Fighting filth

We are turning into mute spectators to vulgarity and indecency encroaching our living rooms in the name of entertainment. Our children are incessantly being fed with filth.

We cannot entirely blame the parents for the mess because almost every channel, except the ones for news and information, has obscenity in one form or another. Even the advertisements, which the children are so fond of, have crude contents.

I refer to a contraceptive advertisement that was prominently featured during the broadcast of various soaps and cricket matches. That advertisement had content that I feel too embarrassed to describe here.

Every movie, songs, music videos, serials, etc., has an element of sex in it. How are we to stop our children from viewing this filth? Do we have to confine them to Cartoon Networks?

I think it is high time that we, as responsible citizens of the world, show that we do care for the betterment and moral upliftment of the entire humanity, and start rating these channel as “A” and “U”.

Otherwise the day is not far when our children will not be able to distinguish between morality and immorality.

Imtiyaz Ahmed Khan • Bombay published 8 June 2004

Another US Plot

We have very good reason to think that resignation of the CIA chief George Tenet was another well-planned plot from the US administration. The US wants us to believe that everything that happened in Iraq was only due to the “intelligence failure.” Actually what the CIA did was write the script in a way to please its bosses in the Pentagon and the White House. For this the CIA approached and used information from all the exiled Iraqi leaders, who of course had vested interests.

Saddam’s fate was clear from the first Gulf War. If Sept. 11 had not happened, the US would still have found some pretext to invade Iraq and get rid of Saddam — it was working on a program to oust Saddam from the Clinton presidency. There are any number of statements by Clinton in this regard.

Bush simply overlooked world opinion on Iraq and went to war. Does that mean he thinks the CIA is the only reliable source in the world?

If on the other hand the US says Iraq is just an intelligence failure, is it indirectly saying that it possesses the worst intelligence agency in the world? Of course not.

It would be difficult to think of a more transparent ruse, and given how gullible the American electorate have shown themselves to be, it may just work.

Sofan M. • Alkhobar published 8 June 2004

Brave Daughter

Thank goodness for such a refreshing article. (“I’ve Lost My Daughter!” by Tariq A. Al-Maeena, June 5).

The parents of the 23-year-old woman have done their job of bringing up and educating a thinking woman. It is to her credit that she has taken up the reins to lead a life she feels she can handle.

As for parents’ support, that’s what they are here for — encouragement and love. They are the most important elements in the upbringing of every child.

One day this young woman too may nurture, love and educate a child. If she lived in California, she would see others of her age in responsible positions. She would find girls and women who don’t have to hide their dreams and desires from the older generation.

In Saudi Arabia, the parents of the 23-year-old woman have a unique chance to change everyone’s attitude about what women can be and do. They can encourage independence, they can encourage the responsibility that is the best basis for contributing to an open society that builds good relationships and shares knowledge.

So what’s the beef? Sometimes I wonder if Saudi Arabia is its own worst enemy. It is not just the terrorists who seem uncomfortable with “foreign infidels”. Local newspapers too seem intent on blaming all the trouble in the Kingdom on foreigners.

Instead, they should rejoice in the unique opportunity they have been given to interact with a multitude of different cultures. What is there to be afraid of? Everywhere the walls are coming down. But in the Kingdom they are going up as expatriates fear for their lives.

Besides the young woman’s father, how many other men actually encourage the women of Saudi Arabia to make the most of themselves? Will those who do not ever realize what they are missing?

M.J. O’Gara • California published 8 June 2004

Brave Daughter [2]

There’s a saying: a daughter is a daughter all of her life, a son is a son until he takes a wife.

Help your daughter soar and I believe you’ll be blessed. Good Luck.

Keith Knoblauch • Maryland, USA published 8 June 2004

Wishful Thinking

The people of Iraq deserve the same freedoms as the peoples of Europe deserved and were granted by World War II. Freeing 23 million Iraqis is definitely a glorious cause and there are many more people of the Middle East yet to be freed. Your hope that America will be defeated is wishful thinking. The only way to defeat America is from within, and the traitors on the left and in the media will fail this time. Individual freedom, as messy as it is, has proven the best way to improve the lives of everyone. The oppressed peoples of the Middle East will soon find out.

Mike Johnson • Texas published 8 June 2004

British Icon

It seems most institutions in Britain are in a shambles. We hear tales of horror reminiscent of the worst of the Third World about train services in this once-progressive country. Professionalism seems to have all but disappeared even as Britain blunders out into the world to bring its magnificent achievements to benighted places like Iraq.

Common sense, too — once believed to be a British invention — is gone. What still exists, however, are shoddy money-generating outfits, soulless, stupid and irredeemably tacky. Let my experience with British Airways serve as one example of how far beyond the pale the country’s goods and services have sunk.

Last summer I traveled to Toronto, Canada, with my family on British Airways, at the insistence of a friend who happens to work for BA.

Just one day prior to our return journey, I fell sick, was hospitalized and subsequently had to undergo open-heart surgery.

The news of my illness gave my paraplegic wife a heart-attack. Four days after me she ended up in the same hospital, in the intensive care unit like me. My school-age daughter was torn apart by the conflicting demands of taking care of us and taking care of her final year studies.

I was in hospital for 48 days and afterward needed to recuperate.

With the excellent support of the doctors and the hospital, I was able to call BA on the second day of my hospitalization that I would not be able to use my ticket the next day and could not change my booking to a definite date until after my surgery. They thanked me for telling them and said they would gladly give us another booking when we were ready and, since I had canceled for medical reasons, they would not charge for the cancellation.

Once I was declared fit to travel, I contacted BA to book my seat. They told me this was impossible. I would need a fresh ticket to return to the Kingdom. My sponsor arranged for a new ticket and I flew back at considerable extra expense.

My wife is still undergoing treatment in Canada, and BA is refusing to refund her ticket on the unused sector. My daughter, who was meant to accompany us but had to cancel because we were both in hospital, has been penalized with a cancellation fee. We canceled our bookings in advance to minimize the inconvenience for the airline despite the fact that we were seriously ill, we produced documentation to prove our medical condition — yet BA will neither honor their return coupons nor waive their cancellation charges. A former world-class airliner, for the sake of what to BA must be a pittance, is flaunting explicit IATA rules to which it is a signatory. It is petty, arrogant and speaks of a profound malaise at the heart of the company.

Muktada A. Islam • Riyadh published 8 June 2004

Runaway Maids

Once a long time ago, when I had just moved to Saudi Arabia, I hired a maid to help me in the house. She turned up dressed in tattered clothing, but though I not speak her language well, I tried my best to be understood.

I learned six months later that she had told the other maids in the neighborhood that her salary was a little higher than theirs, and that drew the ire of their employers.

The community of women there told me they were angry with me for paying her approximately $3 more than they did and giving her two full days off a week. I also paid her extra to baby-sit. I told the other women in the neighborhood that it was entirely my own business who I hired and how much I paid them. I reminded them that nobody came to me beforehand to discuss a salary ceiling, let alone to welcome me into their community.

In my naivety I thought you paid people what was fair. But these women felt a peculiar animosity toward their hired help, as well as contempt and worse.

For me, I learned as much if not more from these maids than what I was capable of teaching about living in an unfamiliar environment far away from home. True, they were often untrained. But they were trying their best.

Running away from work must be very hard and frightening for these women, and they would not leave if a small amount of care and kindness had gone into their treatment. The males of the house, in particular, must show respect. In a number of cases maids are taken advantage of; if they do not submit, they are threatened severely and eventually driven away.

Of course unscrupulous recruitment agents are also to blame, but can you honestly deny that there are many employers who regard foreign domestic workers as barely human?

The best way to handle this problem, which shows no sign of abating, is to Saudize domestic workers immediately.

True, it will cut off a source of income for foreigners who are often in desperate need, but at least it will save them from inhuman treatment. Let Saudis serve Saudis; any disputes will then be among equals.

Mary L. Donnelly • United States published 8 June 2004