"No doubt you do earn your pay Marjorie but I bet Qatar pays you an awful lot more than your home country would."
I took a pay cut to move to Qatar, thank you very much.
"Remember that while you contend with a lot of frustrations living here, Qataris are also contending with their own frustrations with respect to its expatriate population."
Oh, I very much agree. Just a couple hours ago I was chatting with someone about what Maryam said over at Mimiz Blog about feeling powerless over the way her government chooses to spend her money... that must be intensely frustrating. When have I said Qataris don't have frustrations?
"Don't be too keen to judge Marjorie. Let Qataris be the ones to have that conversation. Taking the moral high-ground is so typically expat."
You seem to be arguing that nobody should be able to comment on a culture in any meaningful way unless they're an insider. I think that doesn't work. Or do you think only Americans should be able to have an opinion on whether Bush was a good president or not?
Immigrants often have insight into the successes and failures of a culture that people who grew up there don't have, just as Alexis de Tocqueville was able to give a more insightful view of 19th century America than an American could have done. I expect immigrants to my country to express their views and get involved in politics -- how else can my culture learn and grow? So I'm not holding a double-standard by saying that after 6 years in Qatar I think I should be entitled to say, for example, that the lack of a labor law covering housemaids is directly responsible for significant human rights abuses. I don't think I need to have a Qatari passport to have an opinion on that topic.
And I don't think I'm taking the moral high ground, because I'm not pretending that the U.S. doesn't have extremely serious social ills and political problems that result in US committing human rights abuses too. But this is a blog about my life in Qatar, so I talk about Qatar here. :-)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Infantile NY Times
Date: 2010-05-16 09:07 pm (UTC)I took a pay cut to move to Qatar, thank you very much.
"Remember that while you contend with a lot of frustrations living here, Qataris are also contending with their own frustrations with respect to its expatriate population."
Oh, I very much agree. Just a couple hours ago I was chatting with someone about what Maryam said over at Mimiz Blog about feeling powerless over the way her government chooses to spend her money... that must be intensely frustrating. When have I said Qataris don't have frustrations?
"Don't be too keen to judge Marjorie. Let Qataris be the ones to have that conversation. Taking the moral high-ground is so typically expat."
You seem to be arguing that nobody should be able to comment on a culture in any meaningful way unless they're an insider. I think that doesn't work. Or do you think only Americans should be able to have an opinion on whether Bush was a good president or not?
Immigrants often have insight into the successes and failures of a culture that people who grew up there don't have, just as Alexis de Tocqueville was able to give a more insightful view of 19th century America than an American could have done. I expect immigrants to my country to express their views and get involved in politics -- how else can my culture learn and grow? So I'm not holding a double-standard by saying that after 6 years in Qatar I think I should be entitled to say, for example, that the lack of a labor law covering housemaids is directly responsible for significant human rights abuses. I don't think I need to have a Qatari passport to have an opinion on that topic.
And I don't think I'm taking the moral high ground, because I'm not pretending that the U.S. doesn't have extremely serious social ills and political problems that result in US committing human rights abuses too. But this is a blog about my life in Qatar, so I talk about Qatar here. :-)