Our public officials here often make bold statements that border on the surreal. I sometimes wonder whether they believe such releases to be the truth or are these facts reported for local public consumption only?
Take the case of a minister who assertively stated recently at a gathering in Japan that there was no instance of child abuse in the Kingdom. Well Mr. Minister, I beg to differ with you on that one! It is highly possible that the information you received from your aides were along the lines of your announcement, but the truth is far from it. Public aides here want to maintain their job security, and none want to be the messenger of ill tidings.
And if my objections may seem incredible or absurd, I invite the minister to drive onto a parking lot of any supermarket or shopping mall. There, he can witness for himself the poor wretched children, some barely beyond ‘toddlerhood’ — if there is such a word — who are forced to spend hours on end begging for a few riyals. Who forces them to such a harsh regime remains a mystery to me. They are in full view for everyone to see but they certainly don’t seem to be spending the money they receive from donations on themselves.
The same faces appear day after day; school age children who spend hours in the hot tortuous sun weaving in and out of traffic asking for alms — some so small that they are barely noticed past the dashboard. Their cries of need ring desperately in one’s ears.
No indeed. We have our share of child abuse. And it doesn’t simply stop with these unfortunate kids in parking lots. Some may consider our intense educational curriculum devoid of the arts to be abuse of young minds.
Our lack of sport facilities and public parks could be held as another factor for abuse, suppressing the natural physical development of growing bodies.
On another occasion, I read that a senior public official made a grand statement at a formal gathering to the effect that there was no case of discrimination here based on race, ethnicity, or national origin. Well, you could have fooled me. Tell that to a Somali driver who just got into a car accident with a Saudi, where it is plain as day that the Saudi is in error. Guess who’s going to end up at fault? Chances are, it won’t be the Saudi.
Or how about the disdain we show foreigners by ignoring their place in the queue as we bully our way to the front of the line of these expatriates. Perhaps the thobe and guthra give us higher priority, or so it seems. Doesn’t that smack of discrimination, rudeness and arrogance?
Now thank God not everyone is like that here, but we do have our share of misfits and ills in our society, like any other. To state otherwise is to sweep dirt under the carpet and pretend the carpet does not even exist!
And if indeed these officials are receiving fabricated reports about all being well from their underlings, then perhaps they should get out on their own and let their own eyes lead the way. The picture they will see may be far from what they may have heard or imagined.
— Tariq A. Al-Maeena, [email protected]