When Cheap Labor isn’t Cheap
So I had this dangling wire from a little electricity box after a full refurbishment done by my father to my bathroom a while a go, I call my favorite electrician “Mohammed” an Indian free visa worker who I casually find wandering around the neighborhood and paid him a mouth watering full 1 Bahraini Dinar to fix the livewire to a new mirror light I bought and to cover the little wire box with something.
He does a perfect job, I test the light and find it working perfectly before I walk him out with a smile. Now I get to enjoy this soft and romantic lighting in the bathroom *cough* not that I would need that *cough*, but as I walk in after he’s gone and realize what I will have to live with now.. a phone jack, in my bathroom!
And I thought I have seen it all, but honestly why would anyone use a phone jack cover in a bathroom?! Does it really need any brains for him to understand that those are only to be used when there is an actual phone line behind them?!
So Mohammed gets the job done for peanuts, and it’s given that you get monkeys when you pay peanuts. But, it’s not like we have a choice here do we? I am certainly not getting up a ladder and play around live wiring now would I, nor would any of my friends, or family members who even refuse to change a light bulb because it’s usually too high up. Mohammed was truly my only choice, even it if means living with a phone jack in my bathroom.
We have grown used to cheap labor, to pay BD 40 for a live in housemaid for a month’s full work (just around $3.50 a day), the same for the worker at the cold store or the shop attendant. But, how “cheap” is exactly cheap labor?
During the past 30 years the number of expatriates in Bahrain doubled 6.44 times, this surge of immigrants puts a significant pressure on the state’s resources because of the government’s support for public utilities that is in addition total international remittances that raised from 162 million Dinars in 1994 to 484 million Dinars in 2001. Source [Our Political Vision, The National Democratic Action Society]
The Kingdom of Bahrain believes that its duty to sound the alarm once again on the serious negative effects of employment of expatriates in light of the increase in the number of expatriates in the local labor markets in the Gulf without binding controls or precise criteria, that in addition to the impact it has on the employment imbalance in the population structure and the national identity of the country, it will eventually lead for the national’s of those countries to become minority and lose the privilege of self-determination for themselves. Source [Dr. Majeed Mohsin AlAlawi, Minister of Labor]
484 Million Dinars worth of remittances to outside countries, could you just imagine how much good this could do to our economy if it was just cycled around? How many businesses will strive or how many families would benefit? Can you imagine how much electricity, water and basic resources those expats and free visa workers require everyday? Could you imagine the pressure this means to our limited water and electricity networks? Our “governmentally supported” already crippled health system? Our already overloaded roads? Sewage, security, transportation and even governmentally backed food resources? According to AlWaqt, expats consumed a total of BD 140 Million since 1995 in “governmental support” (Source)
So Businesses doesn’t want to pay a decent wage.
Consumers don’t want expensive produce.
Local’s still refuse to work in the lower level of the work ladders.
And the outcome? More Mohammed’s wandering around our streets, and consequently more phone jacks around local houses.
Spot on Eyad. We are stuck in several vicious cycles actually. Excellent representation of one.
Oops. Sorry, I mean Mohammed. I just came from Eyad’s blog + I am 9ayem.
still, an excellent write up.
lol, too 9aiem to even type your nickname properly!
wow, this fasting is really getting to you. Moodz, I worry about this situation all the time, and it just makes for a scary outcome. We joke about soug el manama being a “little india” on fridays, but when you look at the big picture, its not so funny anymore. When the foreigners are all over the place, and we depend on them for everything, sooner or later they will start to take over.
Many locals are starting to learn indian because thats the way to ‘communicate’.
See whats happening in the US. The crazy number of mexicans in the US, both legal and illegal, is starting to change the face of American demographics. Recently, the American national anthem was changed to a dual one; sung in both English AND Spanish. Now, all phone lines you call for help give you the option of pressing 1 para espanol and 2 for english. Signs up everywhere in spanish.
Imagine the same in Indian here in Bahrain? You call batelco inquiries, and it gives you the option of indian or english? Tera its starting to happen. Go to souq manama; half the signs up are in indian, and this phase is on the increase…
Oh poor me!
cool now you can get the internet in the bathroom!
u paid one BD and tit7al6am!
and I thought I was lazy, why wouldnt you just change it your self, wouldn’t take you 5 minutes and you will get what you want.
I believe that here in the Gulf area the salaries for workers . like house maids and so on are so low .. how some one can live with 40 dinars per month? i spend 120 every week in the supermarket! .. 40 dinars is what I pay when i go to the Ritz to do my hair , pedicure and manicure and if i make my eyebrows I end to pay 50 dinars! …
And by the way i dont pay 40 dinars to my house keeper.. even do the countract say so … we pay her 130 dinars wich we think is good for all what she does , she sleep in a room and have a bed , she dont sleep in a kitchen floor …
BD40 plus accommodation (how much would he/she pay to live in an apartment?) plus breakfast, lunch and dinner (again, how much would he/she pay for food for a month?) .. BD40 is 100% in his/her pocket (unless they send it to their family) which goes a long way in their countries.
Just me, but maybe you sorry asses should actually get off your fat behinds and get educated. And I don’t mean your fancy worthless US degrees. As far as I can tell, even after your “long” stay in the States and your fancy US degree you still cannot form proper sentences in English. Gramatical errors, missing punctuation, spelling mistakes. Amazing!!
And while you are at it, why don’t you start “working” in your countries? I mean odd jobs, cleaning streets, washing cars etc. Citizens of every other country in the world do these jobs in their own countries but you sorry asses are far too lazy to get off your high thrones to do these measely jobs. Educated or not, all you guys want is to sit in an air conditioned room and sign papers.
And this “ammaro.com” person seems scared for some reason. Take over what exactly?? What do you think you have that the Indians will take over?? LOL
If my English proves difficult to understand, may I suggest the liberal use of Oxford’s English Dictionary and Thesaurus?
How pathetic!!
Shaikh Mido, what a pathetic smartass? You think you are so great just because you can speak English? What’s the big deal!! Moodz’s English is just fine, not perfect by any means, but at least he does make a good point. I t i s c a l l e d s e l f – c r i t i c i s m. The Indians will not take anything over. They are just making a living, but Bahrainis surely are giving up their country’s identity.
BTW, Nobody likes a smartass n00b.
@Mido:
Hmm, so when did we exactly decide to ignore he core of the subject raised and concentrate on my bloody English here? Well I am sorry if you think my language isn’t up to your standards, but this is by no means a university paper I am submitting. Nor is it even an article in a newspaper or otherwise. Most if not all my posts are a spur of the moment scribbles I come up with after having the idea hovering in my head for the previous hours. So do your pathetic self a favor and try to get the gist of what I have to say, which I presume would be pretty hard for someone with a brain the size of a nut that is most probably filled with English grammatical rules over taking the space for some common fucking sense that you lack.
So you come into my blog, hide behind a pitiable nickname that sounds like a new brand for some cheap imported thai slippers and you judge me? Not only that, but the country as a whole? Do you even know what it’s like in Bahrain? No you don’t! But I blame you not my dear! You live in a country so corrupt that even the presidential elections are manipulated with and staged, a country with human rights violations list longer than your arms for 2006 and 2007, a country where torture and police brutality have became the norm, a country where the only Arab blogger resides in prison for charges relating to the defamation of the president, and people so fucked up in the head that mass sexual harassment in the street is just a trend in year round celebrations! A country whose economy is being built on dancers, cabarets and sex slaves!
Please don’t judge me, please don’t judge Bahrain. And for fuck’s sake, do take some action to fix that shithole you call home.
LMAO
I seem to have hit a nerve there LOL
Firstly, @ moodz, assumptions will get you nowhere. You went on a disgraceful name calling spree about my country. Do you even know where I am from? LMAO
My defense of Indians led you to assume that I am an Indian. I am not an Indian. I defend anyone who needs to be defended. But then, I realize that it would be of no consequence to even try to reason with you and change the way you think. Your beliefs are embedded into you long before you could walk. It is a shame that you choose to depict other races as a lesser race than your own. It is a shame that you know nothing about India or the Indians. Educate yourself. Read about India and its history and culture. The culture that you so proudly call yours today was borrowed from India. Everything that you do, everything that you eat, everything that you wear has Indian origins. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? You ungrateful, illiterate little fuck.
The only way I can make sense of your pathetic ideas is that you disgrace Indians and other nationalities to feel better about yourselves. This is what your culture teaches you. Don’t you feel ashamed of yourselves, teaching your younger generation to hate other races? Embedding a stereotype about other races into the next batch of future generations, how pathetic!! Isn’t there enough hatred already? The racial discrimination against most Asian races is already blatantly practiced by many of you.
Wherever I am from, my country is far better than yours.
Yours is a country in denial of its acts of Human Rights Violations.
The numerous Asian maids raped and impregnated and deported from your country so that the family of the man who committed the crime can live with his head held high among his society.
The child molestation, the incest, the hate crimes, the abuse, the racial discrimination and the list goes on.
You talk about the others as a lesser race than your own. You see all Indians as a poor people. I am here to put things into perspective for you. Indians are and will always be a step ahead of you in terms of intelligence, achievements, resourcefulness, ability.
You are so proud to be you but you have nothing to be proud of. Money? Out of the first two hundred and fifteen entries in the Forbes list of Billionaires, twelve are Indians. No Bahrainis. How peculiar, for a country so proud of its money. How do you declare a person rich in your country? Number of camels, chickens?
And just to make it clear to you, contrary to your belief, history actually began long before some white men discovered Oil in your land. But, India, on the other hand, has had a history far richer and colorful than yours. Before you as a people even had a country you could call your own and before you even had a civilization that was worth noticing, Indians had already achieved what you are still trying to achieve. If you know history, you should know that India has been the richest country in the world before the British looted and stole everything to make their country what it is today.
But I am not here to talk about your country, I have no interest in defaming your country.
I am here to talk about you.
I do not want to waste my precious time on your pathetic self. I consider it far below me to even engage in a debate with the likes of you.
Bottom line … your belief that you are somehow better than the rest of us is in itself a violation of human rights, so to speak. You are no better than me or anyone else. You are no better than the Indians / Pakistanis / Bangladeshis that you despise. What makes you think that you are better? In what way are you better? Your money?
If you could take your money with you to your grave and use it while you are rotting, I would agree that you are better than everybody else.
& moodz, mido is short for Mohammed, you ignorant little fuck. And even if I have a brain the size of a nut, it still holds more than yours could ever hold.
I see you took my advice and made quiet a liberal use of Oxford’s English Dictionary. Or did you solicit help with writing that reply? LMAO
@ mamoru, I am no n00b, been here even before you knew how to switch on your computer.
You are so dumb, I won’t be surprised if they have special classes teaching you that food goes into your mouth and not into your ass.
BTW (by the way), I am proud of my English but I am even more proud of my principles.
hahahahahaha..
Shaikh Mido, though you want to seem like a smartass, you’re not so smart after all!
Hilarious, what made you think moodz was referring to you being an indian? ahahahaha… how clever, if only you read the description of the country you came from, you would never be mistaken, because no one would. No one would think that the country where the only Arab blogger is imprisoned is India now would they?
Happy about your English? You must be! When I visited your homeland no one could tell a brother from a sister in English, it must mean a lot to you that you can construct a whole sentence in that language! Oh, and before attacking a whole nation-more like 6 nations- how about you attack the lazy asses in your country? Or is that getting too dangerous now?
Mind my stereotyping, but very typical of you. You come to the 6 nations digging gold and attack it every second. Unlike the Indians you don’t do labour, still, you look down upon the locals and think you’re some sort of different breed that is educated- while we lack it all. Wake up, my dear, wake up.
LMAO
fuckin hell mate. I’m not an Egyptian and I’m not in Egypt. LOL
Its coz I used the name of an Egyptian King as my email address … LMAO … well done Watson… LOL it’s not a real email address dumbass.
So is this all you guys do in your spare time? Smear others, defame citizens of other nations, and specialize in racial discrimination?
Why don’t you actually get off your fat behinds and do some good for humanity?
“… come to the 6 nations digging for gold…” LMAO and where did that gold come from?
The 6 nations prosper only because of the expats not because of you lazy fucks.
And just so that you don’t put undue stress on your peanut sized brains trying to guess where I am from, I am an Arab. Now will you try defaming the other 5 nations to get back at me?
Get a life mate.
don’t have time for this shit. ciao.
Mido Fucktwit:
I don’t need you to tell me where you are from, a simple trace IP will show that you are currently in Saudi Arabia and from the attitude I see, you’re probably an immigrant who is in there for the quick buck. So shut the fuck up, try to focus with me here with you penis seized shoe for brain you have in that retarded head of yours and try to understand instead of rambling around the subject pointlessly without even replying me straight.
I have no problem with any nation, I don’t look down upon anyone because of their gender, I don’t care if you were Egyptian, Indian or Alaskan for fucks sake, but what I really have a problem with are assholes like you who just because they can put up a couple of sentences in English, look down upon your own people and think that you are holier than though.
Well you know what, fuck you. No matter where you are from, the same issue stays. The States, the European Union immigration is not a side issue anymore. While it’s true that we heavily rely on cheap labor around this part of the world, I doubt any other country in the world will give up that option if it had it. The money is around this part of the world weather you like it or not, the world evolves around oil and we own enough to keep the wheel rolling, I can show you figures of the recent boom in all 6 nations’ economies and GDP but I doubt that would do any good to someone like you.
Glad that you made it through here you pathetic fuck; it won’t be long now I promise!
And umm, since you are so busy with your own shit that you don’t have time to reply this, you might as well ignore this and go on with your daily wanking, I’ll do you a great favor and put you out of your misery and close the comments on this post. You got your message through and I got mine the same way, I see no reason why we should continue.
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