Last week I began suffering from a new form of psychosis, or yet another inferiority complex added to the string of complexes that I already suffer from, when I read in the news that a pink diamond was sold at an auction for 46.16 million dollars. A piece of stained glass the size of an eraser at the back of a pencil is worth more than my income in eighty years (I have been working since college and I have most of the time since held two jobs and hence had a double income). This is while bearing in mind that I am at a decent job and I have a high salary even by Western standards (No complaints there). How can one diamond of any color be worth more than the book value of 99.99 percent of the population of the world? This figure prompts me to suggest that the diamond run for president in a Western country. Moving on to news from here and there: - Just like I was shocked by the price of a colored diamond, I want to shock some of the Arab male readers who have beards, paunches and permanent frowns. According to news reports, the European Union may repeal the system where women pay less for car insurance. Here is a piece of information that I do not think many Arabs know. Although all jokes are about “women drivers”, I, during my stay in the United States, was surprised to learn that women pay less than men on car insurance because all statistics prove that they cause less accidents than men. Now, the European Union has gotten on the bandwagon in this debate. But as long as women are demanding equal rights with men, then the latter also want equality with women when it comes to car insurance. Thus, I leave the reader with this joke: A man was driving with his wife in the passenger seat, complaining about the car in front of him which he said was slowing down traffic, moving from side to side on the narrow road. Of course, he insisted that it must be a woman driver in that car. Finally, he managed to overtake the car in front of him. But when his wife told him that the car's driver turned out to be a man, the husband replies: Yes, but it must have been his mother who taught him how to drive. - Moving on to a serious issue, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement condemning the abuse of foreign workers in Arab countries. While the organization specifically addressed Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the fact remains that foreign workers are abused in all Arab countries, while Lebanon recorded the highest rate of suicides for foreign maids. The HRW statement came in conjunction with another by the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who demanded justice for the “extraordinary torture” of an Indonesian maid in Saudi Arabia. This case is now widely publicized. The maid claimed that nails have been driven into her body, but several Saudi officials denied this. However, the fact that the President of Indonesia has become involved sheds light again on the issue. He is the president of an Islamic country that has strong ties with Saudi Arabia, and would not take chances and cause a crisis without cause. Also, he cannot be seeking to distort the image of another Islamic country on purpose, since he is not an Israeli. All that is needed is for the truth to be made known, and for the guilty party, if any, to be punished. - Perhaps Muslims these days need to be like Caesar's wife, i.e. above reproach, in order to thwart the enemies' attempts against Islam and Muslims. They might do good by both their worldly and religious affairs if they should treat maids well, and if they should condemn and totally disavow all kinds of terrorism. In one day last week, I read news about a vote against Sharia law in the state of Oklahoma, a campaign against an Islamic organization in Milwaukee that defends Sharia, and an attack by rightwing extremists in Greece, one of the closest countries to Arabs, against Muslim immigrants who were conducting the Eid- al-Adha prayer in a public square. And perhaps I'm being paranoid here, but during the trial of a Kurdish-Iraqi immigrant witch a criminal record who killed an English girl in a car accident, the picture of the victim was published in a number of newspapers in London: While I support the father of the victim in calling for the deportation of the perpetrator, and call for the maximum sentence to be given to him, the cause of my paranoia is that the child appeared in the picture was in a white dress and headdress, joining her hands together as if praying. This was probably unintentional. However, we in Lebanon say that those who were once bitten by snakes will even fear ropes. One last word: There indeed are enemies, but the most dangerous enemies are those who are within. Some of the extremists amongst us facilitate the task for our enemies, and if we bury our heads in the sand then we shall one day pay the price. [email protected]
