Sir Bartholomew in Kuwait - 1938
We've been blessed with oil. I've been telling my friends that our attitude should be to improve ourselves rather than taking it for granted. Then we started imagining how life would be for us without oil. It was one depressing thought. Our education sucks, health care is worse than death and many of our people are shallowly into useless trends. We need to change all that and improve. We've nothing to offer to the world but oil, without it we'd be like Botswana, (whatever Botswana is).
Just for fun, I made up a conversation that would've took place in 1938, had the Brits not discover Petroleum in Kuwait:
Sir Bartholomew: Goodness Gracious, it's rather blistering here, don't you say Nigel?
Nigel: Indeed your Excellency.
Sir Bartholomew: What's up with these bloody Bedouins in that bloody Dish-Dash of theirs.
Nigel: I reckon they took it from the Scots, Sire.
Sir Bartholomew: So what's the word lad? Did we find anything?
Nigel: Owt Sire, only sand, lots of it.
Sir Bartholomew: Are you indicating I'm in the back and beyond for donkey's year being courteous with those barbaric pillocks for naught Nigel?
Nigel: Bob's your uncle Sire.
Sir Bartholomew: That's Gormless! Crikey Nigel - It appears like we've naught to pinch from this pig's ear. We've no need for them.
Nigel: Shall I address Her Majesty's Navy to annihilate them Sire?
Sir Bartholomew: Dear God, no Nigel, they smell like cabbage. Let them go to rack and ruin in their dessert.
Nigel: Jolly good then. Pip pip cheerio and all that rot Kuwait!
***
In other words, the world isn't being nice to us "3ashan suwad e3yoona". The world can only take so much bullshit before it loses it. So lets not be self centered and lets make our country proud.
P.S. As much as I'm fascinated with the British Language - YES! For me, it's a different language - I've no knowledge nor understanding of it. Also, as much as I tried, I can't get a hold of the accent. (But I can master Hic, Chinese & Jamaican so that ought to make up for it). :P
P.S.S. No offense intended towards the United Kingdom and Botswana as countries, governments and as citizens. I was just trying to make a point.
17 comments:
LoL @ Dish-Dash!
Don't be all distraught about that buddy, when you come back inshalla you'll see that there's a lot of people "ybaythoon il wayhh" here, especially those with entrepreneurial spirits who are starting their own businesses with novel concepts to boot.
enigma,
Some really call it that! :P
Ziniqua,
I'm not agitated at all. But the amount of ignorant people I see is ungodly. Let's not forget almost 10% are well educated. Even if they mature, which they will sooner or later, it takes long enough.
you are right 1001 nights, a minority but growing
LOOOOOOOOOOOL! Tara enta filem! :P
Ya3ni jad jad esh6arra 3alaik you come up with such a conversation, laa o use their jargons ba3ad :P
High five to you my friend, you just proved that you have much much much spare time on you. Ermm so what do u think of doing a nice big project for me? You seem to have the brains and the time ;P
BTW, guys I'm not talking consumer products and franchises we buy. I'm talking world wide recognition. A brand name we could offer to the world. Something big. We're capable but we're not doing it. Oil isn't enough we need a plan B. Something like Sony, Saatchi, Amazon and/or general equipment. Instead of renting a name or buying a product I'd produce it! That's where the real money is. Multinational Kuwaiti Corp. And no, "Alta3awin" and/or "Americana" don't count.
perfect stranger,
If you're a Business major I might already have the project. I also do watch BBC America & have a Brit friend. So usually "algi6 mena" a word or two. It's basically an old conversation put into typing.
I don't do accounting projects though I'm done being "mo3aqad". :P
Yea, I was aware of their riches, almost all of that diamonds goto cartells and companies like DeBoer. And yea the AIDS rate is almost 38%. As for making the dif. in the future of Kuwait, it doesn't take one. It takes thousands of dedicated people.
I'm with you in that we need to be ambitious and try to create global brand names. But we ought to seek things in which we have some sort of competitive advantage or that we can attain a competitive edge in…and for now, all we’ve got is oil. We don’t have the human capital to create a Sony or a Saatchi. As for other consumer products, the only thing I can think of that we would have an edge in is clothing with a Paris/Middle Eastern flavour. :) I know we’ve got people who can pull that off because I’ve seen it done in exhibitions and some people come up with creative ideas that I wish we could sell to the Western world. But other than consumer products, I would think more along the lines of a financial service, and Islamic finance is booming right now so that would be my call in terms of what we should specialise in. BUT with Bahrain and Dubai both wanting be financial hubs in the Middle East we have a lot of competition within our own region. At any rate, these are examples of some already successful multinational corporations that are Kuwaiti:
PWC – Logistics (this is the STAR in my opinion because it’s way up there in the ranks with globally recognised logistics companies, I'm not sure but I think it’s number 15 worldwide)
MTC – telcos (this is multinational because it managed to acquire licenses to operate in various countries which can be very difficult)
Wataniya – telcos (also same as MTC)
Ya3ni we have hope!
Two plagues though:
1)Government regulation and bureaucracy and too much politics involved in the business world
2)Human capital way too little training and abysmal education even for some supposedly “educated” people in some cases
ziniqua,
I totally agree with you!
But here are some things I've noticed.
I've seen what Saatchi in Kuwait does, it's good, not as good as other local small time companies (I've seen one that's GREAT). As for financial services Bahrain has a huge competitive advantage I mean it's widely recognized, even at lectures they speak of how Bahrain is the Middle Eastern Luxemburg (I'm not sure about that but good for them). It's also recognized world wide. MTC, I think now they wanna call it Zain or something? well anyways i've read that it's the 4th largest telecommunication company in the world. (Our 40 fils a min. goes a LONG way!)
Clothing lines, I think for us to start in that business we should start from foreign exhibitions to receive Kuwaiti recognition. Agility Logistics is a great company, I've nothing to say about it. But, as you said Government, Regulation AND bureaucracy. I mean Regulations are passed on the behalf of a certain company's influence. Which is very wrong and hurts. The less the regulations the bigger the chances for a healthy economy.
As for man power, we've been discussing that 10 minutes back! My friend is an ex-Human Resource manager for Frito-Lays in the Middle East. He was telling me how we can't be any better if only we relied on locals - 6ab3an he explained how Huge countries (excluding Japan & China) BOUGHT the experts with citizenships. What'd we do? Give citizenships for actors? Matter of fact we're quick learners we can have a foreign business developer and/or a smart recruit to take care of business and make our people work as interns and learn from them out of experience (we happen to be GREAT at that).
We've lots of hope - Hope, nontheless, implies that we've been defeated. And believe you me I'm anything BUT pessimistic, yet, hope isn't enough. I've been doing my mini-research and I'm gonna give it till 2010 (if I'm alive by then). I "Hope" then things would ultimately change.
tara we do have a lot of foreign managers who train younger Kuwaitis. Sometimes problems arise though when the manager who won't pass on information to Kuwaitis because he doesnt want them to take over his job..ya3ni yseer fee shwayya conflict of interest sometimes.
ziniqua,
Yeah I've worked for a bastard who was basically bias towards his own people. "Bs esha6ir e9eedha wehya 6ayra". :P
o0 Btw, I guess things will take its own path whether I liked it or not. I know I alone won't be able to change a whole country, but maybe I find crazy people like me who would love improvement.
I've been discussing those things with people - Most said: "Shbitsawi ya3ni? khertik ib takheth ma3ashik wetred baitik, you won't change anything." or "nazil entikhabat?"
So yeah. Inshalla khair.
P.s. Thanks for pointing many things out for me. I'm always interested in discussing things with intellectuals.
Did you just call me an intellectual...(zain walla gedart agi99 3alaik) I mean thanks thanks ma tga99ir hehehe il thakaa2 ni3ma min rab il 3alameeen shinsawee ba3ad
Now hold on a minute!
I just said I think you got a stronger arguement than: Take your pay and spend it ignorantly. But yeah ethaka2 is ni3ma.. (allah yzeedich o0 yarzigna). :p
Haha! Thanks for the giggle. Too bad there are people who still can't face this bitter reality as they still back up their retarded attitude.
the criticizer,
Thanks for reading! :)
Post a Comment