The Blame Game

Within the Middle East, it's everywhere.

But, I have to admit, this angle is new. Nahla Atiyah, in her "The Discreet Charms of the Domestic Worker", takes this game to a level I never imagined.

She basically complains about a human rights lawyer from Bangladesh, who has said that Lebanon needs to control human trafficking.

So what does Nahla do? She forgets about the exploitation the lawyer is fighting against, and puts the spotlight on the workers. They have come to Lebanon to "make money, ten-fold" what they would make at home. They live among us using "clandestine ways" and "shy exotic smiles", living in an "intriguing underworld", and have the mentality that "cohabitation is an accepted social custom".

Human rights? What for? They are using us, right? They are taking our money, and our poor society is losing since the time when "our helpers were also Lebanese" is long gone. These foreign workers "spit in our soup" - how can this lawyer have the gall to speak about human rights?

Sarcasm - the weapon of those who know they have lost. Nahla ends with commenting on how her "Philippina" has spent "her first pay on a walkman" even though she came here "to send father to hospital and brother to school."

You have to love this holier than thou attitude.

I wasn't going to blog this. Nahla's view doesn't deserve the attention. But this blog is one way to get the nagging feeling off my mind. This post should have been written in rage. The Daily Star should have known better than to publish this. But the Daily Star is ... the Daily Star, and I have just learnt to accept.

To see the real plight of workers in Lebanon, to know that Nahla's deprecatingly racist point of view is no different than colonial attitudes who justified the existence of their colonies with the clichéd "we are more civilized than they are", all you have to do is go back to the story of Sushar Rosky.

posted by Lazarus, 2:13 PM