Fifty years ago, if a man would walk in the streets wearing a shirt and jeans, he’d get awkward looks from people in the neighborhood. In Kuwait, the Dishdasha was the only suitable clothing for a man, and with time, the society started adapting new traditions as it engaged more with the rest of the world. The traditional clothing, Dishdasha for men and Abaya for women is now optional choices. Just as this concept of clothing was changed in the eyes of our society, so did other things…

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Committing to traditions isn’t always the right thing to do. Since traditions are created from the ideologies and habits of our ancestors, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were correct. For example, a woman getting a job was considered shameful; however; with the quickening paces we’re living in the present, women are needed in various positions. If we were to stick with that part of traditions, we wouldn’t have a single working woman in Kuwait. We wouldn’t find women in government institutes giving their papers along with a couple of Dinars to the janitors to do their work while they sit on their desks playing with big calculators.

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The characteristics of a culture are formed by its society’s traditions. That civilization is known by its clothing, architecture, language, etc. Even though sticking to traditions without thinking isn’t good, leaving the whole heritage behind is worse. It’s as if the society is losing its own touch and taste, and instead of being an independent culture with its own customs and ethnicity, it turns to a mini-other-society –– whatever country it was influenced by.

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When we enter Starbucks and watch a group of Kuwaiti college students sitting around one table having a friendly chat together completely in English without a single Arabic word, talking like American blondes slowly pronouncing oh-my-god and doing the quotation fingers on “whatever”, that is called DeKuwaitization. The same goes to American or English high school students doing their last year and don’t even know the Arabic alphabets.

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We were born with Arabic names to Arabian parents in a country where its first language is Arabic, our ancestors worked as traveling merchants and they were able to speak diverse languages yet they still kept their own language alive. Our language represents us and our culture, giving it up means to give up our own history and our own heritage.

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The revolution of other societies especially English societies, had cast its shadow on many other cultures, the thing that led to implant an idea in the minds of the young generations of cloning those societies as much as they can. Sadly, they chose the wrong side to imitate. Like our globe, each entity has two sides, one in the light of virtue and glamour, admired by all and all aspire to become that society, while the other side hides in the darkness of vice, despised by those who know of its existence. What our youth is doing nowadays, copying whatever other societies do, in the name of trend and popularity on the expense of mind and soul sophistication. These walking Copy-Pastes chose to wear glasses in a trendy way instead of simply using it to read, aiming to embellish their eyes instead of nurturing what lies beyond them.

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A few hundred years ago, Arabic was a language that other civilizations aspired to learn, and it was considered a privilege for someone to speak it; The Golden Age. Arabic is the language of the Holy Quran, the language that God spoke with, yet now we’re ashamed to speak it. The dust of weakness might have encrusted it, but the vivid heart of the entrancing language is waiting for those who wish to embrace it. This language once was and still is the language of science, literature and education. Those societies rose by taking every beneficial source they could have, and what better source or richer than our Arabic and Islamic books?

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Language is the major way of communication used around the world. The main way of using it is by speaking it. Speaking a language is passed on from generation to the next without the necessity of being educated to practice speaking a language, unlike writing which demands someone who is capable of practicing the skill or writing in the first place. When we speak to our children and people around us with a language other than our native one, we unintentionally embed our words with a different identity carrying different values and ideas than our own which will all be stored in the highly absorbent brains of the next generations. Values like speaking politely, recognizing the pattern and mood of a the speaker and benefit from the wisdom within the spoken words are all learnt by speaking our native language, by abandoning it we are changing the course of our future and slowly yet firmly disposing of the authentic spirit of our society within us and within our youth and replacing it with an unknown variable that will shake the very foundation upon which our great civilization was built. Once a civilization is destroyed, all that will remain are the ruins of the past.

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P.S: “Elli Mala Awwal Mala Taali” (He who has no past, has no future.) – Kuwaiti proverb

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Tags: Bazaar Magazine, kuwait, P.S, Society, Traditions

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