The Code

Seeing as there has been much of a 'discussion' on twitter regarding a UAE Dress Code campaign, I thought it deserved to be written about. 

On Tuesday June 19th, The Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development in the United Arab Emirates, Dr Abdul Rahman Al Owais was questioned over the possibility of enforcing a UAE Dress Code on a Federal level. An article by Khalid Al Ameri on The National newspaper accurately described the situation. The twitter account @UAEDressCode was created by two women @noonworld and @SimplyAsma to campaign for the cause of seeing more moderately dressed people in the UAE public. They came under intense scrutiny by members of the community who didn't agree with having a law nor a campaign. 

The previous Friday, a certain #StopBinThaneya trend began to emerge; what appeared to be a smear campaign against a Jalal Bin Thaneya over his comments on Twitter. This trend brought light to the issue as I realized that his comments and comments of others were being mixed and mashed into a catastrophic US vs THEM session on Twitter. People creating new accounts to dish out slander against the country and its people, whilst replies from others who took offence to this behavior by replying with the same vulgarity, others simply read what others had tweeted and decided to make a reply or baseless statement of their own. This I believe is a result of people not knowing how to constructively argue but also ignorance of the core problems in the issue and simply picking on what they don't like about the 'other' and saying it out loud as a reason for or against a dress code. As a result, the UAE Dress Code is branded as a campaign of hate and racism. I don't understand how certain comments makes the @UAEDressCode account representative of those (or ANY faction for that matter) individuals who threaten and slander as well; they are not an official account. 

A few things to keep in mind so as to not look like an idiot and get into senseless arguing:

Why people think it is necessary,

What the measure of decency is,

Where the code starts and ends,

How much of an effect it will cause on every individual,

Contrary to suggestions, it is not a case of Emiratis vs. Expats. Not all Emiratis agree with having a dress code, nor do all Expats disagree with a dress code but it seemed to bring out the racism that a minority of individuals on both sides of the argument have had bottled up. 

The reason it has come to wanting a law is that citizens of the UAE have tolerated enough of people not knowing or understanding their beliefs, and the tolerance has led to an ignorance of many whom by the way seem shocked that citizens suddenly want their beliefs implemented, which isn't a belief specific to the locals either, in fact a large Muslim majority want to see things implemented as well as many non-Muslims and expats. Some can say that its our (Emiratis) fault for not speaking at the time it was happening, and that maybe we shouldn't have resulted to gradually tell people but instead enforce a law to begin with, or even allowing the Emirati population to be outnumbered by those that don't agree with them. 

I certainly agree with having a public decency in dress code.Though I may not agree with some of the comments or attitudes, I certainly commend the people behind the @UAEDressCode account as well as @Binthaneya for their vigor and love for the UAE and its Islamic traditions which this country and its constitution are based on.