A Couple of Letters...

From today's Arab News, worth commenting on...

I must have missed this... Or, perhaps I did see it, and just thought it was so poorly written that it wasn't worth taking the time to blog. In response, Um Faisal Ibrahim of Dammam, writes:

"There is no problem with Saudization. The problem is the Saudi youth who are not qualified to take up the jobs that are available. I have interacted with a lot of Saudis, both young men and women. Most of them don’t even reach the college level, due to low marks in school. How do you expect these young Saudis to be employed in government and private sectors if they are not even qualified to take, let’s say, an engineering or a medical course? Most of these jobs are taken by expats because there are not enough Saudis to fill these positions.

It is time for the government to look into the present educational system. The syllabus must be changed where necessary. Considering the increasing importance of the English language in the globalized world, it must be made a compulsory subject from primary classes. Ways must be developed to make every student educated in every sense. Inculcate in them the habit of reading. It is in these ways that the youth are honed to become what they can become."

I did blog on the Indian worker who was beaten by his supervisor - and later died - to which, Salah Al-Qahtani writes:

"The report “Indian beaten up by supervisor dies after 11 days in hospital” (July 28) does not say anything new about the condition of foreign labor in the country. Mistreating expatriate workers is not an unusual occurrence. First, our media and society allowed employers and others to discriminate against, humiliate and in many cases assault workers from Bangladesh. Maids have been raped and assaulted on a daily basis for decades.

Now the rage is being directed at Indians. Who gave this Egyptian the right to beat anyone? If an employee is not working, he should be fired. A supervisor has no right to assault anybody physically. How will the Ministry of Labour react if a Saudi cashier at a supermarket is beaten up for being lazy which, most of the time, would be true?

By the way, has any Saudi yet been punished for assaulting foreign maids? Arab News should make a report — detailing facts and figures about the cases in which, in the past 12 months, foreign workers were assaulted, the number of culprits punished, and also what the punishments were."

If any Saudi has been punished - wasn't there a man and his wife who were going to be punished in the matter of Nour Miyati - but then in the end they ended up not being punished? No matter... Saudis have not been punished for assaulting foreign maids or workers that I have read about - and there have been no detailing facts of figures with regard to the number of culprits punished or what the punishments were. If I am wrong on this, someone correct me.