Saturday 9 May 2015

A brief 5-point guide to help you say "Hello" to Gulf Arabs without ticking them off...

When you meet people from different countries, it's generally polite to say nice things about the countries that they are from. If they are from the Middle East, however, it can be slightly more difficult.

If you meet somebody from the Middle East, what exactly are you supposed to say?

Sometimes, you'll say something nice in a nice voice that's wearing nice clothing and the person you're talking to will still get offended. 

If you meet that same person again, and you say the exact opposite of what you had said previously, that individual will still get offended. 

Not only does everything seem to make Middle Easterners upset, the exact opposite of everything seems to make Middle Easterners upset as well.

Under these very unhelpful circumstances, what exactly are you supposed to say to somebody who is from Iran or Iraq, two countries that infamously were a part of George Bush's Axis-of-Evil.

When I meet somebody from Iran, I usually tell them that Iran is my favorite Axis-of-Evil country.


If I meet somebody from Iraq, I usually tell them "thank you for Aladdin and the genie", that was my favorite cartoon growing up.



Sometimes when I meet Middle Easterners, I ask them which part of the Middle East they are from, the part of the Middle East where everyone is crazy or the part of the Middle East where everyone is insane.

Last week, I asked this question to someone, and his answer was quite startling.

He said that he was from neither side; he said that there was a large fence separating the crazy side of the Middle East from the insane side of the Middle East and that he built his house directly above that fence.

I asked him what that was like, and he told me that it was tough, because those from the crazy side didn't really consider him one of their own, and they wondered whether he was even crazy in the first place, or whether he was only crazy on the outside, kind of like a crazy Oreo cookie: crazy on the outside, but sane on the inside.

All the time, he would hear crazy people saying that he wasn't one of them because he wasn't 100% crazy, and that even if he was crazy, he was choosing not to act crazy. He still had a lot to prove, they said, and thus he could not be trusted.

Those from the insane region of the Middle East said the very same things, that he wasn't insane enough for them, and that even if he was insane, that he wasn't making that sufficiently clear to them. Some of them even stated to him "you're either with us or against us", while others told him "make up your mind, you're either insane or you're in the wrong boat."

Occasionally, somebody from either side would say that the crazy and the insane were all brothers and sisters, that they all looked similar, that they ate the same food, and that they spoke the same language and that they were to outsiders almost indistinguishable from each other.

Needless to say, both the crazy and the insane did not like the sound of that.

The crazy always said "I might be crazy but I am not insane" and the insane always said "I might be insane but there's no chance I'll ever be crazy."

After a few seconds of quiet had passed, this poor fellow that I was speaking to added that the worst part for him was that if he didn't show favoritism towards either side, both sides would immediately become hostile towards him, and that it was to avoid all of this, he said, that he had decided to build his house directly above the fence.

When he was done speaking, I explained to him that I found his story to be fascinating.

For that, he thanked me in an appreciative tone, after which he told me that I should not be feeling sorry for him because I was in a similar situation to the one that he found himself in, and that, as a matter fact, he actually felt some sympathy for me.

I didn't understand what he could possibly mean by that at all, so I politely asked him to clarify.

After pausing for a few seconds, he said "well, you know there are two Americas, everybody says that, even Barack Obama has said that... and so I was just wondering, which part of America are you from, the part of America where everybody's hopelessly stupid, or the part of America where everybody's bafflingly idiotic.

I only ask because you look like a nice guy, and you look like a smart person... and if you ever need help to build a house on the fence between the two Americas... I just wanted to let you know that I'm free to help you out every evening this week."

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