The Mask of modern slavery
“Taking care of your own first”
In my oman experience, I found out that the way we understand and interpret this statement is the very cultural barrier I have personally experienced between the Middle East and the Western World.
Not the religion nor the food or the language but the way we were educated in considering and interacting with different ethnicities, nationalities, and religions around us.
When a government grants its citizens financial help in case of prolonged periods of unemployment or health care benefits for the financially weak sectors, that’s taking care of its own and I agree 100% that every citizen should knock on the door of his own government when it comes to that.
When a government grants a white man the right to sit on public transport over a black man, that is a completely different scenario gentleman, and if we don’t agree on that I am sorry to say that you are not worthed my time in this conversation.
Although this is a very broad topic that could have a variety of cases, we can affirm that when a government welcomes an individual into its society either through residency or citizenship it must grant him the same social status as any other member of the same society, exemptions will be made for members of ruling governments, ruling royalty, diplomats, political refugees, etc. etc. but for all the others, the law is the same for everyone and it is applied in the same way to everyone.
Granting inside a closed society, one ethnicity or nationality with social advantages over and on the expenses of another ethnicity or nationality is a barbaric practice well known in the past in many parts of the world, and if combined with a physical restriction of movement of any sort it is in fact the very definition of slavery, or as somebody might see it, taking care of its own first.
50% of what was described in this last paragraph happened to me personally in oman when, due to my nationality, I was denied my career progression for the advantage of another nationality, I never asked the oman government for government pension or for unemployment benefits, as a matter of fact, is not even about money but about the undeletable scar, these people left on my dignity.
So the way I see it the confusion is not about Nationality Citizenship or Ethnicity or which benefits should be granted to you, it is about the definition we have of the statement “taking care of its own first”.
Taking with arrogance the rise from your neighbor plate to double your meal is greed, not taking care of yourself first, being justified in doing so by the fact that he is of a different ethnicity nationality or citizenship is racism, be legitimate in doing so by your government as long as you do it inside the borders of your country it is barbarism and slavery, not taking care of your own first.
This is the way I was educated to consider and interact with different nationalities and ethnicities around me, as persons just like me with the same exact right for the same fair chance.
This is my culture and I claim the right for it to be respected the same way I respected the omani one, but, unfortunately, it seems we have different definitions of “reciprocal respect” as well