While I was away from Qatar over the holidays, what one journalist has called a "national cultural war" broke out over an online post by a friend of mine
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Oh come on!!!
anonymous
January 24 2010, 17:17:08 UTC
You say you believe in 'freedom of speech', the type that encompasses the right to say offensive things, but doesn't that entail the freedom of people being able to express/respond to her post as well? Lisa chose to jot down her thoughts of her own free will, but somehow she wasn't ready for the effect it would garner? like the saying goes, if you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen! if she has the freedom to jot down her thoughts, people too have the freedom to express themselves and react to her post! and the fact of the matter is, the tone of her post WAS arrogant, she WAS grossly stereotyping, and her words WERE offensive, as she repeatedly admitted herself! The fact remains, she should have been wiser in her choice of words, even if she was supposedly in an emotional state of mind when she wrote the post, and consequently she could have spared herself the whole fiasco
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Re: Oh come on!!!qatarJanuary 24 2010, 18:05:19 UTC
Oh, I completely think people should have the freedom to disagree with Lisa, and to voice that disagreement. You might have noticed I never argued with people in the anti-Lisa group: they voiced their disagreement, asked for an apology, and got it. But when it comes to people calling for government censorship of Qatar Living, that's plain misguided. They've the right to ask for it, but I think they should think through what kind of society they're asking for
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Re: Oh come on!!!
anonymous
January 24 2010, 19:09:44 UTC
"mild"? I think that's precisely where we differ! It is your personal opinion against hundreds of Qatari's who thought Lisa's post was in fact extreme! Are you suggesting that the many Qatari's who were offended by Lisa's post were all overreacting because you personally thought it was 'mild
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Re: Oh come on!!!qatarJanuary 24 2010, 20:30:04 UTC
As I said in my post, I honestly don't understand why people reacted so strongly to Lisa's post. She didn't say "all Qataris are obnoxious drivers," she just described the kinds of attitudes she saw on National Day. If she'd written the exact same words about the 4th of July in my hometown, I would not have been offended, let alone called for her to be deported. I am obviously missing something important in how Qataris read her words
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Re: Oh come on!!!dachteJanuary 25 2010, 19:46:34 UTC
Having read Lisa's original post, it did look to me like she was trolling a bit - her statements were overly broad and unnecessarily insulting. It felt like she was letting off steam - the kind of post that one ideally should self-censor a bit after one posts (if one must pust it). Posting it somewhere else in addition to her blog was kind of asking for trouble - it's taking the behind-closed-doors-catharsis and putting it up on a banner. I doubt she actually meant her words in the stronger sense, even if there's a lot of reasonable meaning that she probably *did* mean. Stuff like "So what if they endanger their own life or the lives of others? As long as they show off for QATAR NATIONAL DAY!!!!" is not something one says or means in ordinary life
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Re: Oh come on!!!qatarFebruary 3 2010, 10:39:11 UTC
I'm not sure if you'll come back to read this, but it has been niggling at me all week that I didn't respond to this sentence:
"have you for the most part have had bad experiences with Qatari's, or done anything to indicate that we treat outsiders/expats/foreigners with little value like you claim?"I agree with you that WESTERN expats are usually treated as valuable. However, I've done quite a bit of research since moving here on the experiences of low-skilled laborers who come to Qatar, and, as a group, they are DEFINITELY treated as though they have as though they have little value. I'm not claiming every construction company mistreats its workers or every household abuses its nanny, but abuse is definitely rampant, and the legal checks on those abuses are, though improving, still paltry
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"have you for the most part have had bad experiences with Qatari's, or done anything to indicate that we treat outsiders/expats/foreigners with little value like you claim?"I agree with you that WESTERN expats are usually treated as valuable. However, I've done quite a bit of research since moving here on the experiences of low-skilled laborers who come to Qatar, and, as a group, they are DEFINITELY treated as though they have as though they have little value. I'm not claiming every construction company mistreats its workers or every household abuses its nanny, but abuse is definitely rampant, and the legal checks on those abuses are, though improving, still paltry ( ... )
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