Saturday, February 04, 2006

What's Luck Got To Do With It?

A couple of days ago, something happened which really made me think. In the short space of a taxi ride, my entire perspective on my life and the world changed completely. Let me explain. Where I'm living right now, it's common knowledge that you just don't make conversation with taxi drivers. It sounds terrible, but you don't because the majority of the time, they're quite frightening. Sanity isn't really a word you would associate with them, and I suppose that has alot to do with the fact that they work long hours for practically nothing. They've been forced to come to a country where they know no one and communicate in languages most of them have never learnt. As well as that, half the time they have no formal training and whether or not they are in possession of a real drivers license is questionable. Not a particularly safe mode of transport, but you get used to it. Needless to say, you learn to ignore them. God, just saying that makes me realise how horrible that sounds, but it's the truth. They're a burden you learn to bear. Their erratic driving, their bad manners, it's all something you have to put up with; and the easiest way to do that is to get into the car, tell them where you want to go and pay them at the end.

The other day I got into a taxi, told him where I was going, and then proceeded to nearly have a heart attack when he turned around and in perfect english began to speak to me. I mean, perfect english. I ignored him, gave him one word answers, and kept looking out the window because I didnt know what else to do! Never before had I come across a taxi driver in the UAE that had the ability to speak more than a few mandatory english words. Soon enough my curiousity got the better of me, and I wanted, no, needed, to know who this guy was. So I asked him, and I am so glad that I did.

He told me he was from Afghanistan, and the reason that he knew English so well was because he had taken a 6 month course to learn it. He had been at university in Afghanistan studying engineering when troubles started and the Taliban began bombing. In the middle of his first year at university he was forced to leave. The university closed down, and he had no other way to continue his education. When he was 25 he married, and now has 3 sons. He's 33 years old and a couple of years ago he came here to work as a taxi driver, because even if he got office work in Afghanistan, he would be earning no more than 200 dirhams a month. (That's about 50 dollars). At the moment, he's earning 600 dirhams a month (150 dollars). 600 dirhams! 600 dirhams a month for the abuse he has to put up with. I can easily spend 600 dirhams in a few minutes, and there he is earning that for a months hard work. He said it was a horrible job. To be a taxi driver in a country that considers them no better than an animal, when he was initially hoping to become an engineer. God, my heart went out to him. I told him to go to Europe. Why come here, why come to a country that doesn't have a minimum wage for foreigners? Go to Europe, they have minimum wages there. Get refugee status, do something! But he told me he can't get refugee status now because there is now technically an effective government in Afghanistan. He supposedly has nothing to flee from, except perhaps poverty. I gave him some money when I left, but I wish I had given him more.

Do you want to know the crazy thing? When I was leaving he turned to me and wished ME luck in my life. He wished me happiness, a good marriage and luck in whatever I do. ME who has more chances than he could ever dream of. Wished me luck when he's the one who needs luck the most. How cruel is this world. I should be down on my knees thanking God for the opportunities I've been given. I wished him luck, but what good will that do? He's still going to be driving that taxi, earning nothing, and dreaming about the time in the distant future when he'll be able to go back to Afghanistan and see the sons he spoke to me so dearly about. Luck has nothing, and everything, to do with it.

Final Nail In The Coffin

That's it now. One of the final nails in the coffin has been hammered in. The bait was thrown and eagerly consumed by the masses. There is a certain government in this world joyfully rubbing their hands together under their star spangled banner, and saying "I told you so!". For with yesterdays actions in Syria the Arab world has succeeded in ensuring that much of Europe will now turn their backs on them and march towards the West.
The torching of the Danish and Norweigian embassies in Damascus is just what alot of people could have hoped for. The calculated reluctance of the Danish editor to apologise has spurred on what can only now escalate. Perhaps they wanted to see how far they could go before something like this happened. How can people act logically when such an enormous amount of emotion is involved? Emotion that has been simmering beneath the surface over the years, and has finally reached boiling point. Someone once described Arabs as having unparralled strength and conviction when acting alone, but much weakness when acting together. Nothing can be gained from such violence, because there are others who have been quietly and secretly calculating events that would lead to these reactions. In showing our defiance, we are playing right into their hands.
Oh, but we cannot see the wood for the trees.

The Power Within

As hard as it may be sometimes, I still have faith in the goodness of the human race in general. Or maybe I'm just being overly idealistc and naive. It probably would be more accurate to say that I believe in the goodness of most people. There are, as all of you know, some people that are just plain evil. Although, what is evil? Surely those people believe they have valid reasons to do as they do. It's all a matter of perspective really. Good and Evil exist because we allow them to exist if you know what I mean. By saying that something is evil, we are simulatneously defining what is good. To say something is tall means that we are acknowledging that some things are short. I could go on, but I won't because by this time most people will have flicked to another blog!

I believe that we can change the world with our actions. I believe that we can change the world with our thoughts, because our thoughts will influence our actions. I believe that we have no idea as to the sheer vastness of our mind and our abilities. I believe that we have the ability to do more than we could ever dream we could do. I also believe that this fact has been consistently covered over by our media and our governments, because they know what we seem to have not realised yet...that we have immense power within us. True there are some who are content not to question the world; Who are content to accept things as they are presented to us; Who are content to achieve what they have been conditioned into thinking is the only thing that we can strive to achieve in today's world.

There's more to life than money and prestige. We work hard to get these things, but we fail to realise that we have the power to do much more. We have the power to cause huge changes in this world; the power to mould the world into what we want it to be. Perhaps we should choose to blame ourselves for today's problems, instead of trying to shift the blame to whatever race, religion or person we, by our actions, have pinpointed as the scapegoat. Perhaps we want the world to be the way it is. Perhaps we want war, perhaps we want to "live at the height of our abilities" (as someone recently accredited war with making possible). Perhaps we should stop questioning others, and start questioning ourselves. After all, you cannot deny that we have chosen to sit back and not do anything to stop the injustices in our world. To choose to do nothing in the face of injustice, is just as bad as being the cause of the injustice itself.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

A Talk With Love

I've been trying to decide whether or not to post more poetry. Today I decided I would. Here's one I wrote about a month ago. I made a conscious effort with this one to change the rhyming sequence to abc abc . By the way, thank you to everyone who commented and emailed me about the last one I put up, and in doing so encouraged me to put more up!

A Talk With Love

Love, I long to count you among my friends
Yet you are oblivious to my charms.
Feigning ignorance of my sighs and smiles
You show no sign of making amends.
Will you never again rest in my arms?
It may be true, yet I shall wait the whiles.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Knock That Corporate Ladder Down

I'm sick and tired of managers who waste my time telling me things I already know and acting like they know everything all of the time! What is it with delegation? Yesterday I was asked to go over a contract. My boss sent it on to me with the email correspondence attached. I am not joking when I tell you that the task had been delegated EIGHT times until it finally reached me, the lowest rung of the ladder, and I got stuck with it. Not only that, but it was so minimal. 30 minute job at the most, although for most of those who delegated it downwards, I wouldn't be suprised if it would have taken them a couple of hours. Seriously, incompetence annoys me, talking for no reason when business has to be done annoys me, and most of all, it annoys me when credit is not received where credit is due. I just finished a huge report for my boss, for which I had to do a crazy amount of research; Crawling the net, trudging through books, and do you know what happened after I sent him the report (which can I add came to the same conclusion that I had initially told him when he first gave me the problem!) ? He sent on the conclusions from it to HIS boss, signing HIS name at the bottom. His boss then no doubt sent those conclusions to his boss like he was the one who did all the work! Crazy isnt it? This corporate ladder is so overrated. And when you've got to sit through 20 minutes of stupid talk "explaining" things that anyone with half a brain would already know, by someone that isnt even your boss but wants to exploit your intelligence for his own gain, you start wishing that someone would just knock that ladder down.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Are We Boycotting the Right Products?

I'm just wondering why the Arab world is so quick to boycott Danish products, and yet has not yet made any serious effort to effectively boycott Israeli goods. Has the so-called state of Israel never offended Islam and Muslims?? I agree with taking a stand for what you believe in, whatever side that may be, however I think that we should question why we find it so easy to stand up to Denmark and so hard to stand up to "Israel". Why not visit www.bigcampaign.org/boycott.html and have a look at the amount of things you use on a daily basis that are linked to the "country" that has been the cause of such death, destruction and irreparable damage.

Paranoia

God the world is paranoid. The world is paranoid, and I get paranoid as a result. When people start thinking that everyone is out to get them, it's only a matter of time before everyone will start thinking that people in general are out to get them. Let me give you an example; When you go to the store, pay for something and get change back...do you check the change expecting there to be too much or too little? There's something to think about, and something to watch out for when you begin to realise that this media-driven, greedy, money-hungry world we live in is beginning to turn us all against each other. Encouraging us all to become so self-obsessed that we fail to see things other than from our own point of view. When the world we live in takes a step back from reality and becomes based entirely on the workings of the ficitional lives that society has created for us, we begin to lose whatever grip we once had on that closely governed ideal of sanity.
Paranoia is the vine that winds tighter the more I struggle to be free.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Working for Pittance

So here I am back at work again, another day another dollar. Or in my case, another day another unknown fraction of a dollar. You'd think I'd have sorted out my salary before I started working wouldn't you? Yes, I realise that would have been the logical thing to do. But as most people who know me also know, logical doesn't always cut it with me. Plus its only temporary and it's all about the experience..or so I'm told. I wonder how long I can surf the net and write my blog before anyone realises I'm not doing work yet?

White Socked Ankles

Why why why do some men still insist on wearing trousers that leave little to the imagination in the sock department?? That's right, socks! Listen, it was cool when Michael Jackson did it, and even then its coolness was questionable, but unless its 1987 or you're doing the moonwalk the reason for it is beyond me! Sure your trousers don't drag on the ground and get dirty, but surely its possible to achieve that aim without cutting the legs off at your ankles?! In my quest for an answer I asked resident 'I'm so cool I don't need fashion and that makes me fashionable' expert Mark Flavin : "Maybe they think they have sexy ankles and are trying to draw attention to them???###!!
thats my theory, anything else would be just stupid....."
And I agree. Anything else would just be stupid. If a man discovered that he did have sexy ankles, then I suppose he would want to show them off, seeing as most men most certainly DO NOT have ANYTHING that could remotely be referred to as sexy ankles...but if he didnt? If he realised that his ankles were actually quite normal, then what could possibly encourage him to do such a rash and crazy thing?? Maybe it's to show off his socks? Which if he was wearing socks that his 2 year old knit and embroidered for him then I would understand. Such socks would be unbelievably special socks and would be socks that he would want to show off. But WHITE socks? White socks are...white socks!! WHITE SOCKS!! you dont show white socks off! Unless you were showing off the whitness of them, which in the case of a Persil ad I could understand. Anything else would just be stupid.
And yet, why, as I sit here typing this, do I have an unobstructed view of white-sock-clad ankles poking out from under a desk? Why, why, why??