Archive for
July 6th, 2009
Stories
Bahrain, Oman: The Lives Of Migrant Workers
Migrant workers, the majority from South Asia, form a large part of the population in the countries of the Gulf. In this post we hear the experience of two individuals who have come to the Gulf to work.
Mohammad Iqbal is an Indonesian who lives in Bahrain. He tells us the story of one worker he met:
I recently met a Bangali [Bangladeshi] who works for a hotel as a casual housekeeping attendant. He is actually Public Area attendant, one who takes care all public areas in a hotel, cleaning glass windows, or mopping floors of the lobby. He is not in charge for guest rooms. He does not make up rooms. What’s not fair? He spent BD1,500 (3980 USD) to get working visa in Bahrain. He’s entitled 2 year permit. He’s paid BD10 (26 USD) a day, it means he earns BD240 (636 USD) a month. It’s pretty good pay? Wait..! He has to pay his flat, water, electricity, meal and of course sending money home.
Let’s calculate. For housing, he spends a sharing flat for let say BD50 (132 USD) a month. Then water and electricity will be additional BD10 (26 USD), and then meal for BD40 (106 USD) a month. Don’t forget, since he has a landlord or agent who arranged his employment, including job placement in different places, he has to pay for the agent fee at least BD25 (66 USD). So, total take home pay will be only BD115 (305 USD) a month. In a year (12 month), he can save BD1,380 (3660 USD). This amount is still not enough to pay back the “visa” or “entrance fee” which is BD1,500 (3980 USD). I have no idea whether this amount is legal or not, but one thing I really don't get is that within 2 years he can only save BD1,260 (3340 USD) net. As a conclusion, he spends 1,500 (3980 USD) and sacrifices his two years working very hard for only BD1,260 (3340 USD). To extend another 2 years “working visa” he has to invest again BD1,000 (2652 USD). This means, within 2 years, he gets only BD260 (690 USD) net to save and I still have no clue how he pays for his flight ticket. I really don’t understand since it’s just not fair!
Francine Burlett, a French writer based in Bahrain, had a conversation with an Indian woman called Yasmina on a flight from Muscat to Bahrain in May. This is Yasmina's story:
“Pas facile, la vie à Chennai (Inde), chez moi, tu sais. J'ai deux filles au Collège. Un jour, elles seront docteur. Mais d'abord il faut payer, payer et payer encore. […] Tu sais, je viens de vivre presque 2 mois à Salalah, à Oman. J'ai laissé mon travail là-bas hier. J'étais dans une famille Omanaise. Madame avait 10 enfants - 8 filles et 2 garçons- et fin mai elle va accoucher du 11e bébé. Tu te rends compte? 11 enfants… C'est beau ça. Mais je ne serai pas là pour voir si c'est un garçon ou une fille. Je dois partir. C'est dur de la laisser seule, sans aide, si prêt de son accouchement mais je ne peux pas rester.
Tous les soirs, son mari venait dans ma chambre. Tous les soirs, je lui disais: “Je suis ton employée, pas ton épouse. Retourne chez toi, ta femme a besoin de toi. Retourne dans ton lit. Tu n'as pas le droit de me faire ça. Laisse-moi me reposer, je suis fatiguée…”. Tu imagines? Dix enfants, le ménage, la cuisine, la lessive avec chaque jour des tonnes de dishdashas et de abbayas à repasser, les draps, les couches en tissus, les serviettes… Mais moi, ça m'est égal de travailler. Je ne sais pas faire autre chose. Je suis courageuse. Je n'ai pas peur des lourdes tâches. Mais la nuit, il n'avait pas le droit de me faire ça. Me toucher, m'ennuyer. Je n'ai pas réussi à l'arrêter. Pas assez forte… J'ai du me me décider à faire quelque chose. Vite.
Tu vois, les employés de maison comme moi qui viennent d'Inde, du Sri-Lanka, de Somalie ou des Philippines, ils ont deux mois d'essai et après, ils ne peuvent plus annuler leur contrat, revenir en arrière. Nos passeports sont entre les mains de nos employeurs et s'ils ne veulent pas nous laisser partir, on ne peut rien faire. Tu dois honorer ton contrat de 2 ans avant de pouvoir retourner chez toi. C'est la loi. Moi, je leur ai dit que je voulais partir avant la fin de la période d'essai, que c'était mon droit. Malgré cela, monsieur ne voulait pas.
Alors, j'ai attaqué une grève de la faim. Pendant 5 jours, je ne suis pas sortie de ma chambre, je n'ai pas mangé, pas bu, je ne me suis pas lavée. Ils ont appelé le médecin. Et c'est lui qui a appelé la Police. Voilà. Ils m'ont accompagné jusqu'à l'aéroport. Monsieur a dû payer mon billet d'avion jusqu'à chez moi, me rendre mon passeport. C'est la loi. Mais Monsieur a été méchant jusqu'au bout, tu sais. Moi, je ne sais pas lire. Sur mon billet d'avion, je ne pouvais pas savoir ce qu'il y avait marqué. C'est ici, à l'embarquement, que l'hôtesse de Gulfair m'a dit que je partais pour Ramanathapuram, et non pas Chennai, ma ville. Tu peux le croire, ça? J'ai refusé d'embarquer. Pour aller où? Dans une ville que je ne connais pas, sans argent, sans personne, à 600km de chez moi?… Heureusement, la Police a payé le billet de Ramanathapuram à Chennai. Monsieur devra leur rembourser. Ils ont été corrects, ces policiers, tu sais. C'était quand même 60 Rials (120€) de supplément… un mois de mon salaire!
Je suis déjà restée 5 ans à Dubaï où j'ai fait un “jump” (Faire un “Jumping”: partir de chez son employeur, en lui laissant le passeport, pour accepter une place plus lucrative ailleurs mais en tant qu'illégal). J'ai travaillé 2 ans en Arabie Saudite, 2 ans à Oman dans le passé. Je parle arabe couramment. Si tu as besoin de quelqu'un, n'hésite pas à m'appeler à Chennai. Je viendrai. Je t'aime bien. Mais pas tout de suite. Je veux d'abord voir mes filles et un peu me reposer… ”
Ghana: Bloggers Discuss Business Process Outsourcing
Few know that A.T.Kearney rated Ghana as sub-Saharan Africa's number one Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) destination in 2005 and, as of June 2009, the nation’s achievements in this field look set to continue. Several bloggers reported on an agreement signed in early June between two leading ICT organisations that will provide unprecedented opportunities for ICT students, create thousands of jobs, and underpin the growth of this nascent industry.
Mr Eddie Turkson reported on the details of the agreement:
“THE Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) has signed a partnership agreement with Rising Data Solutions Limited (RDS), a business process outsourcing (BPO) company, to train people and create jobs in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.
Under the agreement, RDS will provide a curriculum and logistics in the field and train teachers to teach the course at the college, while GTUC would house the classrooms, hardware and teaching personnel for the implementation of the course.
The college will also absorb the class into its official curriculum where students who earn qualifying marks in the course will gain employment with RDS.
The President of GTUC, Dr Osei K. Darkwa, said the government had identified Information Technology Enabled Service (ITES) and the BPO industry as one of the key industries for the creation of jobs and the provision of marketable skills for the youth for the country to position itself as a destination of choice for outsourcing.”
Ghana Voices defined the BPO industry as:
An information technology enabled service industry in which clients from other parts of the world subcontract services of which they have low competitive advantage over to local firms who have high competitive advantage in that area.
Ghana Voices also discussed the sector’s potential to benefit the country, stating that:
It is estimated that the sector could provide over 37,000 jobs for the youth by 2011 in Ghana, with an added value to the country’s economy of over 750 million dollars.
Bpoevents reported Dr Darkwa’s hopes for students’ skills development:
Dr. Darkwa expressed the hope that, the collaboration with RDS would equip the students in the areas like communication skills, computer skills, telemarketing, listening skills, accent neutralisation and keyboard skills which are required to succeed in the industry. Supporting this hope, Mr A. J. Whitman, RDS’s Public Relations Manager, said that this partnership was part of RDS’s campaign to bring more jobs to Ghana.
Daikieusown quoted Mr Whitman as saying:
We are proud of this partnership with GTUC, in large part because both parties recognize that the private sector cannot grow without the education sector, and vice versa. While still fledging in Ghana, RDS is banking on their ability to drive the sector by strategic partnerships, allowing skills development based on knowledge sharing that benefits all stakeholders, most importantly students.
The BPO industry has been a significant economic driver of countries such as India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, which had been responsible for the creation of tens of thousands of jobs.
Even Vodaphone, noted Eddie Turkson, commented on the agreement:
The Head of Corporate Communication, Vodaphone, Mr Albert Don-Chebe, gave assurance that Vodaphone was strongly behind the deal and commended RDS for having the courage to invest in Ghana, despite the challenges.
During the ceremony, Dr Darkwa mentioned that the challenges facing the industry were the “shortage of manpower which was restricting its growth”, as reported by Ghana Voices, and that:
It was to reverse this trend that the GTUC signed the MOU with the RDS to develop a talent pipeline in the short and long term, which would ensure continuous supply of trained manpower to feed the industry.
His colleague, Dr. Robert Baffour, The Vice President of GTUC, further stressed that GTUC would continue to develop all necessary platforms and build the requisite foundation to place Ghana on the technology map
Daikieusown quoted Dr Baffour, the Vice President of Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC):
GTUC has been the leader in ICT activities in the country and would continue to lead and chart the way forward for our country.””
on the evening of the ceremony in Accra.
Egyptian woman killed in German court for being veiled
It's been too long since Egyptian bloggers came together under the same opinion. But the new hate crime that took place in Germany against a Muslim Egyptian woman, Marwa El Sherbini, was one good reason for them to unite again, condemning international media for ignoring such incidents against Muslims in the West.
The story goes back to August 2008, when Marwa filed a defamation case against her killer, Axel, a 28-year unemployed German, after he called her a “terrorist” because she wears the hijab (Islamic veil).
However last Wednesday, Alex stabbed her 18 times to death in a German courtroom after the judges announced she won the case against him, and that he had to pay 2,800 Euros as a fine for his previous insults.
Marwa, 32-year-old Egyptian, was the wife of an Egyptian academic, who was on a scholarship in Germany. Her husband was also hurt in the incident and is now in critical condition in hospital, between life and death.
Zeinobia expressed her anger in a post titled “What If She Were A Lesbian“, and said:
The woman is 32 years Marwa El-Sherbini , she was a pregnant in her second child when she was was stabbed.
[…]
This is for sure a hate crime but unlike other hate crimes like homophobic crimes or anti-Semitic crimes, it did not make the headlines abroad and I do not know why !! This is a racism crime , a woman isshot downstabbed like that so simple in the court room for God sake and it is not important to be covered in the media as it should !! She was a mother who was a pregnant for God sake !!
May Allah bless her soul , she is a martyr of racism and hate.
Ahmed esmat questioned on Twitter
The same thought was echoed by Hisham Maged on his blog, playing the What if game:
Let us play the What IF game, just imagine if the situation was reversed and the victim was a westerner who was stabbed anywhere in the world or -God Heaven- in any Middle Eastern country by Muslim extremists, or even what the media used to call ‘minorities’ in Egypt! You definitely would have heard the world’s buzzing and the internet goes down too!
Bikya Masr, who was closely following the incident, asked if Marwa can be the symbol to bring people together. He demanded an immediate action on the diplomatic and national levels:
Across the Middle East, anger is high. This anger, however, cannot fall into random diatribes against Germans, or Germany. It must maintain some semblance of coherence for any campaign that should be established to succeed. And it will if Sherbini truly is a symbol that can bring people together much like Neda in Iran did.
[…]
Do people believe Sherbini is a symbol? […] Egyptians should be outraged that a woman was verbally abused for wearing the veil and being Egyptian in the first place. The government should be sending a strong signal to Europe that this behavior is unacceptable, but they remain silent. That leaves it to the Egyptian population to take action.
[…]
Let us walk the streets in front of the German Embassy and demand a full investigation and report. Because if Germany cannot do this, then it once more proves that European hate for Muslims and Arabs is stronger than their so-called “freedom.” Yes, Marwa is a symbol, but she should be a symbol to bring people together, not divide them.
Another blogger Sadafat wrote:
يجب ان تعلن الحكومة الألمانية ان هذا التصرف يمس المسلمين، يجب ان تضع في دستورها للغالبية الثانية من الديانيات وهم المسلمين حقوقا تحفظهم من العداء ضد الإسلام.
The German government should know that this act affects Muslims, and should put in its constitution for the second majority of its religions, who are Muslims, that their rights protect them from hatred towards Islam.
Egyptian bloggers commenting or venting out their frustrations on Twitter.
As for myself, I found myself writing these lines on my blog Lasto Adri:
لا أتوقع من الغرب -ذاته- أقل من أى يلغى من كل معاجمه فكرة أن المسلمين إرهابيين، ويؤمن أن بن لادن وأعوانه -مثلا- لا يمثلون العرب أو المسلمين فى شئ، وأفعالهم كلها فردية!
وعلى رأى المثل.. لا تعايرنى ولا أعايرك.. دا التعصب طايلنى وطايلك!
As the proverb says: Don't blame me for something you do too. We both have the same “extremism”.
China: Urumqi mass incident and beyond
According to Xinhua latest report (July 6), the violence in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has led to at least 140 people dead and 828 injured. The regional government said that the mass incident was masterminded by the World Uyghur Congress. However, Uyghur independent activist explained that the unrest was sparked by anger over a confrontation between Han Chinese and Uyghur factory workers in Shaoguan city.
Shaoguan June 26 riot
So what had actually happened in Shaoguan? According to the Chinese official report, the conflict on 26 of June was caused by a rumor about a sexual assault of Han Chinese woman worker in a factory campus by Uyghur worker. The armed fight between Han and Uyghur workers had led to the death of 2 Uyghurs (some unconfirmed sources said the number of death was up to 18 Uyghurs). The Youtube videos below showed the June 26 riot:
Ethnic policy and hatred
While the Chinese government continued to use western conspiracy theory in addressing the ethnic conflict, Drunken Pig pointed out from a Han Chinese perspective that the Shaoguan incident and other similar ethnic conflicts are a result of government's ethnic policy:
汉人女工被强奸的事情在广东经常发生，但是由于作案者大多能够得到有效处理，很少酿成大规模群体事件。这次因为涉及到维族群体，而且传说是涉案者被政府释放而不受惩罚的事情重复发生之后，才导致大规模群体仇杀。
这些年的群体事件，大多出于民众对特权阶层的仇恨，而这些特权阶层的背后，都是国家暴力。中国政府的民族政策，把流到内地的维族群众变成了这样一个特权团体，但是同时也剥夺了维族人本该拥有的信仰权和自治权。
Repressing religion freedom
由于中宣部的丰功伟绩，普通民众对其他宗教所知甚少，甚至有些人以为穆斯林不吃猪肉是因为猪是他们的祖宗。无知导致的种种误解…可以说，很多仇恨都是政府的宣传机构煽动出来的…
在广东，虽然有很多维族人，但是你很难看到清真寺。我相信礼拜和祈祷对减少穆斯林的犯罪率是有效的。
那些杀人的汉人，在这次冲突中表现得非常残忍。但是平心而论，他们长期以来是受害群体。在广东，几乎所有的政府部门都护着新疆人。镇压汉人群体事件不会有大问题，但是镇压维族人，会遇到很大的阻力。因此地方政府迫于当地民众压力清理新疆流氓的行动，有时候竟然要借用黑社会和便衣联手的方式。
Social minority and unemployment problem
Uighur online disagreed with Drunken pig's Han centric viewpoint and presented the other side of the story:
成千上万的维吾尔孩子被拐骗到内地毒打虐待做小偷是事实，你们有多少人想到背后的社会问题？一个人、一个民族谁天生愿意做小偷？ZF采取过什么有效的干预措施？在我看来：一部分维吾尔孩子沦为小偷的事实恰恰说明了一个真实的现状：维吾尔人在他们的故乡处于是社会的最下层地位。
DXXX (account protected) from twitter also pointed out that:
在新疆名义上是维吾尔自治区，但是维吾尔在新疆是弱势民族。仅就汉语的使用,就是当地维吾尔族处于极大的劣势，所有招聘单位都由汉语主导。很多企业排斥招收维吾尔员工。金融、通讯、银行、石油化工，天然气等诸多领域，维吾尔人都是限制。由于政府的歧视政策,造成维吾尔人就业困难。
Urumqi mass incident
Back to the Urumqi Mass Incident, during the curfew, twitterer zz23377737 experienced 1. electricity cut. 2. disrupted tele-communication 3. non-stop police siren. Several twitterers said that the Internet connection was still cut unavailable this morning in Urumqi.
Below are two videos showing the protest scene:
ESWN has the most updated collection of news and informations on the Urumqi Mass Incident.
Links for Mon, 2009-07
Anup Kaphle wrote about his experience in Afghanistan in a post titled Helmand: A Nepalese View at The Atlantic. He compared the war torn nation with his homeland Nepal and found many similarities.
LJ user Alex Nemtsev reports about [RUS] bride parades in Kursk and other Russian cities, arguably as a nicer alternative to LGBT pride parades.
From Nicaragua, Juan Ortega pays tribute to Alexis Argüello, a former boxing champion and politician [es], who recently passed away. Even though Ortega was too young to remember watching Argüello's marches, he recalls hearing his grandmother speak very highly of the boxer.
Glenna Gordon interviews Paul Sika from Ivory Coast about his work: “I first came across Paul Sika's photos on the blog Africa is a Country and was immediately transfixed by how he transformed scenes that seemed so familiar to me into something brilliantly technicolor and radiant. I emailed him last week and asked a few questions and he was kind enough to fill me in with a little bit of information about his work for Context Africa.”
IZO reports on the resurrection of Dmitri Vrubel's renowned Berlin wall painting of the kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker.
Sci-Cultura writes about African film: “Anyone who’s read the recent posts on this blog will know that I am enthralled, intrigued and besotted by the use of film as a medium to convey stories. This year has been good for raising the awareness of Kenya in the world of film. This time, not just as a location for big shot movies like Out of Africa, The Constant Gardener, etc., but more importantly for Kenyan creativity and talent in making films.”
AFWMNCIN discusses the evolution of Senegalese women in the film industry: “Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Safi Faye was the lone woman filmmaker in Senegal. New faces were visible in the 1990s with the emergence of Adrienne Diop, Mariam Kane Selly, Rokhaya Diop, Aissaou Laba Touré and Kady Sylla; all producing documentaries about aspects of Senegalese life and culture. Safi Faye’s strikingly beautiful Mossane is among the works produced during this dynamic and energetic decade.”
LJ user Russian-Cyberspace.org comments on Russians becoming increasingly skilled at social networking on the Internet at the same time as the country is experiencing an increasing divide between citizens' level of access to the Internet.
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