Living in the Middle East and the Gulf region for almost 30 years had its effects on me, in the most part it was of course, positive “it led me to where I am now”. Being in different parts of the Arab world does not mean you get the same cultural experience, even though Arab’s share a lot of social traditions, as well as some cultural similarities. It may seem that Saudi Arabia follows a traditional Islamic social and cultural life, where its neighbor “Bahrain” follows “the exact opposite”, and where Dubai tries to combine both countries social and cultural traditions, Middle Eastern countries such as “Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine share a more “Moderate approach” towards Islamic cultural and social traditions, and where the western culture finds its way more comfortably.
might need a little more than a bandaid !!!
Like any “Man-made” culture and social traditions in this world “oriental, western, or Islamic” it has its negative “as well as positive” effects on our lives, especially if you are trying to enforce another culture that does not belong to the nature of that community. But if done for the sake of “social or political” development should “not” be before implementing the proper studies, preparations and educational strategies for any development on cultural or social changes “If needed” for any kind of reform “social it is or political”. And regardless of the different effects of a more open culture “such as the western culture” on Middle Eastern countries and the Gulf Region. “We” only became successful by absorbing minor social development “Which made us more acceptable to the world, I believe”. But “they” mostly misinterpreted the understanding of other cultures by absorbing “not the negativity” as usually thought, but absorbing the “results” rather that the positive effects of the western culture instead.
With all the differences of each culture or social traditions practiced in the Arab world, one very important practice done by most western cultures and helped them overcome a lot of social problems is “Sex Education”, where it is considered “Taboo” in the Arab world to be discussed or offered to our “already suffering” educational system. We cannot deny its positive impact on the western communities due to its help in preventing sexual diseases, and other social effects that contributed in building a community comfortable dealing with matters that related to the opposite sex from both sides.
To the Arab world “with few exceptions”, Sex education is considered a shameful act, and it is forbidden to include this subject into our schools and educational system. “I was 12 years old”, the subject of “human birth” in Jordanian schools “they didn’t even call it Sex then” took place in one classroom filled with 35 other males “and that was it”, in a country considered more open to foreign cultures. But where a majority of its schools separates males from females in classrooms, and where the same education system “rejoins” them back in Universities “unprepared & uneducated” sexually.
Living in Saudi Arabia “for example”, where teenage students cant talk, share or get educated about “vital changes” in their bodies, emotions or feelings, and then offered a failed educational system that separates what is naturally considered “the other half of community” in the education process and continue the separation policy all the way through their “practical and social life”. “I remember the company I used to work with in Saudi Arabia, not only was I working with another 65 male employees, but you’d never even get a chance to see an actual woman that has a desk job for a change, let alone the frustration from seeing only “black and white” when you go out for dinner or coffee “Which is the only thing you can do over there”, and being seen in public with a female, subjects you to “punishment and jail” as well as “deportation” if you’re not married or related to her directly as “a brother or a father only” . Not only that , but then throw them to a community, where they will have the opportunity to deal with the opposite sex more closely “a formula to encourage sexual harassment one way or another”, creating a generation obsessed and fueled with sexual fantasies, and filled with sexual frustrations, and where “in a desperate attempt” try to satisfy those fantasies, by crossing “King Fahd bridge” connecting Saudi to Bahrain hoping to release all this social and sexual frustration, with the help of Bahrain and Dubai’s “Russian coalition”.
Aside from sexual frustrations that is “well advanced in its effects” to the social lives of those communities spread all around the Arab world, the rates of sexually harassed and raped women are increasing rapidly, most of which are not reported due to the “followed shame” women has to bear with, from what is known to be “masculine sexist communities”.
