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On culture and respect
On an earlier visit to Dubai we visited the Jumeriah Mosque in Dubai, at that stage it was the only mosque in the United Arab Emirates accessible to non-Muslims, open as a way of building understanding of Islam. All of the pre-visit instructions outlined the dress codes and prior to entry into the mosque the instructions were repeated and clothing made available to those who had arrived in unsuitable garb. In essence, all that is asked is that knees and shoulders are covered and, in the mosque, a woman’s head. A simple instruction, but inside there were a number of people who had failed to heed what had been at least three requests. Such failure can only be put down to ignorance.
Modesty also dictates that, in public, knees and shoulders are covered and that people do not generally touch in embrace, but as an accommodation to modern tourism, such convention is relaxed in resorts and on public beaches to allow skimpy swimsuits, including bikinis for women and, we suppose, men with ample moobs. Aside from a strict ban on nudity, these are not hard and fast rules, but westerners are asked to be mindful that they are in a country where men and women are very modest and devout in their adherence to the Muslim faith.
It is curious, therefore, that fondling and what could be termed on a family blog as an advanced level of foreplay seems to have become a quite common sight with Westerners on the beach. Particularly curious, since two British people were jailed and recently deported after being caught on the Dubai foreshore engaged in a form of intimate engagement.
Trust us; these are not the ramblings of a couple of born-again prudes (in fact, the opposite would be the case), but a comment on the lack of respect shown by some ex-pats and tourists to Middle-Eastern culture. The old saying, “When in Rome” springs to mind.
Locals do not generally like to be photographed without permission, so it seems invasive and, to an extent, voyeuristic to ask them to pose for the digital contentment of strangers. But what shots there would be: the old Afghani men with often badly henna-dyed beards, the dishdashahs and differing styles of headgear worn by men, the abeyas and burquas of the women, the weather beaten faces of fisherman, the groups of men that sit around in the evening outside shops or on the sides of roads, talking and smoking, and the migrant workers who sit on the grass waiting to be picked up after work and taken to their hostels. Off the main roads there are the old fishing villages with boats pulled up on beaches where men lay their nets out to dry, houses with goats and sheep wandering around foraging, amusingly at one place a goat standing on the roof of a car parked in a lean-to, and school children in lovely clean, bright uniforms out playing.
These are rich scenes indeed but confined to memory rather than photographic image.