Many sites link to us and has our logo in their sites this doesn’t mean they endorse us or that we agree to all what they write
Just like all who were shocked, offended and disgusted we were too while we came across a blog by Emiratis who has unfortunately been very insensitive to the mangalore plane crash. This blog doesn’t represent the Emiratis thoughts of this tragic incident. We as Emiratis were not raised this way and our prophet didn’t teach us this!!!
Like many Emiratis and Expats we found that post offensive and just because our logo is there it doesn’t mean we agree.
Many sites may link to yours but only our site was ASKED BY YOU to link to yours.
There is nothing offensive. only freedom to speak as one wishes. If you cant handle that, I’m very very sorry.
So please dont become like our ministries and back track. YOU approached us. Even asked us THREE times to come to your blog get together in person. Please give the WHOLE story not 1/2 of it.
Here is the whole story … we stumbled on your website and based on what we read here we thought that we shared the same interests and we contacted you as both had interest in both sites and about linking the website it came from the person we contacted N A which asked
(Do you have a site button or logo that we could place on our site as a link to yours?)
Then a post was written about us in your site and we appreciated it and wrote a post Al-Emarati.com in our website. Then today after an inappropriate insensitive post was posted in your website and after alot of people asking us about what we thought we wrote this post. With respect we didnt even mention who we were implying at. Then going through the same post again we read a reply from on of you guys which was rude, inappropriate and is just not right (by ultra[blue] at 7:38 AM to Ms. Useless Diploma) . We respectfully sent you this email.
((I would appreciate it if you would remove our logo from your website. As it is giving an impression that we are endorsing you and support what you say. Dont get us wrong you are free to write what you want in your website but we dont support such opionions and attitude.
Some of your articles and responses does not align with our vision and way of presenting the Emiratweet community.))
Thanks again
That’s the whole story!!!
Also, why do you keep saying WE when you post? You are one person and your posts never have any comments. At least when we say WE we are infact 2 owners and 4 total contributors.
No sense.
AEM you state there is nothing offensive on your site? have you actually read the post that posted regarding the loss of life in the Mangalore Air Crash? I am an expatriate who has lived in this Country for 14 years, my parents have been here over 20 years. I have never seen such a nasty attack against the expatriates in all my time here. Also the blog about the car accidents and that women and Pakistani’s can’t drive? You want to get your facts right before you start throwing accusations like that around. I totally support Emiratweet asking for their logo to be removed from your site which basically is bigotted and racist.
Actually, Emiratweet is an intiative of two people with many followers and contributors. As a follower and a contributor, I found your post very disturbing and not Emirati. This description of us Emirati’s, sounds vulgar. W e7na n7shm el nas w ma n’3la6 3alaihm. We never wish harm to anyone. Bl 3aks ntmana lehm kel 5air. So please don’t generalize us as Emiratis and if you talk then you are representing yourself only.
Alright, so where the heck is an Emirati Blogger with an Emirati Representative Domain that considers himself as the speaker of the United Arab Emirates? Honestly, you probably went to India, had a bad experience over there and now start dissing from the back? Or even better, in real life this proofs you as a Talking-about-others-from-their-behind! Congratulations your a disgrace to this internet part, already, AEM! You might reply back with “Get a Life”.. But dude, don’t you realize that there’s always a limit in everything? Talking about freedom of speech. Without these Indians(RIP), YOU wouldn’t have had the a lot of things coming to you. Appreciate lifem. While looking at your blog, your a person with knowledge and experience.. You’ve seen the World, didn’t you learn to appreciate things?
This can be one thing or other, but that was the cheapest Visitors Marketing to your site.. You should know better AEM… Darn!
So you basically say, that if I reach out to my colleague at work, and after a while I found out that he is a low life person who lives on undermining others and disrespecting them, I do not have the right to say “I’m sorry but I can’t be friends with you anymore?!!”
And Emiratweet has more compassionate followers than your blog will ever have, we just bring our talk to other platforms like Blackberry groups, Facebook, and Twitter, that does not mean the blog has no contributors.
To second what others have said, Emiratweet has an active membership which is not limited to responding to posts online. The organisation facilitates events where people attend in person and exchange their thoughts and views. These contributions do not appear on the website but feedback does go to those who write on this website, either through email, Twitter or personal discussions.
There is freedom of speech but there is also the freedom to disassociate oneself from those views with which one does not agree. This is what Emiratweet is doing by asking for the removal of its logo from AEM’s website – presumably as it views a public association with the AEM website as damaging to its reputation.
But dude, don’t you realize that there’s always a limit in everything? Talking about freedom of speech.
No I dont. Its all or nothing. And I am not willing to edit my contributer’s views on there as, when they signed up, I had told them that their posts would never be modified. And I stand by what I said.
It is a point of view. That particular contributer (If you check we have 6, and 4 are regulars) Our site is about POINST OF VIEW. Something this site here lacks with it’s uniformed tone.
Some posts are I agree… “nasty” but they do hold some truth to them. How many times have you heard an Emarati say (God damn those Indians) or (My zalama manager has it out for me)
You can run away from the truth, but these sentiments exist. I, unlike you, are not willing to pretend they dont.
This is one reason why I refused to come to your blog gathering. Because sooner or later something which you, or many, or him, or her… do not agree with will be posted and then GOD FORBIT! An opposing view.
So no, if one of my contributers tomorrow posted that he was God and we should all pray to him (Which I can see Fahad doing) then so be it. he has a right to his opinion.
Ms. Reem: I found your post very disturbing and not Emirati.
Can you please define what an Emarati post is please? Why do we have this idea that we, as a nationality, are better than everyone, AND that we have to all be the same? Guess what? people are very different. I have men christian Emaratis of Egyptian origin, SERIOUSLY. Will we call her not Emarati as she wears a cross and a short skirt? You may if you want, but our GOVT says that she and me are the same.
Do you see what I mean? An opinion is an opiion. And if my giving my contributers that freedom means losing other people in the process so be it. All of the contributers are VERY well versed and VERY highly educated (though sometimes it may not seem it) and I know that they have points at the heart of their posts.
And truthfully, although he went about it the wrong way… his main point is very true. We have a population imbalance that is the worst in the world.
As for the pic… I kinda helped him with that one. lol. BUT I didnt know what it was for.
Anyways, Good luck with your site, and I for one will check it often as I have been. But I just had to point out that you contacted us, and we hold dearest the ability to voice our opinions NO MATTER WHAT. I may not stand behind his method, but I stand behind his ability to voice it 100%.
This is what Emiratweet is doing by asking for the removal of its logo from AEM’s website.
And when Fahad told me about the email from ET today while I was at work I told him to not be rude and tell them it will be gone by the end of today. Which it is BTW. No harm done. Agreed 100%.
Wow how very mature of you AEM. Sho hal a5lag mashallah 3aleik, mn wein t3alemthum?!
For the first time do I someone cursing his own blog visitors, you should thank God somebody is even visiting it! Someone who doesn’t know how to respect himself how will he know to respect others and how will others respect him?!
I feel sorry that you think you can represent Emiratis, but no, not everybody thinks that way about Indians or ‘zalamat’. Yes sometimes we do complain the we form the minority in the country but we do not wish people death. That is just not right!
As for the owner(s) of Emiratweet, you’re awesome please keep up the great work!
To AEM, You say that sometimes ppl curse other nationalities agreed some people say tht in ANGER that does NOT mean to wish others ill. You might dislike a person doings/behavior but u don’t wish them to crash and die a brutal death cause if u do that then let me tell you need help cause you are sick.
You say freedom of speech, so every time people say things that are unacceptable and insensitive your gonna say it’s freedom of speech, let me tell that your freedom ends when it crosses others freedom, so don’t blame it on freedom cause it is not an excuse. what is wrong is wrong. There are things that you can’t joke about cause there are limits for everything, do u get that!!?? What’s the point of good education if you are not well mannered, people will remember u for your manners not what degree u have!
You don’t just joke about people’s lives no matter wht their nationality is, people like u sicken me cause u don’t appreciate others lives you’d probably run over n kill others n still it wouldn’t matter to you. Remember that there is God. Your bad karma is going to comeback at you then and only then maybe you’ll regret.
Well of course I detest some of my bosses, but hey, I hate my Emarati bosses as much as I hate the Indians, zalamat or whatever nationality it is, it is their behavior that I do not like and not based on their nationality.
That said, if everyone has the freedom of speech, then the draw the prophet Mohamed cartoons are OK with you. Well, forget about that, we are all bad Muslims, right?!
And according to the Gulf News interviews with your contributors and I quote it here:
——————
Abdullah and Fahad, 26-year-old Emirati men who manage Al Emarati, a blog on life in the UAE, publish their posts in English because they want to change the misconceptions that many westerners and expatriates have about the UAE, Abdullah wrote in an e-mail to Gulf News.
“We blog in English as that is the idea behind our site, having an English site that is written by Emiratis and contains a real version of the UAE,” he wrote. “Especially today, with so many stories and misconceptions about the UAE in the media and online, we decided that having a local home-grown site in English would help even out these misconceptions.”
They write about anything from financial issues to movie reviews. “We are trying to get people to think and think outside the norm, outside the box,” he added. After publishing one of his posts on Al Emarati, Abdullah said he received about 50 angry comments. “But at least it got people thinking,” he said.
—————-
I don’t see how your way of presenting your blog would ever change the Expats misconceptions about us Emaratis.
Yes, our country is 90% expats, but is it their fault or is it our government’s who welcome everyone and do not really care about the imbalance it has created?, and their solution is to make Christian Egyptians or whatever other religion/nationalities as UAE nationals won’t solve our issues!
We like to “think out of the box” but in a constructive manner and not in yellow page tabloid like style, so yes, in the way you present your ideas in your blog you will get 60+ comments and that’s not marketing, because the bigger the shit is the more the flies.
and btw, calling someone who you do not know “*****” in your blog is just rude. and that has nothing to do with freedom of speech, it’s just plain simple rudeness.
Free speech is responsible speech. We can say whatever we like, but have to be aware that others will respond in the same free way- be it positive or negative.
I do not agree with the viewpoints or commentary on the blog in question. Does it matter?,..probably not. That is the viewpoint of one author. Whether writen or not, it will always be their perception and perogative to think and act in this manner.
It has less to do with being Emirati, and more to do with feeling a certain way towards a certain people.
One thing is for sure though, talking ill about the dead is always cowardly.
I 100% support Emiratweet for taking their logo off that awful blog. Sure, if the writers of that blog want to use their right to free speech to make offensive, racist, sexist and generally ignorant, ill-informed and stupid blog postings, that is their choice. But it is also the choice of Emiratweet to publicly say they disassociate themselves with those view. That is freedom of speech too.
I was shocked to see yesterday on that awful blog that one of the writers posted as a comment that a woman who doesn’t wear the abaya is a ***** and that he would pay for the defence of the rapist who rapes such a woman. I am pretty sure every Emirati woman I know would not agree with that.
AEM – noted.
I would also point out that while I have serious issues with the views expressed in the post in question I don’t agree with censorship.
The reactions to the post at least meant that a number of people have stood up and voiced the discomfort at this point of view – apologies to all for this rather long Mill quote but it seems apt, particularly the section on when opinions are wrong:
“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” On Liberty, 1859.