The Nonsense of Racism and Religious Intolerance.

Doha International Airport.

I told a story recently and the person to whom I related it was so amused that she told me I should write it down and possibly even publish it. She thought my verbal stories were in complete contrast to my written ones, which were usually written in a serious vein. I’m not sure if the humour generated will transfer to print but I’ll give it a try. Oh, and I dedicate this article to Damian, a good friend, who will know why when he reads the fifth paragraph. 

I started the article as a re-telling of one of many amusing incidents that happened to me over the years. I very quickly realised that it had a deeper significance in that it highlights a difference in cultures and how some people are comfortable and tolerant with difference and others are not. To my mind, both intolerance and its darker cousin, racism, are both rooted firmly in ignorance. I don’t mean lack of intelligence; I mean lack of knowledge or familiarity with different cultures and races.

Travel has made the world a smaller place and one of the benefits has been a better understanding between peoples leading to a decline in racism. Yes, I know it is still with us but arguably to a much lesser degree (some current political leaders excepted). When I was younger, it was rare to see a black person or even less so a Muslim or Hindu. That never gave me an attitude but it did with lots of people – lack of knowledge lead to lack of trust – these people looked and acted differently to us so we didn’t trust them, and worse in many cases. Then, as people travelled more and got to know more about different races and cultures, they found that the people were exactly the same as themselves, with the same hopes and dreams and love of their families. Some people have told me they were embarrassed to have thought badly of or distrusted people of a different colour or culture to theirs.

But enough of philosophizing; this was supposed to be an amusing article so here we go: As the incident occurred over thirty years ago, I am fairly sure that the chief protagonists have passed on to their eternal reward. Nonetheless I will change the names just so that no one is offended.

On a flight from Karachi to Bahrain, back in 1993, the plane developed engine trouble and had to divert to Doha, in Qatar. I had been in Karachi for a visit to our business there and a Board meeting with our partners from Pakistan with our Bahraini partners. We had flown to Karachi on the previous day from Bahrain.

There were five of us, two Bahrainis, one of whom was actually a Sheikh, but a very nice guy with no airs or graces about him. We will call him Mehmet; his colleague was called Mohammed. From the Irish side, there was John, Patrick and myself. The first four were Directors; I, being the junior person, was the Company Secretary.

We were, needless to say, seated in business class; in fact, we had the entire business class cabin to ourselves. It was a Gulf Air flight and at that time, most of the flight crew of that airline was either British or Irish. We were being looked after that afternoon by a lovely young Irish woman.

When the plane landed in Doha, our hostess informed us that the delay was likely to be a lengthy one (in the end it was nearly four hours). She told us that unfortunately we would not be allowed to disembark in Qatar; why, I have no idea, maybe there was a visa requirement. She then told us that we could have whatever meals, snacks and soft drinks we wished, but because we had landed in a country which forbade alcohol, she could not serve us alcoholic drinks while the plane was on the ground.

The two Bahrainis shrugged; they rarely took a drink anyway. John and myself accepted the situation; we had already had a glass or two of wine on the way from Karachi. But Patrick seemed to be about to have a panic attack; he started sweating and began appealing to the stewardess, her boss and even requested the captain. I think on reflection that he had a drink problem and he had been liberally downing it on the first leg of the flight. I had a quiet word with the chief stewardess and asked if anything could be done. Within minutes, she offered Patrick a coke. He said he hadn’t ordered it but she told him to try it and see if he liked it, with a wink. Our man immediately copped it and took a long slug. He nudged me and said ‘Jaysus, she’s after lacing this with Bacardi.’ Thereafter, for the next four hours, Patrick drank numerous ‘cokes’ and proceeded to get totally hammered. By the time the plane eventually took off for Bahrain, he was snoring loudly. If I’m not mistaken, he wasn’t the only one to partake of the ‘coke’ but everyone else was still in good shape.

When we landed in Bahrain, it was very late at night and the airport was virtually deserted. The Sheikh told me that he and his colleague would go through Bahraini immigration and would be processed very quickly. The three Irish would have to go through the foreigners channel but as it was so late, there were few people and we also got through quickly. The Sheikh had also told me that he had his jeep at the airport and insisted on meeting us out front and driving us to our hotel. We proceeded through arrivals, collected our bags and headed out to where the Sheikh was waiting in the largest jeep you ever saw, a big American vehicle. He was driving and Mohammed was in the passenger seat. We took the very spacious rear part of the vehicle which had two sets of facing seats and settled in for the short drive to the hotel. Unfortunately for Pat, he slumped into one of the rear facing seats.

It very soon became clear that Pat (who had just woken up) was still very inebriated and seemed to be convinced that he was in a taxi. He started mumbling and although his words weren’t entirely clear, he had obviously misunderstood the situation with our partners. His ramblings went something like this: “buckin Arabs, you spend the whole day with them and you agree with all their feckin proposals and then when they land back in their own country, they leave you on your own and buck off home.’ John tried to warn him, saying, ‘Pat, you’ve got it all wrong, Sheikh Mehmet is driving us home in his jeep.’ To which our friend replies: ‘He is in his ****ix, if he is, why are we in this buckin taxi.’

I had been watching the two front seats for their reaction to what could be a very embarrassing situation between partners, but I need not have worried. The two in the front were shaking with laughter; in fact, one had tears rolling down his cheeks. Pat seemed to detect the commotion, turned round, realised his mistake and almost had a coronary on the spot.

‘Oh Jaysus Christ, Sheikh, I’m fierce sorry, sure I thought we were in a taxi. Jaysus, tis fierce kind of ya to bring us home.’ The Sheikh told him to relax and that it was no problem – he understood the situation. Feeling relieved and more relaxed, Pat recovered somewhat and began chatting freely although slurring most of his words. ‘Tell us,’ he says, ‘you boys are Mushlims, aren’t ye?’ ‘Yes of course we are Pat, all Bahrainis are Muslim.’ ‘So, that means ye can’t enjoy, a few, a few a, dr, dr, dri drinks, can ye?’ ‘Well,’ the Sheikh answered, ‘most of us abide by the religious prohibition on alcohol but some of us occasionally enjoy a drink.’ ‘Holy Jaysus, I cou, cou, couldn’t live like thash…and tell me, do you know this stuff about having to pray five times a day? Do ye have to do that too?’ ‘But of course Pat,’ answered Mohammed, ‘it’s our religion, all Muslims do it.’ Emboldened by the conversation (and the drink) at this stage, Pat answered, ‘well if you ask me, it’s a load of ****ox, I mean, pray away if you want to but having to get on your knees five times a day, well buck that.’ At this stage I was worried that he might finally have caused major offence but not a bit of it. Our two friends were still shaking almost uncontrollably with laughter. They saw us to our hotel and wished us good night.

They told me subsequently that they had never seen anyone so drunk or behaving so amusingly; they knew he meant no harm and was just voicing thoughts that many if not most westerners probably feel but would never say for fear of causing offence.

So we escaped without causing a diplomatic incident. The night has been recalled many a time, usually over a few drinks and never fails to get a laugh. The partnership between the Irish and Bahrainis is going strong to this day and any cultural or religious differences have long since been absorbed into the collective psyche. If only other people would follow suit.

When you think about it, all religions have strange customs when looked at by an outsider. Our Bahraini partners recognised that and were prepared to indulge an Irishman who had had a few too many drinks and was voicing his prejudices. If more people were prepared to be tolerant and even to laugh at themselves, it would make the world a more pleasant and infinitely safer place. When you look at it, many wars have some religious aspect to them and most terror groups invoke God as a reason to justify their deeds. If we were all more tolerant of each other’s religious beliefs and customs, we might be able to live in peace and harmony.