Living with the Arses (Part ll)

The Satire of Abouarse

Why Abouarse? An office friend asked me after I started writing on this blog. I said, ‘Why not’? He said, ‘because you have lots of Arab friends who at one point will resent the chosen name’. Playing dumb (oh, I am good at it!) I just shrugged my shoulders then moved on.

On the second thought, Yeah! Why Abouarse? To someone who has been living in the kingdom for 30 years, Abouarse seems a clear sign of ignominy on my part, of the country, people and its culture. Matter of fact is that ‘Yes’ I must admit I do know little about Saudi Arabia than any Filipino expatriates who have just arrived to work in the kingdom. It is not because I did not work hard to know more about Saudi Arabia – my traveling in the kingdom in the 80’s and 90’s surely did not help either – it was because, in my opinion, the secluded mindset of Saudi society back then stops us from accessing these information which unlike today, everything can be found in the cyber world and in the mass media (Prints, TV channels and Cable TVs) and is now available for everybody to pick and learn from. However, a lot of things had not changed in the country since I arrived in 1980 – for one, we still do not know the name of our neighbors. Isn’t it odd?

Ok, let me put it to my perspective. Abouarse, when taken literally, is probably not a good choice of name for such a serious undertakings like this blog especially in this part of the world where the very word ‘Abou’ (Father) is highly respected and beloved. Yet, according to colleagues and friends in the office who happen to be Arabs and Saudis alike, it has the twist that is so peculiar, imaginative and out of the box which can also be attributed to the objectives and subjects I have in mind and that is to offer something new if not interesting to write based on my own experiences and insights which may or may not conform to the norms of the so-called secluded society I am in right now. As my dear friend Wij said, ‘The father of all Ar_es’, Abouarse is a pseudonym. It has heads and ends, wits and idiosyncrasies and will officially be my ‘nome de guerre’. Fictitious yet truthful in nature, which reminds me of some odd but true to life occurrences where my previous Saudi boss always tells me to show him some work related results ‘Weekly, weekly’ which the true meaning is translated to ‘Quickly, Quickly’!

Funny thing is that they are all around us from a catering company sign that says ‘Badkuk Catering’ to a warning sign in a shopping mall that says ‘Sitting down for woman only’ were acceptable pseudonyms or call it ‘puns’ and are characteristically negated and molded into our very lives. Now, does these harm us as a society? Nope, it just shows us that today we, Saudis, Arabs or otherwise with different beliefs and understandings were built with strong characters and are open-minded enough to make mistakes whether intended or not, which makes us all humans.

As to the colleague who asked me to change Abouarse, I’d say ‘thanks but no thanks’. This is not a client/agency creative brief that requires consensus to both parties. This is a liberty I am entitled to exercise and keep. Just like what Saudi Arabia is, the famous expatriates line goes like ‘take it or leave it’.