JEDDAH, 8 September 2005 — Omar is a beggar who won’t take no for an answer. If you don’t give him money, he will follow you to your car, climb in, get in your face and try to intimidate you into parting with whatever cash he thinks you may have. Those who have been approached by Omar don’t soon forget him as he often shouts, spits, pushes, swears — and sometimes even kisses.
Stories have circulated about him and his antics for years in Jeddah’s boys’ and girls’ high schools. He is on a first name basis with most of the young men who gather in the Danube Supermarket parking lot on weekend nights. He also knows the supermarket’s security guards as well as members of the local police patrol who prefer not to deal with him.
Several Arab News staff members, including this journalist, have had him — uninvited — enter their cars. Each one paid to get rid of him.
Gehan Al-Abbas is one who knows Omar all too well. “I was in my car with my baby and maid, waiting for the driver to come back from the store. Suddenly, the front passenger door opened and a crazy-looking man climbed in. I ordered him out but he closed the door and turned to us, putting his face between the seats. His smell was awful; he was sweating and drooling and I was very frightened.
“I screamed and told him to get out, but he wouldn’t. He kept saying, ‘Fear Allah; give me money. I want to eat’. His speech was slurred and his eyes were red. He acted as if he were crazy, drunk or on drugs. Fearing for my baby and wanting him out of the car, I reached for my wallet and pulled out SR10, but he wasn’t satisfied,” Al-Abbas said.
At this point, she was very alarmed and upset and pulled out all the bills in her wallet — another SR60 — and handed them over, thinking that he would leave. “But he still wouldn’t get out. He demanded SR200. When I emptied my purse for him to see, he left, slamming the door without so much as a thank you. He kept saying, ‘I hope Allah doesn’t do to your baby what he did to me.’ I was very upset and felt as if I had been robbed. What I found even more upsetting was that there were at least a dozen young men standing around, watching the entire proceeding. And not one of them came to help. They just stood there, laughing and pointing at him. I felt that my baby and I were no more than their source of entertainment,” Al-Abbas said.
When Arab News caught up with Omar last Thursday night at his usual spot, it became clear that he can indeed hold a normal conversation with people, lending some credence to the theory — held by many who have come to know him over the years — that his erratic behavior might simply be an act.
In a quiet, soft-spoken manner, he told Arab News his story. “I was hit by a car 15 years ago and suffered brain damage. Before that, I was studying English in England and did well in school. But after the accident, I never recovered,” he said.
Still speaking some English, Omar said the car accident was what made him the way he is. In addition, he claimed to have been treated by Dr. Mohammed Erfan, the owner and chief psychiatrist at Jeddah’s well-known Erfan Hosptial. When Arab News visited Dr. Mohammed, taking along a picture of Omar, he said: “I have never treated this man; he doesn’t look familiar to me at all,” which leaves one wondering what, if any, of what Omar said — or does — is genuine.
Omar counts on his persistent and menacing approach, to frighten people into giving him money, but when confronted by someone who isn’t intimidated by him, he backs down and assumes an almost child-like persona that is truly worthy of pity when coming from a man in his thirties.
Last January, Firas Al-Sharif, 23, was coming out of Danube Supermarket when he saw Omar sitting in his car. “At first I thought I had made a mistake and was looking at someone else’s car, but then I recognized my mother and sister. My mother looked terrified, so I rushed over to them, and pulled the man out of my car, and began smacking him with my iqal. He started screaming like a woman, then began crying and curled up in a little ball on the ground. I felt bad later — almost sorry for him,” Al-Sharif said.
Whether Omar is genuinely disabled or not, is perhaps not really the issue at hand. The majority of those who have met him in the comfort of their air-conditioned cars or otherwise, are more often left wondering how someone behaving as he does can be left free to roam the streets. “If there is something really wrong with him, then he should be receiving care at a mental health facility. But if there isn’t anything wrong and this is all an act, then he should be in jail. One way or another, he should not be left to continue frightening women and children,” Al-Abbas added.
