Crooks come in all shapes, religions, nationalities and sizes, the needy, the seedy, the weedy, but whatever their lot, always the greedy.
Perhaps feeling clever, in their endeavour, but never-ever, accepted behaviour.
And Bahrain, of course, is no exception.
Take the Isa Town market crooks, who subdivide their allotment, for which they have often paid a small cost.
They subdivide (which presumably must be against regulations!) and demand exorbitant rents from their fellow traders, thinking it smart practice.
The authorities are seldom on the side of the little guy, in slapping down these crooks.
It is the sort of behaviour that leads to the setting up of illegal stalls by the roadside, now according to some, again of plague proportions.
The market philosophy was designed to confine such commercial enterprise to within purpose-designed and allocated enclosures.
Instead, the hunt is on to shut them down, not to catch the crooks who put most of these poor sellers along the roadsides in the first place.
Or the crooks that get a commercial business in Bahrain and have the all important Commercial Registration approval, that they are a “legitimate” company and even “operate” out of a purpose designed, government-operated, office building.
But instead of there being a “shop door or office” you would expect from any self respecting commercial enterprise, there are instead various “shoebox carrels,” where these “companies,” often with a paid up capital of a few dinar, allegedly base their “operation.”
It is a scam or a sham, trying to get around Bahrain’s attempts to speed up and tighten the commercial registrations process.
There are the crooks who subdivide their houses into a warren of rooms in which they can “house” a score of expat workers, many having to “hotbed” sleeping space, as though it is on a submarine, where sleep space is a real requirement.
Labourers and construction workers, crowded into veritable death spots, crowded houses, highly vulnerable to fire and few realistic fire escapes.
Thank goodness the government is cracking down on such practice and designating workers to special, hopefully safe and liveable camps.
And ensuring they continue to meet acceptable health, safety and maintenance standards.
Then there are the visa crooks, those who seize the expats almost as soon as they arrive, to work in their bonded servitude.
Fine if the valuable document is merely for safe keeping, but all too often, like a sword of Damocles, to ensure people do not run away!
Crooks like the prawners who have no respect for conservation and are happy to fish stocks to extinction.
I leave the lard to the Bard;
So oft it chances, in particular men, that for some vicious mole of nature in them, breaking down the pales and forts of reason, their virtues else, be as pure as grace, will take corruption from that particular fault.
Shakespeare saw it centuries ago.
Our crooks to think they have, “refined it” Makes you laugh ... or cry.
wpeppinck@hotmail.com