UAE Community Blog

04 April, 2007

"Dubai - A Lebanese national, 27, has been jailed for three months for raping a 26-year-old Brazilian air hostess after a night out at a club in Dubai. The defendant was also fined dhs1,000 for drinking alcohol and ordered to be deported. "

Observe.

Now, I don't understand why newspapers have to mention the nationality of the crime-doer. Is it really necessary? Seriously. It sounds just as good with out the nationalities.

Dubai - A 27 year old man has been jailed for three months for raping a 26-year-old air hostess after a night out at a club in Dubai. The defendant was also fined dhs1,000 for drinking alcohol and ordered to be deported.
.
I've heard of Europeans stoning their house-helpers.
I've heard of Arabs doing things for the good of turtle-kind!I've heard many other things!

There is no need to mention nationality! It's the idiocy of the people! Not the nation! All it's doing is producing horrible comments like this:

Anonymous April 4th, 2007 at 8:52 amDont just deport this one but the other lebs too. They’re the reason this place is losing its morals.

No one is committing the crime but the crime-doer. They can be of any race, any nationality. They're still doing something disgusting.

AnonymousApril 4th, 2007 at 8:54 am The Lebanese are known for their antics - running after every woman on this planet and driving like mad on the roads almost getting people killed.

Holy! I know a few Lebanese people! They aren't even remotely similar to the description above. Generalizing. Generalizing. Tutut.

The statement above is just one of many, many examples! My english teacher, has been guilty of this too!

"This man, he was asian, and he was a friend of my insert relative here , and he stole all his money, yak yak yak".

-it just goes to show, generalizing is stupid. Stereotyping is stupid. Pointing fingers is stupid. In the end, we're all people. We all do wrong, and we all do right.

Get a grip everyone! This is the age of internationalism. Where we all try to live peacefully with each other. I thought everyone knew that.

EDIT: Whoopsie. I forgot to link to the article. Zing!

14 comments:

trailingspouse said...: I HATE the way we are categorized by nationality here. It's required information on almost every document here. Good grief, they even ask for your nationality on raffle tickets!

Remember: All generalizations are false! ;); 05 April, 2007 07:38
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 05 April, 2007 09:23
Anonymous said...: I also agree that nationality shouldn’t be mentioned at all; it just emphasizes the concept of racism. I noticed that each day, there is at least one article about sexual harassment, or illicit affair. Maybe the intention is to give warning to others, but I always see it as a scandal, since they mention the nationality, age, occupation and initials of the doer. So, at least his colleagues and friends will recognize him.; 05 April, 2007 09:25
Anonymous said...: Please don't call it stupid. The article presents nothing more that the truth that happened already. You are modifying it because you are a Lebanese. Would you do the same thing for Indians, Iranians and Europeans? Is this just a selfish “close your eye to truth” request that a pretty Lebanese girl wants other to accept? an ideal journalism is the one which presents more truth to the public; 05 April, 2007 09:42
Amna_a said...: Did she say she was Lebenese?

You are generalizing.

She is making a good point, why does nationality matter? It doesn't. Anyone from any country can commit a crime.

Crimes are not based on nationality, so what the newspapers (by mentioning nationality all the time) are doing is just fueling uneccessary racism!

People shouldn't be classed by their nationality.

I wouldn't care if the person commiting the crime was Lebenese, local, Iranian, Indian, European.. They did the crime, it has nothing to do with their origin.; 05 April, 2007 10:37
rosh said...: This is an interesting post - quite frustrated/dismayed/amused - to nationality next to almost every thing in this country i.e. be it a "job descriptions" - or "crime" such as in this instance, auto insurance applications, raffle coupons - schools, universities, room mate adverts - etc all!!!

There's just the good & bad in every basket of apples.

I think, it's very limiting for a multi-cultural society/nation, if we "nationalize" (read segregate/generalize) people this way - helps no one.; 05 April, 2007 10:40
Dubai Jazz said...: I am sorry Dana, but for me it seemed that mentioning the nationalities has made this particular news article more colorful!
A Lebanese guy with a Brazilian flight attendant? after a night-outing? interesting.....
(caught up into some wild fantasies....); 05 April, 2007 20:21
Anonymous said...: TS: srsly? I never knew that! that's so dumb.

Hatem: exactly! there is almost always a breif/article about sexual harrassment.

anon: The only thing you said that was true was that I'm pretty and that I'm a girl. The rest is all turtle crap.

movie: couldnt have said it better myself. gracias.

rosh: your last paragraph is so true.

dani: yes, yes, that's exactly what I thought about , your last paragraph i mean.; 05 April, 2007 21:53
Anonymous said...: 1st off, the guy should have gotten the death penalty. then again, so should the girl for being in that situation (yeah, I did say that 50% of it was her whorish fault)

now, I like categorizing by nationality. not all mind you, like many people here have said, generalizations are stupid... except in the case of the english. oh what a bunch of stupid people they are. I mean, seriously, we're talking about people who claim to be the originators of the language I'm typing this very second and yet always add extra Us to words when they arent needed and they cant spell the words CENTER and CHECK correctly. there is no Q in check.

Plus, they are always on a high and mighty horse that is served with a side of bullshit.

English mind you, not British. I like the Welsh, and Scottish. but I am a firm believer that ALL English people must die for the betterment of humanity.

So yeah, in some cases (as illustrated above) categorizing by nationality gives me a heads up in advance.; 06 April, 2007 01:18
B.D. said...: Thanks for that post, Dana. We should be discussing this topic more. Perhaps the media will take notice and stop publicizing nationality so much. On our part as UAE Community contributors we might try to avoid this ourselves.

Your point is absolutely correct, Dana, that it is an individual who commits the crime--and any other deed--not a nation.

Sometimes there is a good reason for speaking in generalities and identifying this or that nationality, but the media among others should identify a protocol for when it is or isn't necessary to do so.

To my fellow bloggers, I suggest we each avoid using the brush of nationality to describe acts attributable to an individual, whether in this blog or any of our own.; 06 April, 2007 09:23
Anonymous said...: So, let me get this straight. if the nationality does not matter then surely there is no wrong in mentioning it.It relates a fact after all.
Omitting a fact from an occurrence is uncorrect reporting. or uncomplete.

You know the saying that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder...similarily, the 'racism' is often just perceived by those who want to see it everywhere.; 07 April, 2007 17:31
Keef said...: ABIT: keep taking the pills boyo.; 07 April, 2007 20:48
Anonymous said...: Actually, I stopped taking them a month ago... well, those pills anyways. Thanks for caring. ;-); 07 April, 2007 21:06
rosh said...: lol ABIT :); 09 April, 2007 00:32