I recently wrote a fun piece for The National (see below under
Press) advising the celebrity Paris Hilton on her trip to Dubai. It
was all tongue-in-cheek kind of things, such as leaving any
“inappropriate” videos at home and that being drunk in public was
“not hot.” But after reflecting for a couple of day about it, it
made me wonder if maybe I had fallen victim to one of the things I
preach against every day -stereotyping.
Rich, blonde , not particularly bright or talented: these were some
of the images I had of Paris from the press clippings I had read and
from what my little sister had told me. Of course, I had never even
met the lady. The problem with stereotypes is that they usually
contain a bit of truth, so it’s very easy to extrapolate that bit of
truth into the truth. There’s no doubt, Ms. Hilton has some money,
and, certainly some of it has been inherited from her grandfather,
who founded the Hilton hotel chain. Then there’s Paris’s pre-trip
publicity tour (see
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfVJ7CDXkZw and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdsH-dIvHwo for example), in which
she admits to thinking Dubai is a country and that the city has
casinos! I’ll give her a break since she’s never been to the region,
but I think we can agree she’s not a PhD candidate in geography.
I have to admit, however, that this woman’s list of accomplishments
is pretty impressive, especially from a branding perspective, which
is what I studied for my Master’s degree in Business Administration.
She’s had one successful TV show, The Simple Life, and her new show,
My New BFF, looks to pick up where The Simple Life left off. She
also has had three successful perfumes, including her latest Can
Can. Emiratis are huge scent connoisseurs, so I kind of had to be
impressed about this. I realized that while Paris might not be much
of an actress and might be more famous than she deserves, she is a
very savvy brand manager.
Which brings me to the stereotyping of Emiratis. I can’t tell you
how many questions I have received in the past month or so that
accused locals of everything from ruining the movies for expats to
being lazy to nearly killing someone by driving recklessly. Again,
there is some truth to these allegations. I even referred to our
“talent” for driving in my open letter to Paris. “I read that you
have been charged with reckless driving a few times,” I wrote.
“You’re going to fit in just fine here.”
But let me clarify some of the other stereotypes of Emiratis and
Arabs, in general. As I have said on a number of occasions, don’t
make the mistake of assuming that everyone wearing a kandoora or an
abaya is Emirati. Locals only make up 18% of the population, after
all. It’s nearly impossible for an expat, let’s say, to tell an
Omani man from an Emirati, and nor do we expect you to. Just try to
remember not to badmouth locals if you aren’t sure; as you can
imagine. We are quite sensitive about this, especially since saving
face is such an important concept in our community. There are also
cultural differences that can easily be misunderstood. Take
laziness, for example. You have an Emirati employee who is always
getting up from their desk or another who seems to be asking for a
lot of time off this summer. As you probably know by now, Muslims
pray five times a day, so the first local might just be doing his
duty to God. The second one might be helping out with her sister’s
upcoming marriage, which is a huge deal for any family, but
especially Emiratis. Our priorities are God first, family second,
and then business or work. I understand this can be discouraging to
Westerners used to more of a daily grind, but this is how we choose
to live our lives here. If an Emirati moved to a Western country, he
would have to be flexible with his schedule in order to better fit
in..
Baraka Allah Fekum “God bless you all”
@li
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