by Furry Monster

Created on: May 25, 2007

ARAB-ITTUDE

I sit here wondering, whether I am slightly old fashioned with my obsessive cravings for courtesy and politeness or I am just slightly unhinged for questioning the attitudes of a country that I do not understand. Well, that was until I was introduced to the Arab world, and I am trying to make this point without unkindness and malice because only after two weeks in this soulless, and mind numbingly dead country, which calls itself 'Dubai'- my ideals about civilized behaviour are completely screwed.

In my crazy haze, and slight dizzy state of my mind, I subconsciously worry that I am becoming one of them. Let me explain, that my apparent paranoia is found on some solid encounters with the height of ignorance and pure arrogance. I could almost forgive the overweight, fully veiled women pushing past me at a snail's pace in the shopping centres or even the annoying little children trampling over my toes with their shopping carts and throwing glares at me for daring to cross the same path as them. However, what I can not forgive or even begin to erase from my memory are the attitudes of the Arab men- the persistent hissing, the universally invasive stares and beeping horns when one attempts to walk down the road. I can still hear them in my sleep, possibly I am still in a state of shock because I have neither been followed obsessively in shopping centres or walking down the road and at the very least I have never ever encountered a man wearing a kandoora (white robe) who flashes all his 'privates' at me on a busy road; anywhere, ever. So maybe my senses are partially hypersensitive to these possible, unpredictable in eventualities. After all, a half naked man- in the middle of a road is certainly not my cup tea; especially when I was naively trying to convince myself that this 'tiny' mishap was purely an accident. Questionably, who does that in the Arab world? Where the women barely expose any flesh at all, if you are lucky you might get a flash of their penetrating, all observing eyes and perhaps their fingers but that's only if you're really fortunate. Then a man baring all his supposed 'manhood'; who then decides to follow you in his car until your cornered and need to run for help has definitely got to be a rarity, I hope. Don't you?

There will be certainly no chances that I will be flashing anything but if I dared; the only part of my body I will be putting out there would be my ankles. Mainly due to the fact that the indecency police would lock me

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