All I was doing was enjoying my favorite meal mloukhieh, until I was stopped by an article I read on the newspaper that I was eating on (an old, unstylish, habit I can't seem to get rid of).
Bassam Shariff, a 58-year-old Palestinian man, was found dead yesterday morning in his car parked on Al Wahda Street, opposite the Pierre Cardin outlet in Sharjah. The palestinian man died in his car last month after living in it for the past THREE years! And where did that happen? In the UA-friggin-E!
Can you believe this nonsense? In a country which boasts the highest rates of millionaires and billionaires in the Arab region ... an old man ... tired, lonely and broke ... slept every night in the front seat of his broken-down old car, till one morning he was found dead.
Though he was living in penury, and had not been keeping well for some time, he would never accept alms from peopleBassam Shariff is survived by his sister who lives in the US and his brother who works as a doctor in Palestine.
I wish I'd known the proud Bassam Shariff, the man who lived and died in his car yet never accepted alms from people. I probably lived about an hour away from Bassam, but I guess even if I knew him he wouldn't have accepted anything from me; his pride wouldn't have allowed him to.
I googled Bassam Shariff and only found ONE lousy mention to his death on another outdated blog. So basically no one really gave a shit about his life and no one gave a shit about his death either.
I only made it through the chicken wing before I realized that the mloukhieh doesn't really taste as good anymore.
24 comments:
All we can say is God rest his soul.
There's a homeless lady that sits in the same spot that I passed by everyday for 6 years and she does not accept anything, once a woman tried giving her 20 dollars at Xmas and she refused, one man tried giving her a jacket and she refused too.
Homeless people sometimes are just sick of it all to care and they are very proud
Homelessness is a big problem, I don’t know what problem Bassam had but they are usually alcoholics or drug addicts, some of them become homeless first and THEN they become addicted to something to forget.
It has been ages since I ate on a newspaper :) you reminded me of my taita and mama.
at least this guy had a car to sleep in ,,,
anyway i dont know why we feel sorry for those ppl ... we are all homeless ... we are such a pathetic nation ...
God rest his soul, This is our arab brother man, m7ammad bin rashed is building a yacht that will cost 300 mil, and it's operating cost will be 30 mil a month, I saw this here in the US on the T.V, and the foreign minister of qatar just bought a 200 million pound appartment in london, the gulf nations have I think more than 150 billion extra money due to the high oil prices!!But this man has to die in his car!!Ya rajol Alla yel3anha mn 7aya o alla yel3an hek ummeh 3arabeyeh!!Sammet badani 3la hal sobe7.
7aki fadi: yeah, no one knows what his problem really was. Allah yir7amo
isam: historically we might be a homeless nation, but in the end of the day, we've all got houses to sleep in, I just felt sorry for this old man cuz he had a car for a shelter.
mohanned: I feel your pain brother ... and sorry for sammit el badan 3ala hal sobi7 ... :(
u want my comment wela agolak balash:::)))))
ya cd allah yer7amo .
just for your information I was born and raised in uae I only left uae for studyin in jordan and now am in abu dhabi from what am noticing really UAE is no more a good place for low income ppl there is no mercy here anymore.
regarding Bassam al sharif yes i read his story and i was affected becoz he is palestenian ,arab and a moslim after all.
7aki homeless in US and Canada r becoz of addiction as 90% of the cases
homeless here in UAE are beocoz of low income or no income almost like will smith story in persuit of happiness.
I have no sympathy for homeless people in canada and the US, well in all the west because governments try to so hard, they have subsidy housing, soup kitchens welfare and many programs to help them if they will exept that help, but they chose this life because of their sick addictions...
but in the arab world there is no help for the homeless and the poor, so I have lots of sypmathy for them and pray for their faraj....allah yerhamo bassam sheriff, inshallah he is in a better place now.
tiger: you are absolutely right, when it's a homeless person in the West, it's because he asked for it. But in this part of the world, homeless people are victims of their societies.
sam: very true indeed, thanks for your input on this.
hi I just remmembered a story of a german visitor who turnd homeless in UAE check how they treated him the media , the ppl and everyone
and compare to basam el sharif u ll know why he refused anyone help
http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Society/10104319.html
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/02/08/10102708.html
this was a very rapid story
it started with this news
http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Society/10102343.html
imagine this guy problem was solved in a week so the question in mind i have to ppl in UAE how many homeless indians,pakistanis labours we have ?????lets say 50,000 how many ppl r homeless here with no respect at all.
just becoz this is another white man story who needs help would make feel a bad taste in my mouth these issues would make me a racist although I dont want to be..
u know that in a recent statistcs that uae have more than 500,000 violaters for visa's that means those guys dont have a labour card or dont have a contract even if their work lords decide not to pay he have to shut up and accept it
sorry guys it is not an abbuse for UAE but really am born here and I like to live here but the laws here are not for humans at all:(
o salametkooo
Oh my :( May God bless his soul. People who dont beg although they are in great need have dignity. When a man is needy it so shows in their eyes before they stick out their hands for people!
tiger: You are absolutely right, I remember the German guy's story very well! Thinking about it, it's ironic how the whole nation stood beside that guy AT THE SAME TIME that Bassam Shariff died! Thanks for this Tiger!
mrs. al ramahi: Yes, he did die with dignity, although we should question ours now that he's dead.
one comment I have on the picture of 300 (guys who r reading this is not at all related to the post so dont bother reading)
I just saw the movie yesterday(hush am late I know bas ebte3raf fee awaleyat)
so I just couldnt stop laughin man durin the whole movie and remmembered that pic ur showing especially when they showd zerchious taba3 el fors as almost a gay or homosexual hehehehe
man u rewind a serious movie for me allah eysam7ak tool el wa2et bat'7ayal haifa wara hal 300 3adalanjee elee 7ateehom bel felem enoo hala2 betbayen haifa hala2 betbayen abadan hahahaha:)
my friend just kept laughin when I told him we almost got kicked out from the cinema maaaaan :)
allah la ywa6rezlak u owe me a serious tragedy movie now:)
Sam: I absolutely agree with you.
whos:
I answered your tag and added a video, go check it out:D
tiger? u naughty boy!
i have a question, is homelessness an issue in UAE? is it an issue in any of the arab countries? as far as i know its not so in Egypt for example, which makes it very possible that the more money the country makes, the more homeless it produces, maybe because money toughens the heart? :s :( too sad
Mariam:thx for the compliment...
Regarding Homeless no it is not that egypt has a lot o bekafee el report 3an a6fal el shware3 elee men fatrah hadool homeless wekteer menhom bemasr o bel ordon el homeless is too much also
give u an example u know nabilion ?the homeless guy who wears nabilion cloth and walks bel balad bel 3abdalee be dowar el da'7leyeh this is a small example..
hala2 the sad part in UAE here is that they r tryin to show that there is no poverty at all bas if u really dig down the surface my god how much rotten things u find the problem is with very low income for labours and middle layers that makes it impossible for them to coop with prices increases especially rental in a mad way so u have a big numbers of bachelors that cant bring their families some of them ends up mad ,some of them just try to suicide yes it is a big issue here but hidden beneath and no one really care to know about it
Guys,
The more complex and mixed the community becomes the more we will see this..In jordan there are families and tribes which plays a role in making this disease less apparent for us, the honor factor just like with Mr. bassam god bless his soul also plays a role..We were raised not to ask for anything from anyone unless i is our right..As jordan grows more and more in population we will face more and more of these issues, look at the crimes now, it is on the rise..
bass im saying that one guy in 3abdali is not an "issue", homelessness in europe and america is REALLY and issue, they are not single cases... maybe i think its because that ppl somehow end up somewhere, u have to remember a man having some kids and daugheters amongst them will do ANYTHING to yostor 3aliehom, that does not happen in US and europe, feesh sharaf!
and by the way who-sane, the old way of displaying comments (in the same page rather popup) is much better, i get the yellow strip everytime i click on comments and it annoys me, its bad user experience
and i dont know the 3abdalee nabelion, bass i know the captain jack in share3 sar7 el shaheed, 3ind dowwar el madeeneh, he litteraly lived up 3imad 7ajjaj's cartoon of abum7ammad staying on the jazeerah because he couldnt cross the streets, except that this guy litterally lives on the jazeerab between the two lanes! and he never begged!
The most common causes of homelessness here in the United States are alcoholism, drug addiction, and serious mental illness.
In a medium-sized town in Montana a relative of mine lives in, there is one schizophrenic homeless guy known and loved by everyone in the community. He travels around town with a shopping cart with his possessions. Prior to going insane, he was apparently a well-educated engineer. It shows, since he spends much of his time trying to arrange all the stuff in his shopping cart in the most "aerodynamic" fashion possible.
One day, after spotting him across the street from a Burger King, this relative and his wife decided to buy the poor guy some fast food. When they attempted to give it to him, he refused to accept it. "How do I know that isn't poisoned?" he irritably inquired. They ended up just setting the bag on the side of the road hoping he would eventually take it.
Another time, this relative spotted him on a street with a toaster under one arm. He approached a power line by the side of the road. He managed to pry open a box full of electrical outlets. Then he plugged the toaster into one of the outlets and made himself some toast. Here is this guy, sitting on the sidewalk next to a toaster connected to a power line, just having some breakfast.
The sad truth of the matter is that these problems with the homeless on the streets in the United States began back in the mid-60s when they started to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill. It was hoped, with the availability of new drugs for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, that patients could be handled on an outpatient basis and lead more normal lives. Besides, nobody liked the idea of committing people to hospitals against their will for long periods of time. Unfortunately, it has proven very difficult to get the most severely mentally ill patients to remain on medication.
tommy one thing to be added here in middle east we have a lot of mental patients but the ratio of seeing them on the streets is less than USA due to one reason the existence of family connections and ties that would not let that happen on a wide range but for a small minority cases .
now the issue in USA that anyone almost lives by his own away from his family , parents some of USA citezens maybe spend months not seeing or talking to their close family memebers .In middle east it is diffrent the family is a priority or number one priority sometimes more than than the family memeber himself that what makes family memebers endure less homeless causes.
what we r discussing here is that middle east convergence to western life style is making these things appear to the surface which we r not at all acustomed to.
but in other hand we have perfectly sane ppl who r homeless and that is a big diffrence than USA and west in general becoz those ppl r totally ok but there is no money,no goverment and no family to protect them from being homeless.usually it was no money ,no goverment that is ok but now the family role in protecting its members is weakend and almost smashed which causes us to hate this issue in a very wide range.
Tiger: shu hada tiger, shu hal ilngilzyat il7leweh ma3 tommy? wallah ma 3riftak .."convergence " hadi kilmeh ikbeereh..ha3 ha3 ha3.
Ana 3am bamza7 :)
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Sho mfakreh la3ad ana baqait ustaz bel3loom el 3anglazenaneyeh bezamantee bas jar 3alay el zaman o msheena wara el homal haaaaaaaaaih donya malhash aman:)
Convergence 3a fekrah kelmeh ekteer ebtomro2 3alay bekotob el network '7asatan lama akoon mal6oo3 night shift from 10PM to 6 AM baseer a'3ared kotob o convergence ma3 7alee ...
mariam ayyash: homelessnesss is not an issue in the UAE at all, it's the least of the country's problem, and that is mainly due to high salaries and more importantly is that almost 90% of the UAE population are expatriates. So a homeless person in the UAE is really such a big deal, especially if he's palestinian, because there are so many palestinians in the UAE, and UAE nationals are very well taken care of by the government. So if an expat can't afford to pay his rents, he has an alternative of going back to where he came from. Can't comment on Egypt as I don't know.
tiger: you're right, there is poverty in the UAE, but it's too of a small deal to mention. Labourers in the UAE are not tricked into working here, they know exactly what to expect, and they get what they're promised, with few exceptions and that's when they go on a strike and block Sheikh Zayed Road. Like the 2 dirhams incident. (http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Employment/10107760.html)
mohanned: absolutely! tribes and families make it less of a phenomenon in Jordan because they take care of each other and they assume responsibility of that person's problem.
tommy: thanks for your input.
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