Marie Antoinette returns
This calls for reviewing cultural backgrounds that consider such jobs inferior
With her attempt to criticize the negative phenomena associated with the national anniversaries’ celebrations, a fellow TV presenter asked her guest: “Would you send your kids to the parade along with the maid and the driver, with all due respect?” Such an insulting phrase is usually used in Kuwait while talking about low-class things. This indicates a great deal of cruelty and disrespect that surely calls for an apology.
It is absolutely unacceptable now that we are living in the twenty first century, to blame people for doing low-class jobs and look down upon them, as long as they are doing their jobs honestly to make a decent living. This calls for reviewing cultural backgrounds that consider such jobs inferior and look down upon domestic helpers despite all the educational and religious efforts exerted to counter such ideas. We no longer live in the days of Marie Antoinette’s who wondered, while in her ivory towers, why the poor were revolting against her husband, and when she was told that the people cannot find bread, she simply said “let them eat cakes!”
Generally speaking, we do hope that the phrase was a slip of tongue that was said spontaneously and unintentionally because the colleague does trust both her maid and driver to take care of her children. In addition, last year, Kuwait passed a law for domestic helpers protecting their rights and minimum wages and limiting their working hours, vacations and indemnities. The story does not end here. What really surprised me were the comments made on the news and all the filthy talks and insults that showed lack of proper manners. Those who believe in human dignity and preach about it should not unleash their tongues towards a lady, even though she made a mistake and expressed herself wrongly. Where are your manners and good advice? Is it proper to insult others and call them names? It is definitely right to lecture about manners provided you yourself possess them. —Translated by Kuwait Times