Dear Ali: I think it is amazing the way the UAE preserves its culture so strongly. How is this? What is it in the UAE that makes young people keep up with their culture? How is the culture preserved so well? What does a country need to do to preserve its culture? MB, US
Dear MB: As a cultural consultant, my ultimate goal is to raise awareness of and promote and preserve our culture and heritage. Preserving our culture in the UAE is a challenge and I am not sure if I completely agree with your statement.
We have a unique situation: we Emiratis are a minority of about 15 per cent in our own country, and so ultimately our culture becomes a "minority culture". This encouraged the Government to create strategies, events and programmes to spread the message of maintaining our culture.
The challenges of minority cultures are the same everywhere. There usually are two streams: one group would like to stick to tradition and tends to be conservative and maybe even exaggerate how bad things are in order to preserve the culture. The other group tends to be open to innovation and to changes in the culture.
The worst case is that a culture could be neglected and vanish. Great cultures in history have vanished, and many have evolved into something far different. Since we now recognise the values that are transmitted by culture, the ideal is to try to preserve things that might be otherwise lost forever while adapting to modern life.
Our Government puts a lot of emphasis on preserving our culture and creating awareness among the young generation about it. Still, the western culture that is represented by an even smaller percentage of the UAE population - about 10 per cent - influences us, since we travel to and study in western countries, and of course have the whole world available to us virtually via modern media.
Our sudden oil wealth is also an issue. While half a century ago most of our people had just enough to survive, now we have tempting choices of luxury, which play a huge role in diluting our culture and the simple life.
Values can be passed down to a new generation by parents, schools and society's role models. An educator's honesty and sincerity are key factors.
I sometimes think we are moving in the right direction and sometimes in the wrong one, but I believe our process is normal for any nation with such a population challenge. Still, the situation in the UAE is better than in many other countries around the world.
Dear Ali: I paid Dh200 for a recruitment office to apply for a job. It's been four weeks and I haven't received any response from them. Is it legal for a recruiting office to ask the applicant for a fee to apply for a job in the UAE? MS, Lebanon
Dear MS: Recruitment agencies in the UAE are not allowed to charge job searchers a fee, unless you are ordering premium services such as CV or cover letter writing.
If you were charged and did not have such services performed, you would have a legal case, but it might cost you time, money and nerves. If you were dealing with a company that is not located in the UAE, then fees might be allowable.
You can find UAE job openings at bayt.com, dubizzle.com and the Government portal http://jobs.abudhabi.ae/en/home/. All of these services are free.
Language lesson
Arabic: Ghash
English: Cheat
When you realise that someone is cheating you, in Arabic you would confront him by saying: "Enta ghashash", which means, "You are a cheater." To a female you would say: "Enti ghashasha."
