August 2006
| Vol XXIX | NO. 155 | | |
We need to save children from abuse
What level has Bahraini society sunk to? Eighty-five per cent of children, aged 10 to 12, surveyed in a recent study claim they have been groped!
Eighty-five per cent?! Am I reading this correctly? Are these the rights our children deserve in a society that claims it adheres to Islamic teachings, rich Arab traditions and values and a modern thriving democracy, which is a signatory to the Human Rights Charter? What human rights do those children have, if any, when they are denied the right to live their childhood in innocence and peace?
What lesson are we teaching those children who grow up suppressed and are allowed to have their innocence plucked before they are fully developed, understand what is right and wrong, learn how to weigh their options and make their own decisions in life?
How will they grow up to be responsible citizens with a sense of duty, and an obligation towards their society and community, when their rights have been violated in broad daylight - sometimes even by the very people who should have provided them with a safe haven?
Yes. Those who conducted the survey, whom I salute for being brave enough to embark on such a mission in a society that denies we have vices and sins, have every right to be shocked.
And even if the study covered only five schools, the results are enough to make parents and those concerned with childhood affairs and the future of our country lose sleep for many, many nights to come. And what happens when parents, elder siblings and neighbours are the perpetrators of such despicable crimes, which the study tells us will haunt the children for years - often turning the very victims into criminals of similar acts of aggression later on in their lives?
Too many questions, too few answers! Too many horror stories, too little being done to solve the problem!
While educating children and opening their eyes to the wrongs being done to them by older predators with twisted minds and showing them where to turn to for help will go a long way in redressing the situation, parents and care takers have a grave responsibility on their shoulders to ensure that children are safe and out of harm's way. The first step towards treating this curse is by admitting on a national level that there is a problem, which many would rather not acknowledge because of the shame and bitterness such acts of aggression against innocents bring.
Once we take our heads out of the sand, we can then put our minds together and work on a realistic plan to protect the safety of our youngsters in homes, schools, playgrounds, malls and even mosques.
Children are entrusted into our hands and they are the future - a future we are destroying by being too arrogant to admit there is a problem to begin with!
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| Vol XXIX | NO. 154 | | |
To the warmongers out there, please leave us alone
A friend of mine, a good friend if I may add, has sent me and others, the following e-mail:
"Dear Friends,
"Thank you very much for all the lovely e-mails you send me. I enjoy most of them, most of the time.
The recent events in the world have been too much for me to handle without my stomach turning and getting sick, so please be true friends and help me.
Please don't send me any e-mails that contain any of the following:- Bush - Blair- Nasrallah - Lebanon - Syria - Palestine- Israel- Iraq- Iran- Fatwas - Shia quotes- Sunni quotes- Lies about the Prophet (any Prophet) - Protests - Demonstrations- Anything to do with politics" Thank you very much. I love you all."Goodbye, be well. "When I read this e-mail for the first time, my lips curled into a smile.
It must be a joke, something she penned to make me roll on the floor with laughter !
It was only when I spoke to her a few days later that I realised that she was actually very serious in her demands for a total news blackout.
She, just like all the decent innocent people out there, has had it with the constant barrage of bad news invading our lives, round-the-clock, from every corner of the globe. With the full wrath of the Israeli war machine focused once again on obliterating the Palestinians from the face of the Earth and Lebanon counting its dead after a 34-day bloody assault, which totally devastated its infrastructure and killed and maimed more than 1,000 of its citizens, I can hardly blame her for asking us to shelter her from all this carnage. Add to this, threats of terror in the air, aboard flights which at this time of the year would be full of families off on holiday or returning home and I too want to stick my head in the sand and shut off all the bad omens coming my way. If only there was a way of stopping all this madness!
There seems to be no good news coming from any direction. Things are just happening.
Locally, two young women were killed in Bahrain in the same week, bringing the country to a standstill as the size of the enormity of the crimes seeped in.
The following week, two teenagers lost their lives in a car crash which could have been easily avoided.
Regionally, Iraq and Afghanistan are literally in flames, with Iran and Syria supposedly next in line.
While politicians, war mongers and profiteers are beating their drums to the latest tunes of destruction, which are loud and clear for all to hear, we the general public, the non-terrorists, non-military combatants, are suffering - regardless of whether or not we are directly involved with the zones marked for total annihilation in the New World Order manuscripts. Whatever our beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, level of backwardness and ideologies, people are people.
We are all flesh and blood, full of dreams and hopes, smiles and tears and most importantly, we all deserve to live in peace! To the mercenaries and war-mongers out there, please leave us alone. Take your wars and destruction elsewhere!
*Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| Vol XXIX | NO. 149 | | |
Taxing time for doctors abroad...
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So, 44 family physicians were threatening to go on strike if their promotion papers weren't finalised by the Civil Service Bureau?
Well, I am happy for them that they could collectively stamp their feet and get what they want.
While some of them are qualified enough and have worked for many years and deserve to be promoted to consultants, the sad fact about the Health Ministry's promotions criteria is that not all doctors have to complete the same levels of training to achieve similar steps in promotion.
While a surgeon for instance has to do a two to three-year fellowship abroad, a family physician gets promoted after completing a few years in service in Bahrain.
They don't have to travel abroad away from their homes and families and work in foreign hospitals to get the promotion they deserve.
They also don't have to live on salaries and allowances which barely cover the living expenses of students, let alone practising doctors with families and children, in countries much more expensive than Bahrain, which also have high tax rates.
I know for a fact that surgeons working at the Salmaniya Medical Complex for example are paid their basic Bahrain salary, plus a BD600 monthly allowance to cover their living expenses while on training abroad.
This is not a lot in a country as expensive as Canada, where taxes are as high as 14 per cent in some provinces and where apartments cost about BD600 a month!
The contract they have signed with the training department at the Health Ministry also stipulates that they aren't allowed to earn any other income during their training period, making them work for a much lower salary than their peers back in Bahrain.
Although family physicians get paid little more than their surgeon colleagues, at least they are being given their promotions - even if it is only on paper for the time being - without having to work abroad for less than entry-level doctors.
To tell you the truth, I really do hope that ALL doctors in Bahrain go on strike, for the working conditions and pay for those employed in the country's government hospital is appalling to say the least.
A study conducted by the Bahrain Medical Association last year showed that on average a Bahraini doctor earned about BD1.600 per hour, making them the least paid medical professionals in the Gulf!
With the introduction of the new cadre, the salaries of doctors, especially those at the beginning of their careers, have gone up, but they are nowhere near their colleagues in neighbouring countries.
In Canada, in the building where I live, the cleaning woman earns $60 (BD20.400) for dusting, sweeping and vacuuming a two-bedroom apartment - a job which takes about an hour!
She did not have to study hard all her life, sit exams, work awkward shifts day and night and put up with hospital politics - unless of course she was a doctor in Bahrain who has decided that cleaning apartments in Canada is more lucrative.
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| Vol XXIX | NO. 146 | | | | |
The things you see from outer space...
Bahrain sure looks amazing from space. All the fuss over the banning and unbanning of Google Earth made me, a woman with so much time to kill, spend a good 48 hours scrutinising each and every single span of land in my country.
Ban or no ban - nothing and no-one could have pulled me away from the computer!
I really never thought there was so much to see, discover and learn about Bahrain from a map.
But this map was no ordinary map. Google Earth offers maps and satellite images, which enable you to zoom into different areas and literally count the houses and cars on the streets.
When you zoom into Bahrain, you would be amazed to see how about 700,000 people are stacked one over the other in just a fraction of the land, with the rest going to waste.
Now I am no urban planner, but from the look of it and from the sizes of some of empty walled lands clearly visible from space, I don't see why 30,000 families are on the Housing Ministry's waiting lists for homes and lands in my country.
I also don't see why we carried stories last month about a Bahraini family living on the street and how a VIP, who did not want his name disclosed, 'donated' a villa for them in Hamad Town.
Echoing the words of His Majesty King Hamad, I now strongly believe that Bahrain is big enough for all its sons and daughters and the dream that every family would have a roof over their head should not be far from the truth.
Housing issues aside, I never imagined Bahrain could be so green from the sky.
Other than childhood memories of greenery around Adhari, where we used to go and catch tiny fish in the streams in the afternoons, I don't personally recall many green areas back home.
The satellite images have proved me wrong and I see that my country is green, greener than the green I turned into when I saw the massive expanses of gardens surrounding some of the villas in areas I didn't know existed before.
The satellite images also made me see how our quest for more land and reclamation have had their toll on the environment, with the effects of dredging clearly evident from the sky.
Other than raising those concerns, Google Earth made me flex some muscles on some of my Canadian friends.
I zoomed into the Bahrain Financial Harbour, the Bahrain International Circuit and the new tourist marvels - Amwaj Islands and Durrat Al Bahrain - to prove to those who don't know that we don't live in tents and use camels for transportation purposes!
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| Vol XXIX | NO. 143 | | | | |
Google Earth ban will send wrong signal
What signals are we sending the rest of the civilised world - if there is any such thing anymore?
Blocking Google Earth? Come on! Give me a break please!
What Bahraini moral value does such a site, which allows you to see satellite images of different places, break?
To block it re-emphasises the saddening notion that the state is in control of everything and anything you are able to surf on the worldwide web?
All it tells me is that people in Bahrain are treated like children, who cannot be trusted to use the Internet in a 'responsible' manner and whose usage and surfing habits should be monitored at all times, should they err and access information they have no business learning about !
It was only last week that a Bahraini doctor training here and I were killing time, zooming into our neighbourhoods in Bahrain, thanks to Google Earth.
She was fascinated to see an aerial view of Galali and the latest developments on Amwaj Island, while I moved the mouse down the main Isa Town road, all the way to my house and showed her the five-minute route I used to travel every day to my office at the GDN!
Seeing Bahrain from space was amazing and being so close to home and seeing the roads and buildings from so far away was a truly surreal experience.
In fact, it is the closest I can get to home, without actually leaving my couch!
Sadly, if the Bahraini authorities succeed in blocking Google Earth for whatever reason they would or would not give, my sisters and family back home won't be able to see what mischief I am getting up to in those faraway lands, where Internet access is not hindered with red tape or suffocated by a ridiculously
expensive billing system, ironically for a service which doesn't allow you to use the full spectrum of Internet services available.
Whether Bahrain cites security or moral reasons for blocking Internet sites, reality shows that the more you try to hide something, the more desirable it becomes.
I don't really know how many people knew about Google Earth in Bahrain before someone decided to clamp down on it, but I know for a fact that everyone in the country is now intrigued to see what all the fuss is all about.
I am also sure that my country's name is again becoming linked to news about the suppression of information and Internet censorship, which anyone who could switch on a computer and access the Internet could tell you is largely impossible nowadays!
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| Vol XXIX | NO. 139 | | | | |
Treatment of expat labour is shameful
No matter how hard I try and how much time I give myself to rein in my anger to calculate my thoughts before going on the offensive, I really cannot get around it.
Like thousands of decent people in and out of Bahrain touched by the tragedy of the 16 Indian workers killed in the Gudaibiya labour camp blaze, I cannot imagine how such a calamity can happen and we have the nerve to continue with life as usual, in a nation which prides itself on the upholding of human rights.
Aren't we now a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva?
Is it humane for 200 human beings to live up to 20 in a room, stacked up like sardines, in a building which lacks the basic fire and safety precautions?
Is it in line with the Human Rights Charter for people, even if they are Indian workers, to earn BD3 a day for construction work in a country where temperatures hit 45C in summer?
Does the International Labour Organisation sanction the illegal practices committed against foreign labourers in broad daylight in my country - with the full knowledge and even sometimes the blessings of officials, who go on to open one state-of-the-art building after the other, made possible by the sweat, blood and even lives of poor labourers?
This catastrophe, though waiting to happen for a long time, should have at least sent shockwaves down the backs of a spineless society, which calls itself democratic and forward-looking while continuing to profit on the backs of imported, often abused labour.
Shame! Shame! Shame! Other than the declaration that labour camps will be and should be inspected and the Public Prosecution's investigations into the case, I am afraid to say that the lives of those 16 labourers and scores of others before them in occupational accidents and similar tragedies over the years, have gone to waste.
Do you want to know why? It is because the labourers are Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali and Sri Lankan.
Our labour practices show that they are cheap and for as little as BD40 a month they will slave day and night, without lifting a finger to demand more rights.
Their governments are slow to demand better working conditions for them and we as Bahrainis apparently see nothing wrong in exploiting them for as long as everyone is OK with it.
Don't you wonder why there weren't any massive rallies and protests to demand better living and working conditions for foreign labourers in our rally-happy Bahrain?
Oops.. I forgot! It is no longer legal for Bahrainis to stage rallies at will and even if it were, how many Bahrainis would take part in a demonstration to call for justice for labourers?
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| Vol XXIX | NO. 138 | | | | |
Arabs facing the might of Zionist propaganda machine
It's been more than two weeks since the bombs started falling on Beirut. Being away from home makes it more difficult to deal with such calamities, which hurt deep inside and leave the soul searching for answers and closure as the human suffering, death toll and aggression increases.
Remaining glued to the television, following stations which serve their own agendas and that of their Zionist masters and reading between the lines, offers no consolation for at such dark times as these, when you desperately need to be surrounded by family and friends to lament the loss and collectively share the feelings of shame and guilt hanging heavy on our heads.
Yes. Shame and guilt, for we as Arabs have let the Levant down and the rest of the world has followed in our footsteps and trampled upon the sovereignty of people who have existed since time immemorial.
Just like at a funeral, the presence of dear ones soothes raw pain, initiating a healing process and providing a support cushion which one can fall back on, with the full knowledge that others too are going through the same motions.
Just when I thought that I was all alone at the funeral, a friend called from New York, worried about her sister, who is trapped in Lebanon.
She said she couldn't leave the television screen and had her phone in her hand, waiting for news and the safe return of her sister to the US.
Like many others who know I am married to a doctor, she asked me about hypertension and how to deal with it. And as the expert, thanks to listening in on the medical conferences I have in my livingroom almost every evening when two to three doctors gather here and chat about their day at work, I asked her to take a break from television and the news for a few hours.
I wish I could do that myself, for just as the Lebanese are taking in the full wrath of the Israeli war machine, we here are bombarded with news from a different perspective, repeating to us in detail the suffering of Israeli civilians caught in the crossfire.
Watching television here and talking to people I meet in this little town has taught me once again that as reporters and writers we sure do play a role in forming public opinion.
Thanks to the might of the Zionist propaganda machine, almost everyone I have met has shown sympathy to Israel and its terrified civilians.
"What about the Lebanese and Palestinian civilians?" I question.
"Oh, they have brought it on themselves," is the arrogant answer.
Of course they have! They just woke up one morning in 1948 and decided to become the neighbours of an unlawful state usurped by blood-thirsty maniacs, with the blessings of colonial powers.
What annoys me the most is the fact that they have given themselves the licence to label others as terrorists, when they themselves started the cult !
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| Vol XXIX | NO. 136 | | | | |
At home away from home in Canada
With temperatures soaring back home, the number of Bahrainis in Hamilton has doubled this summer.
From a headcount of six (four doctors and two spouses, including my humble self), we are now a record 12!
With the picnic and barbecue season in full swing, two families have arrived to visit their relatives.
They may be the only ones with Bahraini passports I have located so far, but the truth is that they aren't the only 'Bahrainis' in our vicinity, which apparently is swarming with former Bahrain residents!
Our first encounter with a 'true Bahraini' here was when we were received at the airport by former Gulf Daily News sports editor Santosh Shetty.
He whisked us off to his home, where we were showered with love, care and lots of food prepared by his wife Sherry to suit our Bahraini palate, for our first five weeks in Canada. "Bahrain is heaven!" Sherry used to exclaim every two minutes, followed by "I love Bahrain!"
To tell you the truth, however hard I try to press my brain and remember, I haven't heard any Bahraini describe to me their home country in those exact terms.
Of course, we all love Bahrain, but the way Sherry sings laurels to my homeland beats anything I have come across.
What fills me with pride is that she isn't alone. Recently, an invitation came our way to spend an afternoon with an Indian family, who had lived in Bahrain for years. They had just bought a house and relocated to Mississauga, which is about 40 minutes away from us.
To be frank, I didn't have the stomach to meet new people and engage in polite chit chat, not at a time when the world was turning a blind eye to the suffering of millions in a region historically referred to as the Fertile Crescent and today reduced to a place where Muslims, Christians and Jews are once again at loggerheads.
Before I knew it, we were in their driveway and Dr K M Kamath was waiting with his wife Jaya at the front door, welcoming us into their house.
We were soon joined by a Pakistani couple, who had also lived in Bahrain until 1996 and the conversation naturally turned to Bahrain. While Dr Kamath's house was dotted with artefacts and paintings from back home, creating a mini-Bahrain surrounding, the warmth of their hospitality took us to the heart of Manama, where families sat together over meals and poured their hearts out.
"You will be surprised how I met my neighbours. I knew them in Bahrain but didn't expect to bump into them here," explained Dr Kamath.
"We came to see this house before buying it and my daughter pointed out a huge Bahraini flag hanging on the inside of the window of the house next door."
I went out to check my country's flag, which was still out there, proving once again the loyalty and love former Bahrain residents have for a country many of them still proudly call home.
Bahrain is indeed heaven and its fans, spread around the world, are its guardian angels.
* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
posted by SillyBahrainiGirl at 6:51 PM
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