Gulf Air management

[bluesfan]

Dear Icarus:

I absolutely appreciate your comment in which you clarified your view and acknowledged hard working locals as well. Local or not, hard working people exist everywhere and they deserve to be acknowledged.

I agree that the tumour must be removed. But removing such tumours cannot succeed if it is coupled with unfair generalizations (no matter how tempting they may be seem to be). Please bear with me if I sound persistent, but I must speak up for the sake of fairness. Notice the following statements that came in your post:

“making ridiculous demands such as these in the typical 'local' manner is just outrageous”

“That tumour is fedby the Labor Law, indiscipline in the home and schools.”

In your first statement, you refer to a “local” manner, and it certainly sounds negative. The last time I checked, “local” and “negative” aren’t synonyms. If you think the demands of these people are ridiculous, then that’s totally fine you have every right to your opinion. The demands could be ridiculous because these people who made them may be ridiculous themselves NOT because they are local!

As a local, I certainly don’t feel that what was in your second statements applies to me and I can assure you, plenty of other locals would share the same view. We certainly weren’t born with golden spoons in our mouths, and I personally don’t think the labour law has given me any added benefits or priority even though it may seem like otherwise. I also take a great deal of pride in my personal/work ethic and performance, just like many other hard working and committed locals out there.. and guess what? We are also a product of the homes and schools that you have criticisized. Again this is about the individuals not the nationality or background.

I know it may sound like I am taking this personally or overanalyzing, but please note that in your statements you mention “locals” without specifying whom exactly you are referring to. This can automatically be interpreted as everyone from the hardest working local to the laziest, it’s a sweeping statement that is therefore unfair. Perhaps you didn’t intend it that way? That’s fine, but then may be in the future a little bit of care must be exercised in phrasing things as it can save a lot of people feeling injustice! Furthermore, the things you have complained about can apply to people regardless of nationality. A person can still be a non-GCC citizen and still show the same attributes that you complained about.

Forgive me for sounding picky on this but I felt I had to speak up on this, and I hope you can understand where I am trying to come from.

I believe not enough hardworking locals are speaking up and are therefore making themselves “fair game” for stereotypes (and sometimes attacks) that do a great deal of injustice. This is dangerous for 2 reasons:

1) unfair generalizations can become the basis of some important judgements and decisions and

2) genraizations can MASK the truth by distracting attention away from the REAL problem or those “tumours” that you referred to!!! i.e. sure, go ahead blame it on the locals and take it out on them while you're at it, while the real slackers (local or not) still get to stay where they are!

Thanks!!!