Civilization East and West

This is an interesting read. A bit of history first, person A is travelling to Canada, person B says "Bring back some civilization", Person C says "Yeah, some fake civilization". Person B writes the following:


I'm not really sure where you have lived in the past,
nor how long it's been since you've experienced life in the middle east
and/or
north america.

I think you have misinterpreted my
statement about
civilisation, I wasn't really talking about civilisation in
the global sense,
which encompasses foreign affairs, wars, politics and so
on. What I was
referring to is the basic, fundamental principles of
civilisation that has been
known to man since the invention of the wheel. To
be more specific:

  • Understanding the concept of waiting in line
  • Attempting to be punctual, it's nice and dandy to own a
    $15,000 watch, but it would also be nice to learn how to use it sometimes.
  • Making a simple effort to meet promises and commitments,
    living by the old saying "a man's word"
  • Being open to the idea that reading a book is not a
    waste of time, which will ultimately lead to the great idea of actually having a
    public library to take books out and read (what a concept!)
  • Realizing that spending 14 million Riyals (over $4
    million) on a "moumayaz" phone number is a bit unreasonable and is not such a
    great achievemt.
    knowing that it is not mandatory to have a maid, driver and
    cook per every household resident, and that some people actually serve
    themselves with their own hands!
  • Smiling will not shorten your life.
  • Customer Service: you can actually get something as
    complicated as a phone line at your house without having to speak to the
    company's CEO and threaten to throw a revolution and then wait aything between a
    month and 2 years to get the service is possible
  • building a few towers and a flashy mall does not
    constitute "advancement, prosperity and the ultimate in
    civilisation"

I can go on and on, but I think I have made myself clear.
I can litterally write a memoir of a couple of hundred pages of my limited
experince in Qatar during the last 2+ years of where I have questioned if
civilisation has reached this part of the world yet.

As you can
see, you have touched on a pretty sensitive issue with me, and I can not really
accept people denying that we're so far behind and not admitting that there's
better ways to do things, cause that's how we will stagnate and things will
remain status quo, as it's been for the past who knows how long.

I'm also a believer that we should lead by example and not just
criticize, but believe me it is not easy convincing people that throwing soda
cans out of the car window is wrong. (Why is it wrong? that's why we have
garbadge men cleaning the streets...)

Now, once we can accomplish
some of the above, we can talk about civilisation in the global sense, but until
then, let's keep working on the waiting in line concept.

Please
note that no offence was intended to anyone.

Regards,



OUCH!

Comments

  1. we always say: "a man's word"
    Do you think women don't have "word"?
    Do you think they are too emotional to stick to their words?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you a woman? Did you ever give a word and then change your mind? Did you feel that you were "allowed" to do this because you were a woman?? (assuming you are).

    Me, I know women who do that. But I know men who give a word and decide to ignore it too.

    In any case, I was only quoting a friend.

    ReplyDelete
  3. yes I am female, and yes I like what you said of feeling "allowed" to do so because of being female.

    I am not agreeing with that. But sometimes its the society who makes females behave this way because everyone around them expect them to chane their minds because they are "women".

    ReplyDelete
  4. about the comments above, we all know there are very common sayings like that, at the end of the day u can keep ur word ya visitor and be known as (a woman who keeps her word)! just like many men do a great job not keeping anything lol
    well about the post, 3an jad those points r so true,,, but if we smile we'll loose the identity hahahhaha
    oh and seriously, i so agree with what u said about ppl throwing trash in the street, i never seem to understand why they insist on doing that and insist even more when u tell them not to!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good one about the identity Lammoush.

    I will make sure the writer takes a look at your comments and responds, I will try to get him to blog. This is all I read from him, but I am guessing he would make a very interesting daily read.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Brilliant post..
    unfortunately it is SO TRUE!!!

    ReplyDelete

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