounds ridiculous but it is the law of the land, so beware!

Domestic Maids Suicide Option?

I have started my new blogsite with one of my pet hate subjects - domestic maids. Not a pet hate in terms of who they are and where they come from but how they are used and abused throughout the Middle East. I am sure we have all read about some of the horror stories surrounding these poor creatures. When I worked in Kuwait last year I was constantly bewildered by the sight of these young women who were forced to wear what resembled a pair of pyjammas as a uniform. I have also seen their sad faces, embarassed faces, as they trudge behind their masters in nightgown-type sheets. One can only imagine their lives within the four walls of the master and mistresses' houses. Can the mistreatment of these people lead to attempted suicide? You bet!

I include here what was a famous example of how the abuse of a maid can drive her to suicide. This happened to a young Sri Lankan maid called Sushar Rosky. She was only 21 years old and had been in Lebanon for 20 days (2005). What drove a young girl like this, innocent and naive, to take her own life. The picture included here is shocking and it is graphic. A picture is worth a thousand words and one can only wonder what was going through her mind as she tied together those bedsheets, secured one end to the balcony of the third-floor apartment, tied the other end around her neck, and threw herself over the side. I can tell you she must have undergone some serious abuse to have taken her own life in such a horrific fashion.

And yet, to my knowledge, this story attracted very little attention from mainstream media. I only knew about it because I was working in the Middle East at the time. There was no publicised enquiry by the Sri Lanklan government. I will be returning to this subject from time to time. However, I leave you with this awful photo . . . yes, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Welcome to My Blogsite

Ma' Salamah!!

First of all, thank you for stopping by. The material that consitutes my site is dedicated to all those millions of expats (or exprats) who make a living working in the Middle East. And by the Middle East I mean Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman. In other words, the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. What motivated me to start this blog? In a word - history. And by that I mean my past and current history. I first came to the Middle East in April 1980 and worked in Saudi Arabia. Momentuous year that was: Iraq invaded Iran, Ronald Reagan came to power, Zimbabwe came into existence and John Lennon was murdered. Apart from stints working in S.E. Asia, West Africa, Canada and of course the North Sea, I have worked in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar and I am shortly leaving for my next post in Oman. Over and above this, I have visited Bahrain and Dubai. So I have been exposed to everything that these lands can throw at me and I've lived to tell the tale!

So what about the content? Well, I hope to be informative, spreading knowledge and voicing my opinions about the matters affecting the Middle East. I certainly will be hard-hitting when needs be, satirical, mocking, ironic and, when necessary, down-right conceited. People who know me often say that I can be a supercilious bastard and that is purely down to the travils of scratching a living in the GCC countries. But seriously, I want to cover personal, social, economic and political topics. I will offer advice on anything and everything: how to make siddiqui, visa problems, the dos and donts of living here, transportation issues, entertainment - you name it, I'll cover it.

So I hope you will find my blogs enjoyable and please feel free to add your comments.