Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

  • Easy Ways To Teach Kids
  • Bookworm’s Book
  • Books!
  • Contact Bookworm

Camel jockeys exemplify the difference between moral and shame cultures

March 18, 2018 by Bookworm 13 Comments

A powerful HBO documentary about the beginning and end of using children as camel jockeys highlights the difference between Islam and Biblical morality.

UAE United Arab Emirates Islam Muslim Boy Camel JockeysOne of HBO’s better shows is Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. It has a 60 Minutes format which sees it have three relatively “in-depth” stories per hour of show. Since I don’t follow sports, the stories are often new to me, so I learn from them. Some of them tremble on the line between pathos and bathos, but overall they’re interesting and humanist without tumbling into political correctness.

And sometimes, it turns out, a story can change the world. Just recently, I learned about one such story.

The story I’m about to tell you actually began in 2004. That was when Real Sports aired an expose about camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates, a deeply Muslim country. Someone has that expose on video and, while the picture quality is poor, I recommend watching it:

If you do not have the time to watch, the ability to watch, or the desire to watch, I’ll sum it up quickly: At the time this video was made, in both the UAE and entire the Arab Peninsula, the ubiquitous camel races that are integral to these desert societies relied on child jockeys to ride the camels in the races. The trainers, with the knowledge and complicity of the fabulously wealthy sheikhs who owned the camels, would kidnap or buy young boys from the poorest places in the world to train as jockeys.

When I say “young boys,” I do not mean ten- or twelve-year olds. I mean two-, three-, or four-year olds. These enslaved children were then housed in compounds where they would do endless menial labor caring for the camels, were systematically starved and drugged to stunt their growth, and slept in the outdoors on the dirt, because the inner buildings of the compounds were used for corporal punishment (whipping and hanging in chains) and for rape. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Islam, United Arab Emirates Tagged With: Ansar Burney, Arabian Peninsula, Bible, Camel Jockeys, Child Abuse, Ethics, Islam, Judeo-Christian, Morality, Slavery, UAE, United Arab Emirates

Top Posts & Pages

  • Bookworm Beat 12/4/19 -- Trump, Schiff's Schpy-gate, and more
  • The impeachment farce, not Trump's conduct, should shock the conscience
  • History, Holidays & Observances on December 6
  • History, Holidays & Observances on December 5

Recent Comments

  • Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove on History, Holidays & Observances -November 30
  • Project 1619 | Directions on A Response to Thanksgiving History as Told by the NYT
  • If All You See… » Pirate's Cove on Happy Thanksgiving — there is so much for which I am thankful

Bookworm’s Tweets

Tweets by Bookwormroom

How to Donate to Bookworm Room

Writing this blog is a labor of love. However, if you’d like to donate money for my efforts, please feel free to do so here. Thank you!

Archives

Categories

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2019 · Bookworm Pro News Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in