The Middle East: Bewildering Culture and Unimaginable Oppression

This past week, I have spent a long refreshing week in Dubai on cricket tour. Naturally, the most enjoyable things were the gorgeous weather and incredible sights we saw, both from a cricketing perspective and a touristic one, but there were a couple of other notable (and rather more far-reaching) things that I picked up on.

The two main ‘differences’ – if you can call them that – for me personally were the illustration of oppression that was subtly evident and the cultural obscurities, in terms of religion and just general day-to-day life.

Now the latter may seem rather bizarre to some. After all, different countries have different ways of life, that is natural is it not?

That may be slightly true, but it is our attitude towards these other cultures that fascinates me. I can only speak for myself, but I am pretty confident in saying that many of my peers on the trip will have been somewhat shocked by the cultural abnormalities in Dubai. I certainly was.

Therein lies that exact point, though ever so intricately.

We are all too aware of these differences in life between countries and religions in our life, so why does it surprise us so much?

It can take large things to trigger that surprise, in this case it was the Muslim ‘Call to Prayer’, an echoing sound of prayer that reverberates around the city – 5 times a day. Though this wasn’t always heard, its clear existence shows the influence of the Muslim religion there.

Yet they can be subtle, Friday and Saturday are the rest days in the UAE, rather than Saturday and Sunday like here. Again, this just shows how embedded Christianity is in our world, that we do not even think twice about it. Sunday is the Christian day of rest, naturally owing to God supposedly resting after he had finished his creation of the World; Easter the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus; Christmas his birth. Saturday is perhaps the exception in Western culture, it became a day of rest in society due to workers in the 19^th century in England taking rest breaks from 2pm on Saturday, which were eventually extended into the whole day.

One of these is an alien culture to us, yet the other is simply second-nature? Many would just scratch the surface and say, ‘oh but it’s just what we’re used to’, but I think psychologically it runs deeper than that.

And whilst I cannot put my finger on just what it is that makes us so stunned at these, it is quite interesting to see that we do. After all, everyone knows that Muslims follow a radically unique way of life to us in the West, and to Christians as a whole. There. So what? My argument is as simple as the common narrative, just focuses on the complete opposite aspect – awareness rather than habits.

One could go further to say that some of their beliefs (for example their lack of freedom towards women) are not ‘wrong’ as we would brand them – just what they have been brought up believing in, but that is far beside the point I am trying to make, nor is it very politically correct or an argument I wish to construct.

The overall assertion is that I cannot understand why we all are so supposedly knowledgeable about cultural differences, yet still let them impact us mentally, myself included.

The point on oppression is rather more political and profound, and to me is an illustration of much of the injustice that we rarely think of.

I was sitting on a coach on the way to one of our games, luxuriously and feeling relaxed, and as I was looking out of the window, I caught sight of two buses. One was full of what seemed to be workers in identical uniforms, and was obviously overcrowded, with people sitting on the floor of the bus and others cramming themselves into seats (for example 3 into 2 seats or 7 into 4 seats). The second was the same, but all the workers were sleeping, in unison, with their arms and head rested on the seats in front of them.

Instantly, this brought a picture of maltreatment to my mind. I can imagine that these workers are working long hours in the baking Dubai heat (which can end up reaching 50 degrees in summer) for very little pay.

Of course, this is an assumption, but it is a reasonable one to make. After all, with how there is a startling divide between rich and poor in the country, which owes to the many ‘Sheiks’ that have become wealthy due to oil or substances of similar ilk, evidently they are not well off to say the least. The average annual wage of Dubai is $100,000, a figure that is undoubtedly raised by the businessmen of the city. This is perhaps another indication that those workers are suffering more than we imagine.

The whole area is similar. The quoted death toll for workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar between 2011 and 2013 was 1200, but likely more as these figures only account for the Indian and Nepalese migrants of the workforce, which is around 60%. That is a staggering amount, no matter which way you look at it.

Often, people disregard the Middle East when looking at mistreatment and cruelty – as dictatorships go African ones are more brutal, and as Asia has more controlling ones. This cannot be done much longer.

For those that sowed the seeds for the growth of the area, are neglecting their own. Maybe this is because of their culture.

(As a footnote, I am all too aware that the point about cultural differences may be a little vague, and was hard to put into writing, I confused myself writing it! I just wanted to delve a little deeper, apologies if that doesn’t read well J )