The Desert lands

Me and my family decided to go away for a 7 night break, and we decided to visit Abu Dhabhi in the middle east. Now; as many people know the Arabs have become very rich very quickly with the finding of Oil some 60 years ago and with this new wealth there has come a new uber level of arrogance and rudeness. 

I was expecting a certain level of rudeness and snobbery, however, after day 2 of exploring outside of our hotel; it became very clear that the locals looked down on anybody who wasn't English (white skinned or a fellow Arab). And here was my problem...you see; if you took a closer look at the middle east, and peeled back the artificial palms trees, man made sea fronts and all the glitz;  you will find that the core backbone of the UAE is formed and built by Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Philipino's...It it these people who are the reason why we tourists see what we see in the splendour of the 7* Emirates Hotel, the new super highways and all the other many reasons you would visit the UAE.  Yet, why do the local Arabs treat the low working class  so badly?

To make it real for me,  myself and my wife who are both Indian and being a British born Indian, I am both proud of India and equally proud of the UK for the equal chances the country gives to people of all classes. So when in a queue in a store waiting to pay, an English women walked straight past us and intended to pay ahead of us. At that point my wife in her well spoken English voice said "Excuse me, there is a line here", to which the woman realised we weren't local Indians workers in the line but British tourists she replied "Oh excuse me, I didn't realise there was a line"  and moved behind us.

At this point I realised that the money has really gone to all of this people heads; the way we felt discriminated was hard to accept and also made us feel very angry; yet the local working force accept this kind of behaviour everyday by the local Arabs and people with more money and they have a grin and bear it. The workers are not there  because they want to be for the small money and attitude they get but because they need to support their families back home.

The sad thing was, my daughter, an innocent beautiful soul aged 15  months only would wave to passers  by with a lovely smile and not one single local Arab had the basic decency to smile/wave back at her, but instead looked at her as if she was just another not "worthy human being".  As a parent this was difficult  to watch but also made me realise these young Arab teens driving around in the $$$$$$ super cars were desert people not so long ago and common courtesy can not be brought with money, it is a positive human trait, something we either want to share or don't. Clearly, with these people and I suppose many new wealthly people, arrogance and rudeness are now part of their new human traits.

So why do people with money behave with this attitude, that they are holier then thou, that their shit doesn't smell, that they are better then others.  The thing is , most people don't mind that people are rich and in fact; I for one in some ways aspire to that better lifestyle and trappings that are associated with more money; however, I Keep It Real, as I am sure many of us do when we are on this journey of making money.