Bangladopian Maid Arrested for Doing a 'Bobbitt'

The news that a housemaid “did a Bobbitt” on her Arab employer has got many people here in Dubai coming out in sympathy for the maid.

According to The National, a 35-year-old Bangladeshi maid was arrested after getting fed up with being sexually harassed by her 70-year-old employer ‘who is from an undisclosed Gulf country’ and used a kitchen knife to perform the corrective surgery.

Hang on a moment – according to 7 Days, it was a 20-year-old Ethiopian woman and her boss was 76, while The Daily Mail refers to a 26-year-old Ethiopian emasculating a 78 year old Emirati.  The AFP and PTI agencies, too, refer to the guy as being an Emirati.

Well, as they say… don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story!

What we do know is that this 27½ year old Bangladopian ‘lashed out with a knife’ at the GCC-Arab-who-may-or-may-not-be-from-the-UAE, slicing off his private parts, and the guy was taken to ‘Dubai Hospital’ (wherever that may be) … or perhaps Rashidiya Hospital, as speculated by some of the papers.

It is alleged the Bangladopian flipped after being sexually harassed by him for many days. According to another newspaper, the maid was raped the first day she arrived and her employer continued abusing her. On the day of the incident she claims he asked her to give him a massage. She got angry, went to the kitchen to get a knife and attacked him, a police official is quoted as saying.

Some of the media, short of a good picture to go with the story, reconstruct the implement of destruction, ranging from simple kitchen knives…

To a picture of a knife with what looks remarkably like red currant juice dripping off it….

The Boston Speakeasy takes a different, more uplifting approach…

The UK’s Metro added further excitement for its readers with links to other stories including “Penis graffiti on St Petersburg bridge dropped from Russian art competition”, “Man has ‘mini’ tattooed on penis to win car” and “Penis-shaped rock discovered” just to whet their appetites.

Worldwide reaction has been pretty heavily on the side of the maid. ‘Absolutely brilliant. Well done to the maid’ sums up the majority of writers to media sites.

‘We always hear cases of maids being sexually abused by their employers, yet the sad part is that they have no recourse to justice at all. This lady did what she had to do, because in her situation, this seemed the only solution out of her misery’, commented one person; while another said ‘Very well done... hats off to the maid.. Now he will regret for the rest of his life... That’s what we call KARMA!!!’.

Yet another mused ‘Well well......Now she will have her own Wikipedia page like Lorena Bobbitt’; while someone else helpfully suggested ‘Next time cut and dip it in boiling water. The owner might need some soup after discharge from the hospital. Well done Ethiopian’.

A blogger to the Random Forest site said: ‘I wrote this with my legs well and truly crossed, wincing in pain as I tried not to think about it. I bet he will think twice before pushing things this way in the future!’

On the other side of the consensus were the likes of Boston Speakeasy: ‘I don't know what the punishment for this kind of crime is in Dubai, but you got some comin' to ya. Payback's a bitch, bitch.’

What no-one seems to have thought about, however, is what the old guy was doing as the maid went to the kitchen, took out the knife and presumably then undressed him to the point where she could actually do the wicked deed. Did he just sit and wait, hoping for a spot of S&M with her? I mean, if some woman started wielding a knife close to Junior and his friends, I can assure you I would move pretty damned fast.

And how easy is it to sever a man’s penis? And is it easier done when erect or flaccid? I mean how many of us have really sharp knives in the kitchen? Did she just slice through with one fell swoop or did she have to saw away at it? I think we should be told.

According to Dubai-based plastic surgeon Dr Luiz Toledo, if the penis had been kept iced and there had not been too much of a time lapse, it could be re-attached and function again, at least partially. Now that statement begs a lot of questions, doesn’t it? Did the Emirati go place his penis in the ice compartment as he was calling the police? (There’s a lesson to be learned by us all!)

The surgeon who performed the reattachment said it took several hours and that phallic reconstruction involves the use of skin tissues and soft bones from the patient's forearm and leg. More questions come to mind – I think I will have to scour the pages of Wikipedia for an answer!

Seriously though, the UAE and other Gulf countries have come in for repeated criticism from human rights groups over their treatment of millions of foreign workers, mostly Asians. The watchdogs have also sharply criticised the sponsorship system, still in force in most Gulf states, by which workers must be sponsored by their employer and which has been likened to modern-day slavery.

Police have been reported as saying that maids committed 665 crimes in Dubai last year, including ‘113 illegitimate relationships’.

"We always warn bosses about abusing maids in our police campaigns because bad treatment might backfire on them,” said a police spokesman. “People need to treat maids well because they are also human and have rights.”

Oh really?

Take the recent case of a Filipina maid whose employers refused to let her resign after she was mentally abused and forced to work for 16 hours per day, seven days per week for three years. The maid, a mother of-one, had attempted to resign at the beginning of 2011, giving her employers a one-month notice. After her employers wouldn’t let her quit, the maid escaped and fled to the Philippines Overseas Labour Office. Her employers responded by declaring her as an absconder at the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department.

She was  arrested and taken to the Dubai immigration prison and is set to be deported. Foreign labour is regulated in the UAE under the Sponsorship (kafala) system, which ties the legal status of the migrant workers to their employer, making it illegal to leave their sponsors without the consent of the sponsor. Sponsors, however, are free to fire (and thus cause the deportation of) their workers whenever they please. Even in cases of abuse, if the worker leaves her sponsor without permission, she loses her legal status. The absconding charges result in a visa ban, meaning the worker will be forbidden from entering the UAE again.

Consul General for The Philippines in Dubai, Benito Valeriano, has said there is nothing he can do to help the woman: “She has been listed as an absconder... we can’t do anything - this is the system here.”

But back to our Bangladopian once again. A fitting end piece (cod piece???) to our story:

In the same month that this news broke, appeared another story which got scant attention over here in the Emirates. We all know that the world’s only Phallological Museum is located in Iceland, don’t we?

What? You don’t? Perhaps you should visit www.thepenismuseum.com which boasts ‘The World's Greatest Penis Site - New way to look at tons of penis pictures. Quality penis photos can be browsed using our penis search tool.’

The museum, run by Sigurdur Hjartarson in the tiny Icelandic fishing town of Husavik, has just received its first human penis to join the extensive collection of phalluses from whales, seals, bears and other mammals. Several people had pledged their penises over the years — including an American, a Briton, and a German — but Pall Arason’s was the first to be successfully donated, Hjartarson said. The 95-year-old Icelander's pickled penis will now be the main attraction. "I have just been waiting for this guy for 15 years," he told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview.

Now, with the addition of Arason's organ, he has 276 specimens, many suspended in formaldehyde or dried and mounted on the walls.

It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes!

Emirates NBD - A case of Incompetence, Stupidity or what, pray tell?

I used to think that Emirates Bank was OK. It gave a fair service and in general was quite reliable when it came to the services it offered. But things have changed recently – at least if the Ibn Battuta branch is anything to go by.

Not once, not twice, but three times in the past two months I have tried paying in a cheque to one of their newfangled electronic automatic pay-in machines – each at a different branch – and each time, having religiously followed the instructions given, I have ended up with the machine swallowing the cheque and then had to run around for about half an hour afterwards trying to get some bored bank official to try and put matters right … which normally took up to three days to do.

This morning I had another cheque to pay in and so decided I would not use one of their auto machines, but instead would use a teller. I went to the Ibn Battuta branch and had to go all the way to the far end of the bank to get a pay-in form which I duly filled in. But now I had to go all the way back to the entrance to get a queuing ticket before going all the way again to the far end to wait for a teller.

They used to have a collection of Filipino and Indian tellers who were pleasant, competent and gave one confidence in their service. Alas no more. Emiratis have taken over and despite the fact there were four people on duty, three of them (the Emiratis) were giggling and gossiping among themselves (at one stage even taking  a look at the ID card of an Indian customer and falling about laughing at his picture – unforgivable IMHO) while the fourth teller – an Indian woman – carried on diligently. So I was not surprised that it took ten minutes of waiting to pay in my cheque.

But what was this? I was told you can no longer pay in a cheque at the teller counter, but that you have to use a machine that stamps a time code onto your paying in slip and then post it into a box. One of the giggling Emiratis took me over to show me (back to the front of the bank once again). She had thoughtfully stapled the cheque to the paying in slip.

See how easy it is, she told me condescendingly.

Excellent, said I; but where do I get a stapler to attach the cheque to the slip?

You ask a teller. They will be happy to help.

So I have to queue up for a teller to ask if they will staple the cheque to the paying in slip so I can then post it in your post box?

Yes…. Or you can use one of the envelopes provided.

But there are no envelopes provided.

In that case you can ask a teller for one.

I left the bank wondering if this is a case of stupidity, incompetence or simply that the bank is having fun at the expense of its customers. Given the behaviour of the Emirati tellers earlier on, I suspect the latter. That, together with a touch of stupidity and incompetence thrown in just to make sure the customer is inconvenienced to the max.

Geez! What a bank! Or for that matter… What a country! How come anyone stays in business over here?

Concerto for Nokia and Orchestra

Is There A Local Word For Culture?

I was talking to an Emirati the other day about what in his eyes made the United Arab Emirates so special. His eyes lit up as he prepared to indulge in what appeared to be one of his favourite monologues.

The UAE, he intoned, has only been in existence for 36 years – yet in that short space of time it has given rise to one of the highest per capita incomes in the world whilst at the same time is a melting pot for nationalities from right across the globe. “Here you will find freedom of expression and huge opportunities for everyone, which is why there is such a huge influx of people and why so many people are making large amounts of money.”

I forbore to tell him that the money was in the main being made by the locals on the back of the hard work of imported labour – mainly from south and south-east Asia – who were becoming more and more disillusioned with the way ever rising prices were diminishing what was once an attractive get-rich-quick proposition but that now meant that many an Indian or Pakistani worker could in fact be better off if he found a job back home.

But his clincher really got me thinking. “You could think of the UAE as a cultural meeting point and here you will find cultures from right across the world are all well represented and embraced.”

Now, this was an argument that took me totally by surprise. I have lived in the Middle East now for nearly ten years – the majority of it in Saudi Arabia, where the local cultures are there for all to see and experience. Love it or hate it – and I have to say I am personally very enamoured of the Saudi traditions – you cannot escape the ever present culture of a proud people.

But the UAE? Apart from a few short dances involving Emiratis throwing model rifles in the air and waving their canes about, whenever there is a grand opening or a national day celebration or whatever, I had never thought of the Emirates as being cultured in any way whatsoever.

“Look what is happening in Abu Dhabi,” he continued, warming to his theme. “There they are building a new Guggenheim museum, which will stand cheek by jowl with a new Louvre. Go to the Emirates Palace Hotel where there is currently an exhibition of the works of Picasso. Or look no further than Al Ain where every year they have an international music festival which is vying for a place on the international music festival circuit.”

I could hold back no more. I have visited the Picasso exhibition three times and could count on the fingers of one hand the number of Emiratis I have seen there.

And this year I actually did go to the Al Ain music festival, unlike the majority of Emiratis. For nine days there was a series of concerts held in a variety of venues such as the Al Jahili fort – superb backdrops for what could have been some memorable evenings. But no, in fairness they were memorable, though not as high class cultural events, unfortunately.

On one evening, for instance, they had the first performance in the Gulf of Mozart’s Don Giovanni sung in Arabic. Singers had been imported from Lebanon and Egypt and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra flown in from Poland to perform in front of the local sheikh, together with anyone else who cared to drop in for a bit of culture.

True to local tradition, the sheikh arrived about 40 minutes late, everyone followed in to take their places and the concert began. The sheikh appeared to enjoy himself and laughed at the bit where Leporello sings about the “conquests” of his master which include 1,003 seductions in Spain alone. (Could this have ever happened in Saudi? Well apart from the fact that concerts are banned in the Kingdom, who would ever dare perform an opera about a womaniser bent on seducing every female he meets?) But if said sheikh can laugh at the naughty bits, then it must be OK – so everyone else joined in the muffled laughter so as to be in with the crowd. With plenty of Yalla Habibis and Leporello hardly able to keep his paws off  Donna Elvira’s tits (got a good guffaw from Al Sheikh!) a good time was had by all.
No one minded when Don Giovani (also referred to as Don Juan in a couple of places and even Al Don - now that’s more like it!) laddered his pop socks when his sword got caught up in his costume. When the Commendatore was killed, they used a red sash to represent the blood covering his white tunic (no, not a dishdash!). Very convincing, until the red sash slipped off the body, and the body had to come to life again just long enough to move it back onto his chest!

It wa a shame though that come the interval the sheikh suddenly remembered a pressing appointment elsewhere and as he hurried off, so did the majority of the audience leaving the performers singing to a half empty house.

Fast forward two evenings to the first performance of بيتر والذئب - Prokoviev's famous children’s masterpiece Peter and the Wolf sung in Arabic. Here the rich tones of a famous Arab actor were accompanied by a student orchestra from Italy. He had a beautiful voice and it was quite poetic to listen to - he even did the duck and bird voices a bit like a tom and jerry cartoon!
But as the evening wore on, and as the next work to be performed was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, a cacophony of mobile phone calls almost drowned out the strains of the orchestra. Concerto for Nokias and Orchestra might have been a better title for Beethoven’s classic. Emiratis, it appears, (and it was almost entirely the Emiratis who were behaving in this way) are inseparable from their phones, even when it involves interrupting a public performance to the detriment of everyone else.

So my conclusion from albeit limited experience here in the UAE is that the local tradition of throwing money at something, purely to proclaim to the world how cultured the Emiratis are, fools no one. And the relative handful of expatriates who actually bother turning up to these events only underlines how uncultured the place actually is.

A place on the international music festival circuit? Hey. Pass me my mobile phone. Just don’t make me laugh!