The prideful Arab - a story of self-destruction By: -

Today's the day I get my drivers license. In Saudi Arabia.

Our predicament lies in the latter sentence.

I arrive in the waiting room 10 minutes late for the practical driving test. As expected, the room was packed. The instructor in the room points a finger at me and blares: "Aotomatic wala manual?" "Automatic" I reply. He hands me my folder and physically ushers me to a line of approximately 40 men, all sitting on hardened stools. A lot of people drive automatic, I think to myself, and I was 10 minutes late so I probably deserve this.

The line on my right was much shorter.

I presumed it was the line of people who were going to do their tests on a manual car. Lucky them. It was the pinnacle of summer heat outside this shack-looking excuse of a waiting room. Dreading the hours to come, I whipped out my headphones; placed my bottom on the flat surface of concrete; and hit the play button on my phone.

With the undertone of Quranic verses in my ear and the rhythmic dribble of sweat from my forehead, I started seeing things. Not mirages. Things that were already there, but only now making sense. Like an uncharacteristic puzzle that you ignore at first but then can't resist the urge to solve.

Our line wasn't progressing at all, despite batches of people being moved forward, out of the waiting room and into the driving grounds. Then I noticed that the line on my right only consisted of Saudi's who were also giving tests on automatic vehicles. The difference, you ask? They get to go first. Is it a rule? Or an agreement?

No. And that's what makes it worse.

There lies a tacit consensus  amongst the people that the Saudi man goes first. And it irritated me, knowing that a Saudi who would arrive 30 minutes late will still get to go before the first man in my line. But would that man say anything? No. Because the mood had been set in that waiting room, and to cause a disturbance to that mood would lead to the disorder of layers of unspoken rules. The resilience of the ecosystem would be tested and, oh how I assure you, it would crush that man. Burry him into blankets of mud, grass, sand, roots, and leaves. Silence him. And so, my dear readers, that is why the man remained silent instead of being silenced.

As a foreign inhabitant of this country, I can testify to the notion that this attitude not only exists in that waiting room, but in the entire country - on so many different levels.  But you see, this story doesn't have a great ending. And protagonists rarely focus on endings.

Expats make up almost 1/3 of this country's population and contribute to around 70% of the work force. Those statistics, by themselves, might allure you towards a daunting predicament. They need us much more than we need them, but they still seem to have created an arbitrary social leverage because of the color of their passport. It is such a fragile cycle, a volatile grip. If broken, then every aspect of this country's sociopolitcal development will be challenged. The government has already realised this and put policies such as Saudization in place. An attempt to tighten the grip, lesser the circumference.

My thought process comes to a halt as the following verse plays in my earphones:

"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted."

***

As I sat in the waiting room that day watching the men in thobe's butcher their driving but still coming back with passed slips, a smile played its way to my lips.

The only clock in the room ticked.

And I waited.

Ignorance begets bigotry By: -

Ignorance begets bigotry

The child asks the donkey for wine

The donkey grants the child water

Aggravated, the child runs away

Little did he know

That donkeys don't give wine

nor do they give water

A miracle in the passing 

Ignorance begets bigotry

Values that we have been brought up with often lead to the death of the best of us. If not literally, then on the fine line between the metaphoric and literal. Our fundamental presumed notions, when challenged, bring out the rawest form of animosity we posses.

                                          

Throughout our childhood and adolescent ages, we are surrounded by institutions that instill values and teach us the norms of our society. Key primary agents of socialization include the family, media, and education system. For the best part of our childhood years, these instilled values remain unchallenged and so you believe, comprehend, and accommodate them into your daily lives. Your religion, for instance, is now a part of you. And so you when you're released to the open fields of the big wide world; a dilapidated skyscraper in which you are merely a finite brick, you try to convince yourself that you lie at the base. The building wouldn't exist without you. Yes all bricks are the same, but because of the way you were molded, you are the cornerstone.

And what better way to reinforce this idea into your mind than simply expressing apathy to all other cultures. Because deep within your subconscious, you know that there is more substance in humankind than the skin seems to show.

So to be a bigot is perhaps the sanest way to live since that way you only tolerate people that truly understand and appreciate the way you think and act. It surely is the most logical solution, because knowledge breeds curiosity which breeds more knowledge and knowledge can be harmful for the ego.

Oh petty, petty man. The greatest minds think not of other men, but of ideas. The most remarkable of whom can coy with ideas without believing them. And if you can truly grasp the fullness of this ability, then oh what a wonderful life we would live.

You and I.

Clone bricks in an infinitely expanding wall.

"Frailty, thy name is woman" - How true is this in Hamlet By: -

Hamlet, in some of his comments, shows strong prejudice against women. The immediate cause for this negative attitude is the activities of Gertrude, his own mother. We first see him in a melancholic mood, as if he seems to have lost all sense of interest in life, The sudden death of his father and the disgust at the abrupt second marriage of his mother contribute considerably to his miserable condition. However, it seems that he attaches much more significance to the latter.

Although both Gertrude and Claudius show coldness to the memory of the late king by asking Hamlet not to mourn for such an extensive period, their motives are different. Claudius does so because he wants Hamlet to take his father's death as a natural one, so that he does not probe the matter. Being the murderer, naturally he is afraid of Hamlet's attaching excessive importance to it. So he tries to convince Hamlet that this is nothing particular to him, rather it is a common happening in human life: "But you must know your father is a lost father".

Gertrude, being a mother, also attaches more importance to Hamlets returning to normalcy, because she is more anxious about the health of her son than the memory of her late husband. At this point, however passionate she is to Hamlet, Gertrude pathetically fails to understand the real motive in his prolonged mourning, and neglects to give him the emotional support he desperately requires. Moreover, she has already weakened her credibility to him because of her second marriage. She completely fails to realise that her "hasty marriage" has exacerbated Hamlets melancholy.

Again, while Hamlet is terribly disgusted by her apathy to the memory of the late king, exhibiting her poor understanding for his real sentiment, she asks him to accept the death of his father as a natural  phenomenon. The irony however lies in the fact that her own reaction to the death of her husband is unnatural - since she fails to sympathise with her mourning son, which is what the natural course of action would be. Claudius also echoes this attitude exhibiting by Gertrude. To him, Hamlets mourning is synonymous to "obstinate, impious stubbornness, unmanly grief". Instead of taking the death of his father 'to heart' he advises him to "throw this unprevailing woe to earth", and should thing of Claudius "as of a father". He almost allures him: - "and let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our throne".

Hamlet wants to find some explanation for his mothers attachment to Claudius. To his utter dismay, failing to understand that his mother is more a simpleton than lustful woman, he finds her as a lecherous and negligent mother. He expects his mother to be a weeping widow at the irreparable loss in her life as well as in his own, but he does not find her so. Finding no other explanation to his mother's behavior, he starts to believe that she places her sexual and primitive desire above her love and affection for him and his father. This misunderstanding of his mother creates and develops in Hamlets mind a profound dislike for women. He thinks it is common weakness of women that leads her to these abominable activities.

However, some would argue that Gertrude is only a puppet guided by patriarchal rule in all affairs. So is Ophelia; even in her love affair she is guided by her father and brother. She does not understand that she is a play-thing in the hands of her father who is appointed by Claudius to discover the true cause of Hamlet's madness. She does not betray any independence of thinking, but also shows her foolish submissiveness to her brothers and fathers instructions in regard to her relationship with Hamlet. Without any protest she allows herself to be used by Polonius and Claudius as a distraction against Hamlet. Hamlet painfully perceives these events as they unfold. That is why he rushes to Ophelia's private chamber in a frightful appearance, to inspect her face closely, just to authenticate his perception. Certainly, it contributes a lot to intensify his already negative attitude towards women, formed by the way his mother behaves. Here Ophelia is much like Gertrude, earlier the queen surrendered to Claudius's "importunity" without ever questioning the motives of the latter.

Unlike Gertrude, Ophelia shows some strength in her character in a sense that she is not entirely vulnerable. But she is placed in a very difficult situation. Ophelia has a keen perception, she understands many things, but she cannot express herself because the patriarchy of the age doesn't allow her to go beyond a certain level. In this play, Ophelia is the second tragic character. Although Shakespeare does not make her the protagonist of the play, he places her beside Hamlet in her tragic appeal, who wins our pity. Indeed, with the exception of Horatio, only Ophelia could comprehensively evaluate Hamlet.

However, many critics have labelled Gertrude to be an intellectual character. Admittedly this is not an orthodox interpretation as she is not presented as a character with a voice, so to speak. Unlike Hamlet, Gertrude doesn't extensively comment on minute aspects of life but rather speaks on matters at hand in a very concise manner. This shows her ability to understand, process, and articulate responses under pressure; just like in her closet scene. Dr. Helibrun contends that "Gertrude is not a weak character who lacks depth and vigorous intelligence".

So having quantified the aforementioned points, we come to realise that, though Shakespeare was born and brought up in this male dominated 16th century English society, he seems to have rejected the values upheld by his society about women. Indeed, he attaches more importance to women in almost all his plays making them the catalyst of his tragedies and the devices that bring them to an end.

* Highlighted characters take you to hyperlinks that show character analysis.