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The world is full of armchair experts who know exactly how to fix the Middle East’s problems. I’ve just returned from a trip to North America and its amazing how many former Middle East residents, and even strangers who have never been to this part of the world, were proffering advice and highly-coloured opinions on exactly what is not right with the region and how they would set it right.
One acquaintance whom I was chatting to, happened to be in the events and destination weddings business and I naturally waxed eloquent about Bahrain’s wedding tourism efforts. Imagine my dismay when he sternly cross-examined me about life in the Dark Ages Gulf. Had he not heard of how Bahrain was the first to bring the Formula One to the region and consistently topped international surveys about cosmopolitan lifestyle? And colour plates in luxury magazines about the high life in Dubai? And the tourism and entertainment drive in Saudi Arabia?
Another person turned the knife more sharply by making inappropriate political suggestions – which, coming from a former Bahrain resident, were surprising and in bad taste. But when he followed it up with airy comments about gangster money pumping up London real estate and how he would never trust the elected government of my home state in India, I realised his view of the world was clearly uniformly jaundiced.
A wise friend who works for the UN, once told me that expats should always maintain a balance by not commenting or participating in the politics of the host country. That is very different from turning a blind eye to human rights violations – in Bahrain, the migrant worker rights movement was seeded with the participation of expatriate volunteers and they still actively support it even though it is managed effectively by the government now. Why, after the turmoil of 2011, expatriates (including yours truly) sat on a panel to discuss how there could be effective course correction that would eliminate any feelings of disparity, mistrust and prejudice.
So many economic migrants from all over the world come to the GCC even today. They work hard to give their children and families a better break. My gardener has put his two sons through college, a parental duty he would have not been able to afford in his country; some of us have started up the entrepreneurial path, thanks to the business-friendly policies in the kingdom and so many of us have built properties back home and set ourselves up for a golden retirement, thanks to our work in Bahrain. It is churlish to sit in judgement of a country’s values when we have gained so much from it.
We are living in a fishbowl these days, thanks to the might of social media – what happens in any part of the world immediately flashes to countries far away. Bahrain, like other nations, is keenly aware of its position in the world and the aspirations of the millennials who make up the big proportion of the population and change has come swiftly to the kingdom – brought about by the leadership, by the educated Bahrainis who studied here and abroad and by the sheer pull of the currents of world opinion.
I don’t know how green the grass is in other countries – but the skies have never been bluer in Bahrain!
meeraresponse@gmail.com
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