Asian Workforce

The recent riots of Bagladeshi cleaners in Kuwait have been reported world-wide in the media. Teargas, batons, and the threat of deportation of 'troublemakers' (strikers) badly reflect on a state implementing laws which are not protecting those who are effectively running the country. The 250'000 or so Bangladeshis in Kuwait apparently belong to the lowest social class. But when they are cheated on their 40 Dinars salary (about € 100), when 18 Dinars per month in fact are left (€ 45), that should in fact be regarded as theft. And that is happening in one of the richest countries in the world!

I want to dedicate this posting to a secretary from the Philippines who I learned to know about five years ago. Her talents and capabilities, competencies and skills were so manifold that any of her superiors in FOD at Kuwait University and the whole staff immediately noticed that a job as a secretary would not really challenge her. So, her responsibilities were upgraded again and again, but her salary wasn't. When she finally became the chief receptionist she knew every telephone number of our students, of our patients, and of us, the teaching staff; every patient file number. She was running the reception almost beyond perfection. Even a recent bad blow of fate only released new vigors. She and her great two kids will take new challenges in life, that's for sure.

Without this kind of people Kuwait can never be smoothly operated. The success of a society of many of these nouveau-riche countries like Kuwait largely depends upon the highly committed people mainly from Asia who, that I've understood in the meantime, are priviledged to leave their home countries because of special skills and talents, endurance and patience, and responsibilities for their relatives who have been left behind and who urgently wait for their support. I hold many of them in the highest regard. The citizens of Kuwait have decided to live in a multicultural society (and that made it so attractive for me to work and live there for many years). But that also means a lot of further responsibilities. If not really integrated humans always demand at least decent lives.

Thank you, Ms Marlene Daroing for the nice and really effective time we were working together at FOD! And all the best for you and your kids in the future. May God bless you and your family!

Comments

Intlxpatr said…
I love this entry. What an accolade to your hard-working Philipina friend.
1 August 2008 at 16:08
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady Shatita

Image
In order to learn more about Shi’a Islam and the piety of ordinary people it would have been most helpful to visit at least some of the plenty of Emamzadehs (holy sites) all over Iran. So, it was a most welcome opportunity and, in fact, great honor when my Kuwaiti friends invited me to accompany them on their several bus trips in Khorasan on the occasion of their 2006 pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mashhad. Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires each embraced half of the then known world when they climaxed. And even when Iran was under the reign of Seleucids, Arabs, Seljuks, or Mongols, the Iranians imprinted their lifestyle and culture on the non-welcome invaders, who in any sense immensely benefited. So, the austere new religion Islam, which replaced Iran’s state religion Zoroastrianism, was fundamentally reorganized, and, as I see it as an outsider, filled with life. The rapid and shocking decline of the Sasanid Empire at the end of a century-long fight with Byzantium, and the
Read more

Persianization

Image
Kuwait’s Arab Times had attracted my attention to Esfahan’s gorgeous Great Mosque in an article in 2003. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find so far a webpage of the article which praised the wonders of Iran’s largest mosque and one of the most significant and finest buildings of the Islamic world. I visited the site the first time at my second trip to Esfahan in late spring of 2004. I took some pictures in the vast courtyard, soaked the peaceful atmosphere there, and watched the few visitors from Iran and elsewhere. I had forgotten about the many details of the article and faintly had read some of the notes in my travel guide. My second visit in late 2007 was driven by scientific interest. I had recently posted (at Freelance ) my rather amateurish studies and thoughts about a suggested ‘conceptual breakthrough’ in Islamic architecture and art in the late 15th century, i.e., quasi-crystalline tessellations, which had led to world-wide attention due to its publication in the Science magazine
Read more

Buyid Architecture in Esfahan

Image
Older than what is now visible in Esfahan’s Great Mosque (although the first mosque there was built in the 7th century) is what has remained of the Jurjir Mosque . The fragmentary façade of the Jurjir Mosque had been discovered during restoration work at Masjed-e Hakim in 1955. The fragment had been hidden for centuries behind a mud wall. The beautiful Hakim mosque itself is a Safavid mosque from the 17th century. The Jurjir façade is the only remains of a 10th century mosque which was commissioned by the Buyid (Buwayhid) vizier Al-Sahib ibn Abbad (d. 995), a Mutazilite scholar. The Buyid Dynasty, who ruled in Iraq and Iran, effectively brought the Abbasids era in Baghdad to an end. Although the Abbasids retained the caliphate, they were deprived of all secular power. Buyids were originally Zaydi, or Fiver Shi'as. They later began to lean closer to the nowadays dominating Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam. In general tolerant in religious matters, the Buyid rulers in Baghdad even
Read more