Last week while leaving a shopping center in Riyadh with my children, we found ourselves face to face with an Asian man known as the tallest man in the world. The man was standing at the gate surrounded by a large crowd of shoppers. Some were busy taking pictures; others seemed amused by what they saw, while a third group was making comments followed by laughs.
I later came to know that what we had seen was part of a promotional program launched by the shopping center management to attract and amuse shoppers.
It was a pathetic and extremely sad scene. I was filled with anger and pain watching the poor guy surveying the crowds with lost and expressionless looks as people mobbed and pointed at him.
The real challenge I was to face later was when I tried to explain to my children what they had seen. I was supposed to tell them why some people look different from us and why they appear in a shape and size other than what we meet every day. Does this mean that every one who looks different should be put in a situation that makes them appear like extraordinary creatures in a circus? What was the shopping center aiming to achieve by such inhuman behavior? Was all this part of a culture that stereotypes people treating some as substandard and different from others?
I must admit, I found myself in a dilemma not knowing how to respond to the flurry of questions my children kept bombarding me with. Shall I tell them the man was very tall because he drank more milk than what is usually needed for people to grow?
What that shopping center did was introducing a new technique for begging. They wanted to make money, so they used the poor guy as ploy. It is just like what beggars do; use what they believe were clever means to win peoples’ sympathy.
At a time when the rest of world is directing attention toward individuals of special needs to help them lead a normal life and become active members of the society, we continue to have scenes like the one I and my children encountered at that shopping center.
Instead of seeking to address the needs of these people, we drive them to stand at the gates of our shopping centers to amuse and attract shoppers. What a shame.
