OK, I confess. I ran into a post. Driving my Jeep through the parking garage the other day, I came around a corner (at least it looked like a corner) and ran head-on into a concrete support column. Folded the bumper back, sheared an engine mount, punched a hole in the oil filter. Oh, yeah, and put a big black-and-blue mark on my pride, too.
It worked out all right, though. The Jeep was overdue for its yearly inspection, so the repair shop is going to fix it all up and get it inspected for me. Vehicle inspections over here aren't anything like in the States. They don't merely consider whether or not the vehicle is in good working order--lights, signals, brakes, horn, emissions system, etc.--but they also look at oxidized paint, scratches, small dents, body rust, and any other cosmetic blemish you can imagine. They'll fail a vehicle over a small dent, or a hood with bad paint on it. It's really quite ludicrous.
While having some keys made at a key-cutting souq, we met a Qatari named Mubarak (which means "blessing" or "blessed"). He asked us where we were from, and we said Texas. He wanted to know where in Texas, and told us that he lived in Austin and in Houston for awhile, but left after 9/11. Then he looked at us rather sheepishly, and in a confessional tone of voice, informed us that he hadn't been run out of town or anything after 9/11--"nobody was following me around or anything"--but he was doing very poorly in school, and 9/11 gave him a good excuse to cut out and go home.
I find Mubarak's story to be fascinating on several counts. First, it's a great example of the importance of saving face to an Arab. When an Arab is confronted about something he's done wrong, it helps tremendously if he has some way to save face, something to blame it on. Many Arabs will flat-out lie in order to save face, etiher for themselves or another Arab. Direct truth takes a back seat to personal honor in the Arab world, whereas in the West, truth is the holy grail, a man's honor be hanged. I'm not necessarily making a judgement call, just stating the fact. Understanding the significance of personal honor is one of the keys to getting along with Arabs.
The second interesting aspect of Mubarak's story is that he seemed to be apologetic about using 9/11 as an excuse for going home. Perhaps he blamed his return on post-9/11 anti-Arab sentiments in America at the time, even though, in reality, national crime statistics show that crimes against Arabs did not increase after 9/11. He was simply manufacturing a plausible lie in order to save face--but how many other Arabs did the same thing? How did their stories affect the perception of America in their homeland--and do those perceptions continue to have a significant effect today? Perhaps Mubarak has an idea how to answer these questions, and perhaps that's why he seemed apologetic.
I can't hold his actions against him, or anyone else who was in a similar position--I very well might have packed up and headed home after 9/11 if I were an Arab--but it is certainly an interesting phenomenon, and certainly something we should bear in mind when we hear media reports of nebulous "anti-Muslim sentiments" in America. Our soldiers are fighting for the freedom to, among other things, worship God as each individual's conscience dictates. Very few places in the world outside the U.S. truly recognize that freedom.
Posted by jon at September 21, 2004 02:15 PM