Before I commence, I must say that this post is about a phenomenon not about particular individuals. This is also not necessarily politically correct because politics is bull0cks anyway. Mostly opinionated and relatively harsh are also characteristics of this post. Enjoy (or not)!
Dear Expat, this is mainly a direct message for you.
Dear Expat-Worshipping Local, this is mainly an indirect message for you.
Welcome to Amman! I am sure you have been welcomed like kings and queens, or at least as princesses and princes. You feel special right? Of course. We are very hospitable and friendly. You do not even need a visa to come to Jordan! See how welcoming we are? We have to humiliate ourselves to get a visa to your country, but luckily (to you), reciprocity is dead, and you don’t need to go through the same! Residence permits are another story, but you are still lucky. You can obtain this in a couple of hours not a couple of months.
You come to Amman and then willingly or unwillingly (it doesn’t matter actually) start to gentrify its neighbourhoods, not by changing its solid facades, but by changing its “hard” faces (talk about 1st Circle and Al Weibdeh as prototypes). You stroll around, hop from one place to another, and your main language of communication is? English of course, even if it is not your mother tongue. Why learn Arabic? We all like to flex our muscles and show you how “educated” we are, and of course show you how much we detest our own language because it is not cool enough. You do not need to worry about encountering anyone who does not speak your language of preference, there is always someone willing to jump to the rescue. We were called Nashama for a reason!
“Up, down, right, left, here, please, water, bathroom, help, I feel sick, I am about to puke, hospital, I am dying…etc” are not words you need to learn in Arabic beforehand. We know it all in English … the most important thing is for you not to learn a single word of Arabic. You really do not need it!I beg you not to. Please! Thank you!
Now let’s get real … who do you think you are? And that is a question to both the expat and the expat-worshipping local? If you manage to answer this question, please continue … if not, try again until you find an answer. Or actually, maybe try to answer the questions below too. Who knows, they might be “insightful”!
Additional “insightful” questions
Expat:
- What makes you think you are privileged? (excluding your worshipping local, come on … it is an easy and obvious answer I had to exclude it).
- How do you allow yourself to spend years at an “exotic” country without even learning a few words of its “exotic” language?
- Can you identify your insecurities and how those are fulfilled in the way you are treated in this country?
Expat-Worshipping Local:
- What makes you enjoy effacing your identity?
- How do you allow yourself to denigrate the “exoticness” of your country and your mother tongue?
- Can you identify your insecurities and how those are fulfilled in the way you willingly serve expat linguistic and recreational needs?
Good luck in answering the questions. If you need any help, you can just shout HELP. In English of course … some Nashmi or Nashmiyyeh will come to the rescue, I am positive!
P.S Don’t get me wrong (not that I care, but I just feel like clarifying), I like you as individuals, I just don’t like you as phenomena. And that applies to both the expat and the local!
And another P.S … in case you are wondering what Nashama, Nashmi, or Nashmiyyeh mean, those all are derived from Chivalrous (Us, the Jordanians, especially the Ammani’s in the context of the post)