June 2006

University dashes summer jobs hope for students

Vol XXIX NO. 91 Monday 19 June 2006

By Amira Al Hussaini

With Bahrain University shut for the summer, God only knows what its 20,000-strong student body will be up to in hot, smothering Bahrain this holiday season.

Surely not all will be privileged enough to travel to cooler climes to escape the boredom and heat and soak in the culture, arts, good weather, fresh air and change of scenery, to name a few of the benefits people get from holidaying abroad.

While some have parents who are ready to spend on them until they are well into their late 30s, many feel obliged to fend for themselves - especially in larger families where wallets are already stretched and parents are counting the days until their older sons and daughters graduate from university and help shoulder the burden they have carried alone for years.

For those poor souls, a family holiday is off the books and the wait for their dear ones to complete their studies and join the labour market will be a little longer, as without summer courses at the university many students have to wait for the beginning of the next academic year in September to resume classes and complete the credit hours necessary for them to graduate.

Personally, I never bothered myself with summer courses while studying at Bahrain University for I was lucky to land a summer job as an intern at the Gulf Daily News, which started in the summer of 1991 and continues to this day!

I took my own sweet time, working and studying at the same time, taking a good five years to complete my Bachelor's degree, which wasn't a waste of time really if you consider the fact that I have worked throughout that period.

I fully understand that I am not alone in this experience and that some of the students are already employed and are studying at the university part-time. Therefore, I cannot and should not presume that all 20,000 will be wandering the streets of the kingdom, twiddling their thumbs and scratching their heads with nothing much to do this summer.

But with no figures available, it is quite difficult to gauge just how many students will be embarking on new exciting careers or driving around aimlessly in Adliya and Exhibition Avenue, joining devil-worshipping cults or simply melting into the crowds that make the Seef District an off-limits area for claustrophobic people like me.

Unfortunately, Bahrain's soaring unemployment problem may mean that not many students will be able to secure summer jobs, especially those who made no early plans and were caught out by the university's decision to axe the summer course, as part of its cost-cutting plans for this year.

Funny enough, our robust parliament will also be off for the summer and I don't think parliamentarians would cut short their well-deserved break to discuss what mischief our youth could be up to away from their books and studies.

Well, at least they won't be attending mixed classes for two whole months.

What a real waste of resources!

* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada



Is this the face of Islam we want to project abroad?

Vol XXIX NO. 83 Sunday 11 June 2006

BY AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

The circus has come to town. Seventeen people, including five minors, were arrested in Southern Ontario on terrorism charges, allegedly belonging to a Taliban-inspired terrorist organisation, plotting to bomb sensitive and commercial targets including the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Parliament in Ottawa, taking over a television station and last but not least beheading the Canadian Prime Minister!

How much of this is fact or the hallucinations of a demented mind is hard to determine now as the court hearings are continuing and the investigations, which have now spilled over to at least five other countries, are shrouded with secrecy in what has become today's hottest issue on all television channels and in newspapers.

The arrests came as a shock to many Canadians, including a family we were having dinner with on the same night the news made the headlines.

Considering that my husband and I were the only Arabs and Muslims in their living room, there were a few minutes of awkward silence until the size of the calamity which has hit otherwise peaceful Canada seeped in.

In a country that has worked hard to dissolve all and any of the differences between the scores of ethnicities and races which melt in its cosmopolitan pot, what many cannot understand is how can Canada breed its own brand of "homegrown" terrorists?

If those arrested have in fact planned to commit such atrocities, many find it difficult to imagine how citizens who were apparently fully integrated into Canadian society and were born, raised and educated here have turned against their countrymen and hold such extremist ideologies, which spew hate and destruction of the country that has embraced them and treated them as equals.

I don't want to jump the gun and sentence those still being heard in court, but in this mad, mad world, although such terror plots are mind numbing, they aren't impossible to imagine.

Muslim extremists have also openly shown their fangs and wholehearted support for similar unfortunate acts in the past.

If anything, such an endorsement of terrorism by extremists is exactly what has brought untold harm to the very religion whose principles they claim to be upholding.

Is this the face of Islam we want to project wherever we go? Are we really a bunch of lunatic hardliners, whose only obsession in life is destroying anything and everything that goes against our teachings? Isn't Islam the religion of peace, tolerance, compassion and mercy?

If convicted and found guilty, this entire episode is extremely disturbing as once again a handful of Muslims have tainted the reputation of the entire Islamic world and painted us all as terrorists.



Shell out for World Wide Web or go fly pigeons!

Vol XXIX NO. 78 Tuesday 6 June 2006

BY AMIRA AL HUSSAINI

I sure don't understand what all the fuss with our national telecommunications company Batelco is all about.

So what if they have changed their Internet packages and the customer will have to dig deeper into his pockets to satisfy his quest to keep abreast with happenings in the developed and not-so-developed worlds, access information and news on taboo subjects that are not available in the mainstream media and waste his entire day freely downloading overpriced games, songs and movies (which are a total waste of time and energy if you ask me)?

For those who cannot and will not live without the Internet under the disguise that they need to keep in touch with business and personal contacts through their e-mails, MSN or Google Talk, I say tough luck!

Either live with the assigned threshold, pay more money or better still, get a carpenter to build a few cages on your rooftop and call the Pigeon Society of Bahrain (I swear they exist somewhere) for professional help on how to raise and train carrier pigeons, which could fly for thousands of miles carrying messages.

If kings, scholars, rebels and military leaders of epic and mystical proportions have used the flying rats for relaying crucial information before Alexander Graham Bell came up with his Satanic development - the telephone - I don't see why you can't use them effectively too.

Moreover, the bird flu scare is just a hoax and even if it was true, it won't happen in Bahrain for our efficient Health Ministry has taken all the measures possible to avert its outbreak in our beloved kingdom.

And even if the ministry's claims are shaky, our robust and alert parliament, which has been elected by the people and for the people, will surely look into the matter and come up with a foolproof plan to save the existing population and all future generations that will walk the land.

Health scares aside, caring for and breeding pigeons can be a very rewarding pastime. If you get young ones involved, it will surely distract them from dangerous pursuits they can learn about over the Internet, such as drugs, pornography and Satanic worship rituals.

You see, we can kill more than one bird with one stone!

Look at me here, all alone in boring Canada, with unlimited access to the Internet for about BD7 per month.

What did I do throughout the cold winter months? Bingo! Instead of going to ski resorts and making the most of the frosty spell, I spent all my free time indoors online, stalking friends, relatives and whoever else was available on the World Wide Web. Now I guess I will have to stand by my window, waiting for my pigeon to bring the good omens!

Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada


Driven round the bend with red tape...

Vol XXIX NO. 75 Saturday 3 June 2006

By Amira Al Hussaini

I HAVE just returned from a written driving exam. Yes. To get a driving licence here in Canada and in many other parts of the world, wannabe drivers have to actually sit down, study and sit an exam, which will ask them about anything and everything ranging from weird road signs I have never ever come across in 15 years of driving to the permissible alcohol content in a driver's bloodstream.

They then have to spend two years driving with a licensed driver, before having to do a road test, which if and when they pass, could get their full licence.

Why am I sitting the driving exam six months after first arriving in Canada? Well, my laziness isn't the only excuse.

When I went to apply for a learning permit (stop laughing please) immediately after arriving here, I discovered that my name was spelt differently in my Bahraini passport from my Bahrain driving licence.

To tell you the truth, I was never bothered with how my name was spelt in English on official documents as all our official dealings were conducted in Arabic, so the blame completely falls on my head.

The Canadians rejected my licence as fake and asked me to come back with the "correct" documents.

I sent my licence to Bahrain to my sister, who dutifully went to the General Directorate of Traffic, requesting a new license with the correct spelling.

They referred her to the CPR office, which they said should change the spelling in their documents before a new licence could be issued.

To cut the story short, the CPR threw the ball back in my court, saying that I have to be there in the flesh and blood to complete the transaction - without offering to pay for a first class return ticket to Bahrain! Canada isn't exactly around the corner, but then who cares?

When I returned back to Bahrain earlier this month, the first place I visited was the CPR office.

I got a new CPR with the spelling on my passport, which is by the way not how I spell my name, but then who is really bothered with what my preferences are?

Upon my return to Canada, I went again to the Driving Centre and applied for a licence, this time with two other Bahrainis who have just come to town.

We all produced stamped certificates to the centre, stating our names and years of experience, along with our Bahrain driving licences and passports.

The fussy lady at the counter accepted the documents, but after further scrutiny, returned them to us saying that the signatures on the letters weren't the same!

We explained to her how we had no control over who signed the documents at the Bahrain Traffic Directorate and since we got the letters on different dates, it could be that the officer in charge of signing them was either on holiday, has been promoted, demoted or even perhaps retired!

After checking with her boss and a lot of confused looks, and just as I was debating in my little head the best dates to return to Bahrain to get the correct certificates, she came back to us handing us our exam questions.

Phew! That was close. A driving licence is certainly a privilege here and not a right!

* Amira Al Hussaini currently lives in

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada