Xenophobia+and+education

Adapted from: Al Gergawi, M. (2009, April 5). //Xenophobia, and how education can help to beat it //. Retrieved 9 18, 2013, from Zawya: @http://www.zawya.com/blogs/mishaal/090405055659/

= Xenophobia, and how education can help to beat it =

The UAE is often __described__ as a melting pot, but it clearly is not. If anything, this country is a tossed salad with very little dressing to bind it all together. So let’s admit it: Emiratis and expatriates just don’t talk. They don’t try to get to know each other, nor do they visit each other’s homes, or have dinners together, they don’t even have a cup of coffee on Friday afternoons.

There are shortcomings in both camps: Emiratis need to understand that a great many expatriates are not leaving any time soon, and so must develop a relationship with them; while the expatriates need to understand that they cannot live in social pockets and not acknowledge the indigenous population of the country.

There are three __reasons__ behind this. The __first__ is purely a demographic issue: there just aren’t enough Emiratis to meet all the residents. Statistics on the percentage of the UAE’s population who are nationals vary from 8 per cent to 15 per cent. So __basically__ for every Emirati there are around five expatriates, and that’s at the high end of the estimate.

The second __reason__ for this social incompatibility relates to the historically conservative values of the Gulf region’s inhabitants, which are all too evident in the UAE’s national population. After the failed Pan-Arab socialist and liberal movements of the 1980s, the Gulf became veiled again and the mosques were filled once more. Some areas formed pockets of liberal and cosmopolitan exception – Jeddah and Bahrain, for example – but in __general__ the Gulf continued to develop in an Islamic context. It was not necessarily a renaissance, but clearly an improvement on what had come before.

Fast forward to the present and what you have, for the most part, is a population of young Emiratis whose social activities are very different from the social habits of the UAE’s secular workforce. So __while__ the mall is reserved for quick weekday shopping trips by expatriates, Emirati nationals actually consider it a main weekend destination. Other __examples__ of this include the different times at which nationals and expats go to cafes, and their differing choice of restaurants, often based on whether they have a licence to serve alcoholic beverages. What you quickly __realise__ is that there are few, if any, common spaces for interaction between those two social groups.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16pt;">These first two problems are perfectly understandable and probably inevitable: there is little we can do about either. But there is a third __problem__ that we can do something about, and I believe that within it lies a cause for hope.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16pt;"><range type="comment" id="466861918_6">The third and __final__ reason for our social incompatibility is that Emiratis, again for the most __part__, feel challenged by foreigners in the workplace because they feel that they don’t have the necessary skill sets to compete with them. That __leads__ to insecurity, which in turn leads to frustration, which in turn can most definitely breed xenophobia – a fear of strangers. As human beings, we fear what we don’t understand more than we fear what we don’t like. </range id="466861918_6">The responsibility for addressing that lies with the Ministry of Education and the related educational councils of the individual emirates.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16pt;"><range type="comment" id="466861918_7">The UAE has embarked on a massive development project over the past 10 years, and it has had to find the necessary skilled workforce to realise its vision. In addition to the issue of population numbers, many nationals just didn’t have such basic skill sets as business English and the ability to work in multicultural office environments – because of our weak education system.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16pt;">The point I’m making is very direct: the Ministry of Education has been working hard on a complete review of the way in which we are educated, and I’m sure they have developed ideas on the direction in which we need to go to address the shortcomings of the education system. It is an important endeavour, it is the number one priority of the Ministry. I believe this will be greatly appreciated by future generations and I sincerely appreciate such long-term planning: if anything, it’s a sign of public administration maturity.

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