Tuesday, December 18, 2007

On shopping and religion

I am so enjoying the 10-day break. It is serious medicine for the soul. I have been so engrossed at work, these past 2 months, that I welcome this amazing alignment of holidays that gave us 10 days of sleeping in late, chicken nuggets lunch with the kids, and an endless amount of mopping around the house in pjs. However, we decided to do a little Eid shopping in our friendly neighbor the K of SA. The overpowering stench of stupidity did not leave my nostrils since the second we set foot on the causeway. Here are 5 reasons why I will not be travelling across the causeway unless I absolutely had to:

1. You can't have a decent two hour shopping spree without having the whole shop shut down on you for prayers. Don't they realize that people should be given the freedom to worship and not have worship shoved down tehir throats 5 times a day?
2. Store managers get jumpy and nervous and would rather kick you out of their shop as soon as they can, than to have the religious police close down their shops!
3. If you thought traffic in Bahrain was a nightmare, think again. Many of our neighborly drivers prefer to jump a red light or claim your lane as their own at any time they choose.
4. There are absolutely no changing rooms for ladies in any retail outlets, even my 5 year old daughter was not allowed to try on her clothes anywhere, because "she's a female". Outrageous!
5. It hurts me to see how women are totally inferior to men on many a level. They are treated in a humiliating way, that I would not be able to take if (God forbid) I had to ever live there!!

I could write a whole load more but my blood is boiling at this point and I would rather stop.

Have a good holiday people...
Peace everyone,
SoulSearch

4 comments:

amal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
amal said...

"..power corrupts
absolute power corrupts absolutely.."

i started to actually feel happy for saudi families when i see them walking in malls in Bahrain.. i'm glad they can at least vent and partially enjoy some freedom for a change..

looking at the big picture though, and back to my quote above, it's really sick and trivial how dictatorship can be so absurdly practiced.. this is one of the most obvious and amplified examples of how religion has always been used as whip to gain power and money.. these greedy fuckfaces didn't leave any room at all to reflect how religion was initially meant to be about "love, peace and brotherhood"..

i won't even get started with human rights, freedom of thought and expression since it's obviously out of question with such regimes..

ah what a corrupt world we live in.. i wonder when people will start seeing light..

Gardens of Sand said...

At least you shopped and made it back safe to our lil island! I know what you mean and that is one of the main reasons I do not go to Saudi.

3idech Embarak cuzzy, kisses to the lil ones.

Ammaro said...

shopping in saudi is a headache, i know how you feel. unfortunately, they do have a bigger selection, better prices and so on. and they have the best steakhouse in the world, believe it or not.

for this reason, we are forced to cross the border every now and then. we hate it, and were GUYS. its 100 times worse for women. and yes, the prayer thing is ridiculous, gets on my nerves all the time