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Client: Tawasul
Advert title(s): Tawasul Fragile data
Creative Agency: Paragon Marketing Communications, Salmiya, Kuwait
Chief Creative Officer: Louai Alasfahani
Creative Director/ Photographer : Konstantin Assenov
Copywriter: Wasim Khan
Illustrator: Huzaifa S. Kakumama
Other additional credits: Diana George
Published (Month, Year): 7, 2009
Thx Paragon MC team

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its summer, its hot, we know that… you traveled for a week or two, but like all good things, it comes to an end, and you are back home, what do you do? how about continuing your vacation here in kuwait! sound impossible? listen of what we thought about it.

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Around this time of year I like nothing better than to laze around the house and watch TV with a cold drink in my hand. Summer encourages inaction in me and I’m sure it does the same for many other people. But inaction isn’t just a problem we have in the summer.

Inaction. People who do nothing. It’s what I see when I go to get any official paperwork done. It’s what I see when I have anything government-related I need doing. And worse, it’s what I see when honestly good people tell me that they really care about the maids abuse issue in Kuwait.

But why do all of us have a culture of inaction here? Sure we know that citizens are well provided for by the government and sometimes extreme wealth encourages laziness of a sort. Even some middle class expats live a far more luxurious lifestyle here than they would back home and this makes us lazy.

But there is still a subset of the population that are naturally hard-working, motivated and skilled. And no amount of wealth should be able to deter them from action. There are Kuwaiti citizens who care deeply about the maids abuse situation in Kuwait, but the sad truth is very few have done anything to change it.

Passionate Individuals + A cause they care about = Action

Logically, that’s how it should be. But what is standing in their way?

Lack of time? Sometimes daily responsibilities, work, family life take up a lot of time. But think about it - there will never be a time in your life when you don’t have responsibilities. Conditions will never be just as you want them to be.

And thinking you’d like to do something but haven’t the time will doom the task straight away. One hour on a weekend visiting the injured maids at Al-Razi hospital is not eating up your life.
“Don’t wait, the time will never be just right” - Napolean Hill, American Author

Perhaps you are waiting for the political situation to take care of the problem? Perhaps this is a job only for the lawmakers and parliament and really what can one person do? Maybe there is a sort of fear in getting involved?

One person can save a handful of people - but that’s a handful of families and whole communities when you look at it. You are being an example to your own people and to your children as well.

When it comes to getting things done we need fewer architects and more bricklayers - Colleen C. Barrett

Over the last year I have heard dear friends talk about raising awareness, starting an NGO, visiting hospitals - and a year later not one of those plans has even seen a beginning to action. Mostly due to the reasons above.

There is one more reason I think people become inactive. Disillusionment.
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Allow me to illustrate a case:

My friend Hamad (not his real name) was a big fan of English Literature in school - particularly Shakespeare. He did fairly well in school but after graduation, for want of opportunity within the country, his life began centering around all-male coffee shops, shisha and hanging out. In time, he was only hanging out with Kuwaitis, because few other nationalities frequent these coffeeshops.

Now he barely speaks English. His mates include a boy who has had to travel several times to the States to get his stomach stapled, and (no joke) someone who used to ‘molest’ younger boys as a teenager. Bizarre? Surreal? Completely true. Hamad and I don’t talk anymore because he has become extremely conservative. When he got married he didn’t want me to meet his wife. That pretty much put an end to our friendship and - at least one avenue of Kuwaiti-Expat friendship. Hamad has been in KU for 7 years, trying to become a doctor over and over again. He used to be my best friend. Now he is a victim of inaction.
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So here’s my thought - people have so much to offer in Kuwait. But if it isn’t the wealth that leads to inaction, then its lack of awareness. If not that, then thoughts that others will handle it, that it isn’t the right time yet. And if it isn’t that, it’s that their own talents were shut down again and again until they really don’t WANT to offer anything to society anymore. What’s the point. Why try?

When you get the chance, read over the cases in this blog again. People are dying and they are dying in your neighbourhood. People are being tortured on your street. Murderers and rapists inhabit your space. It’s not TV - it’s real.

What is stopping you?

Please do write in and tell me your thoughts. This blog post has not just been a reflection, it’s a question and I would really like to know the answers.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. - Albert Einstein

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

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Client: Fasttelco
Advert title(s): “Fastest”, “Infinity” & “Or connect”.
Creative Agency: Paragon Marketing Communications, Kuwait
Chief Creative Officer: Louai Alasfahani
Creative Director: Konstantin Assenov
Copywriter: Wasim Khan
Illustrator: Huzaifa S. Kakumama
Other additional credits: Diana George
Published (Month, Year): 7, 2009
Thx Paragon MC team

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Whenever anyone says anything critical about Kuwait, whether it is constructive or not, there are always some Super-Patriots who mention that if expats don’t like it here they can GTFO.

I’ve thought about that word ‘Patriotism’ a lot. A few years ago when I was in India, a news announcer on TV was talking about a group of Pakistanis who had been killed. And to my horror, my cousins in the room were all cheering, the sole reason for their enthusiasm being that these people had been Pakistani.

Does it mean I’m not a patriot unless I support every stupid thing that other Indians do? Does it mean I’m unpatriotic if this sort of ‘patriotism’ makes me angry and I become more than a little ashamed of what we have become as a people?

If so then I am not a patriot, as we view the word today.

Don’t get me wrong. I love going to India. Heck, I like Indian food, Indian classical music, I think Indian girls in saris look fiiine, and I’m the first one of the dancefloor when some bhangra comes on. But I find cricket boring, I think we have the funniest english speaking accent in the world, and I can’t STAND Bollywood movies. I know a lot of Kuwaitis who would fight me on that last point

And then I think about Kuwait. Would it make citizens feel so unpatriotic to question certain ways in which the country was headed? Do citizens feel they need to patriotically protect Kuwait’s reputation from whining expats and every comment made about life here? Sure there are always some people who whine about Kuwait because that’s all they’re good at. But some people, Kuwaitis and expats, actually bring things up because they really want to see Kuwait do better and be the best it can be. We know the country can change for the better in order to advance in the eyes of Kuwaitis and Expats.

I’m always intrigued by phrases like “Proud to be Indian”, “Proud to be Kuwaiti”, “Pinoy Pride” (Philippines) etc. etc. Although it might work for some people, for me personally, a phrase like that doesn’t cover the entirety of how I feel about who I am and where I’m from.

To be proud I need to have something tangible to take pride in. I’m certainly proud about a lot of things in India. But that doesn’t completely blind me to the fact that there are a lot of shameful things going on in my country. Proud to be Indian might work as a nifty bumper sticker or a facebook status but it doesn’t go much deeper than that. I’m equally proud to have grown up in Kuwait and had the opportunity to be a part of a multicultural environment where I’ve learned, amongst other positive things, to form friendships with Pakistanis. Something that is rare back in India.

Maybe you have differing views on patriotism and really ‘proud to be _____’ does work for you. But working on something tangible to be proud of, means so much more. Let’s not let patriotism blind us to the fact that we can WORK on the negative things about our countries to create even MORE positive things to be proud of. And isn’t that real patriotism?

Consider these quotes. You don’t have to agree with all of them. But it’s worth a think!
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“My country, right or wrong” is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying “My mother, drunk or sober.”

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” - GK Chesterton

I will fight for my country, but I will not lie for her. - Zorah Neale Hurston

Patriotism, the virtue of the vicious. - Oscar Wilde

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill. - Richard Aldington

If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident. - Montesquieu

He loves his country best who strives to make it best. - Robert G. Ingersoll

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. -George Santayana

Patriotism … is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit. - Emma Goldman

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Previously on Jacqui:
I twitter more therefore I blog less, I wrote about Ananyah’s 6 days of 6 prizes for 6 years of blogging, and I wished that we had a longer weekend and shorter work week sort of like what we had now.
Update on Jacqui:
I’ve been regaining bits of myself slowly, how I am […]

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Manila maid ‘survives’ to tell sadist employer’s torture saga

KUWAIT CITY, July 18: A Filipina household service worker employed by a Kuwaiti family sought refuge at the Philippine Embassy this weekend after allegedly suffering severe maltreatment for almost two years at the hands of her lady employer. Jenny, 41, single and a native of Alabang, Manila was sobbing in pain as she narrated to the Arab Times on Saturday the ‘burning’ torture that her lady employer allegedly did on her.

“There was no single day that she did not hurt me. She loved hurting me,” cried Jenny as she showed all the scars and fresh wounds dotting her body. She recounted that her lady employer would usually time her whenever a household task is to be done. “She wants me to finish everything fast, but I’m the only housemaid at home and she has two small kids. We’re staying in a flat with four rooms and with four bathrooms. I do all the household chores, cook, clean, baby-sit and laundry. Sometimes, due to extreme fatigue, I tend to work slowly and she would be very mad at me and the torture begins,” she stated. She narrated that her lady employer had fun torturing her by heating a knife on the stove and once it is scorching hot, she would place the hot knife on any part of the latter’s body leaving burns and blisters.

“I kept on begging her not to do it. I said, enough, enough madam, but she won’t stop until my skin is burnt and blistered. It was horrible. She looked like a devil hitting me with the hot knife. How can a normal person do that?” sobbed Jenny whose wrists, arms, left foot and back were covered with bandage to prevent burnt infection after coming from the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital for treatment. Her ears resembled like a crunchy chicharron after her lady employer burnt them with a knife. “She burned my ears, because there was a time when she called me and I wasn’t able to go to her immediately because I was doing something at the kitchen so she got angry and burned my two ears for not replying to her quickly,” she stated as tears welled in her eyes.

The lady employer also burned her hands and arms with the hot knife for not washing the dishes quickly. “She burned my legs and foot for walking slowly, she burned my nape too and she boxed me on my eye so that I cannot see things clearly,” outlined Jenny. The lady employer also did not spare Jenny’s lips. As she narrated her harrowing experience, she pointed to her blistered, flaking and discoloured burnt lips. “She also hit my back using a water hose and lashed me with the ‘oqal’ of her husband,” she stated, showing her scarred back with newly bandaged burn wounds. The ‘oqal’ is the doubled black cord generally made of tightly woven black goat-hair and sheep’s wool, that is used to secure the ‘Ghutra’ or headdress of Arab men in place.

The lady employer also cut the shoulder-length hair of Jenny leaving her almost bald. “I want to fight back but I was scared because she’s six-months pregnant and I might harm her baby so I endured all the beatings,” she pointed out. After inflicting pain on her, the lady employer would usually give her some cream to treat the burns in various parts of her body. “I really can’t understand why she’s doing that. She would even ask me to wear gloves while washing the dishes to protect my hands and give me hand moisturisers,” she stated.

Last week, the lady employer allegedly threatened to burn Jenny’s eyes and face, prompting the latter to run to the embassy for help. “I finally decided to run to the embassy for help because only God knows, I may not be able to control myself and I might be forced to fight back and I might harm her and the baby in her womb,” she stated. She called first the local manpower agency that recruited her and asked for help but the man from the agency refused to help her. “I told him, please help me, take me out from this hell, but the guy at the agency even scolded me and told me not to go to the agency or he will kick me out of the agency. I called them five times. So I decided to sneak out of the house and go to the embassy” she claimed.

Meanwhile, Philippine Ambassador Ricardo Endaya disclosed that the embassy has already hired a Kuwaiti lawyer for Jenny so appropriate charges will be filed against her lady employer. “I’m still at a loss how a human being can do this to her fellow human being. I hope the Kuwaiti authorities will not close their eyes on this so that justice will be served and the employer should be castigated for committing such inhumane acts,” he stressed. “I want her to be in jail. She should pay for what she has done to me,” cried Jenny as she hopes to go back to the Philippines after getting the justice that she wants.

By Michelle Fe Santiago
Special to the Arab Times

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