Job Discussion Forums

[scot47]

ZDF News just reported that three French Muslims on their way to Mecca had been shot in the desert near Tabuk.


Be careful out there.

[007]

"At least three French citizens have been shot dead in an attack near the historical site of Madain Saleh in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
A fourth man was reportedly seriously injured when the group they were travelling with came under fire about 17km north of the city of Medina"
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69589F9B-00F2-40D1-9C38-FB371F89D250.htm

The Saudi TV confirmed 4 French citizens have been shot dead.

[cassava]

Atrocity near Tabuk

Saudi Arabia will always have problems recruiting good teachers because of incidents such as this one. Although there are some good features of life in KSA, the incident near Tabuk illustrates once more that one's existence can be precarious, at best. The result is that many of the teachers who go to work in the kingdom are desperate people who were unemployed and are unemployable in their country of origin.

[The_Prodiigy]

Saudi Arabia CAN be a volatile environment .

However, and yet ... ... the most depressing aspect for me was the soul-numbingly boredom of that dreadful place, linked with the jaw-dropingly abysmal infrastructure and lack of any discernible progress.

I mean, if you take into account the amount of $$$ that must be flowing into the counry and has been doing for past decades ... ... we were CONSTANTLY SHOCKED to evidence how run-down the streets were.

Truly - I stuck it out for over a year and failed to see any benefits to making a life here.

[BajaLaJaula]

Truly a very sad situation....We do not know what the motivation was for those cowardly, possibly demented individuals that carried out this deplorable offense.
The risk continues there for Westerners as well as for Saudis to become victims in these types of attacks. The Saudi government must do a better job of rooting out these morons...as they appear to have started to do since the attacks on Sept. 11.
I must disagree however with the statement that those in KSA working as teachers are desperate individuals. Some do fit this mold, while others are weighing the chance of danger, and more accurately of boredom, in order to take advantage of an opportunity to make a little fulus and come home to pay bills or start a business, etc.
Unfortunately there is risk anywhere in the world...many of the more dangerous areas to live are in the US...possibly just a few streets down from where you and I may live.
As many have already stated.....living in the M.E. is not for all...but some find the opportunity a good risk....they end up staying for several years and maybe longer.

[veiledsentiments]

Just to update the original news story so that more details are in the thread for future readers.

A 4th victim died this morning... a teenager. They were all French. Some in the group were Muslim, but none of the victims.

VS

[battleshipb_b]

[quote]I must disagree however with the statement that those in KSA working as teachers are desperate individuals. Some do fit this mold, while others are weighing the chance of danger, and more accurately of boredom, in order to take advantage of an opportunity to make a little fulus and come home to pay bills or start a business, etc.
Unfortunately there is risk anywhere in the world...many of the more dangerous areas to live are in the US...possibly just a few streets down from where you and I may live. As many have already stated.....living in the M.E. is not for all...but some find the opportunity a good risk....they end up staying for several years and maybe longer[/quote]


Most of us are not desperate individuals. We've come here to work, to earn our bread and hopefully, learn a bit more about ourselves and other cultures. The desperados out there are the misfits and oddballs who seem to people many of the EFL departments and institutes in this part of the world. They are so hungry for power and for self assertion and messing up people's lives that they give us a bad name. Westerners here are not perceived in a very positive light - the way some of us live and our values disgust many Saudis. It's basically ignorance and lack of dialogue that causes this misunderstanding.

West must learn to meet East - they've been extending their hands out for a long time and all we do is slap them down. No wonder the rage is building and culminating in such incidents as this tragic murder of the four French citizens. They see us, they see our lack of respect for their culture and they blow up. Don't forget close to 60% of the population in the Kingdom is under 30 and many of them are unemployed. They don't see a bright future. They're confused and worried about jobs, about job security and nation security just like the rest of us. They are also confused about the criss-crossed messages that are being sent to them by agitators elsewhere. Look at what the disgruntled youth and extremists in Algeria have been doing for the past 15 years - random pointless murders, not only of foreigners, but of their own. This situation mainly arose because of unemployment and lack of opportunities. The Kingdom has to address these problems here and now.

We Americans aslo have to address problems - sending our boys out to battle is not the answer. This is not their war. It's not their ideology. If we don't fix things in the Middle East, the Kingdom may end up like that. The last time I was in LA I was a stunned witness to a drive-by shooting. So there are risks everywhere, not just here in the Kingdom.

Let's show them that we Americanos and westerners can be decent hardworking and respectful people. Let's show them we're not all weirdos, pervs or desperados. Let's show them that they are misguided in thinking that we're all corrupt, immoral and perverted. They're fed these ideas of westerners by the media (theirs and OURS), by the extremists, by the agitators outside and inside and by the fundies. Islam is a moderate religion ad socially/culturally adaptive religion. Look how it's practiced in Malaysia - tolerance and mutual understanding. it's all a question of interpretation. After all we in the west have committed many atrocities in the name of religion. Look at Ireland. Look at the Klu Klux Klan - many of these people are supposed to be devoutly religious but religion on what terms? I went to school if Klanners and boy are they sick!! Their religion is racial supremacy and they preach this in their churches. Still do but much more covertly than before. Look at all the Neo Nazis in Chicago. It that isn't religious hatred, what is?

Let's hope that the powers that be in the Kingdom seriously examine the issues that drive people to commit this kind of atrocity.

Let's make sure we vote Democrat in the next election. Let's try to meet halfway and understand the other. They're not the enemy.

[moonpie]

The Cluckers were and are not religious. They are racial purists.

Moon

[cassava]

In my original post, I said that MANY of the people who go to work in the kingdom are desperate and I maintain this position. If you want evdence of this, do a quick check in the English departments of most jurisdictions. Find out how many teachers left good jobs in their country of origin to come to Saudi. If you get honest responses, you will quickly discover that many people were either unemployed or unemployable and simply could not make financial ends meet in their native countries. It is the Saudis' obsession with "English medium" education which allowed many of these teachers to get jobs.

[Cleopatra]

[veiledsentiments]

The coverage on the religions of the victims has actually been interesting. First it was said that they were all Muslims. Then the articles said that none of them were Muslim (because they had gone to a non-religious site while the rest of their group went to Medina).

Then once the teenager died, it came out that his mother was Moroccan, and that his father had converted last year. Surprising that the marriage had been accepted without his conversion beforehand as is the norm. Morocco is a bit more liberal, but they were living in Saudi... so perhaps he 'converted' before going there. But... I speculate...

I found in one article that one of those killed was a teacher.

VS

[Stephen Jones]

[Stephen Jones]

[cassava]

Gratuitous and illogical ad hominem remarks cannot conceal the fact that many EFL teachers go to Saudi because their chances of obtaining good jobs in the countries for which they are passport holders are negligible, at best. This is a simple statement which can be proved quite easily. Furthermore, when I worked in Saudi Arabia, I often heard many teachers threatening to go back "home" to the U.K., Canada or U.S.A. because they were so unhappy in the kingdom. Of course, few teachers ever made such a move because, deep down, they knew the economic disaster that awaited them at "home".

[Bindair Dundat]