Merry Christmas?

According to the Arab Times a few days ago, Islamists in Jahra objected to a local supermarket supplying Christmas paraphernalia as they deemed it ‘haram’. The supermarket backed down and removed the said items. This is just plain silly for so many reasons. Where did they get this ‘haram’ ruling from? Presumably these same Islamists aren’t aware that Islam actually recognises Jesus Christ as the most important prophet after Mohammed. Quite rightfully though, most Kuwaitis, and other residents of Kuwait, have no problem in Christians celebrating Christ’s birthday.

As a Christian I can accept objecting to the crass commercialisation of Christmas, but then there are traditional elements which it would be a shame to miss out on. You certainly don’t see any complaints about the crass commercialisation of Eid Al-Fitr or other Islamic celebrations. What’s lacking here is any sense of tolerance of anyone with a different view, let alone a different religion. I’m certainly not going to protest if the local supermarket wants to sell “Ramadan Kareem” cards, wherever I’m living in the world.

But, just to show I’m not picking on Islamists here, the very same edition of the newspaper carried an article about some small town in the good ol’ USA objecting to a Muslim cemetery in their backyard. What’s the problem guys… I’m sure they’re not going to be burying those terrorists shooting up the good guys in Iraq!

In every country around the world there are those who just don’t get it! Result: racism, intolerance of others with a different view, lack of understanding of how things really are versus what’s portrayed in the media, etc. I guess that’s the scary part of ever returning to my home country to live – small world view.

And for something completely different, the Ministry of Planning (sounds like some Soviet-era institution - maybe they should rename this Ministry of Statistics, as that’s all it is), issued a press release about numbers of people employed in the private sector…

Kuwaitis make up just two percent of the workforce in the private sector, the majority of whom are businessmen.

Wow, less than I thought. If I’m reading this correctly, it means an astounding 98% of eligible-to-work Kuwaitis are working in the public sector! (assuming there’s no unemployed Kuwaitis). How does this fit with the Kuwaitisation targets in the private sector then? I know banks, for one category of private sector employers, have to have 45% Kuwaiti staff now, rising to 47% by September 2005.