Monday, February 26, 2007

Bachelor Boy

Sharjah shuts door on single men in the city
ANJANA SANKAR NEWS REPORTER

Sharjah is aiming to be “family friendly” as the municipality is asking all men to move out to industrial areas, or face eviction.

The rule is binding on all male bachelors who are staying in the emirate without their families.

The municipality wants to purge the city of bachelors and labourers as they are accused of causing nuisance to families by indulging in immoral activities.

All single men, no matter whether they are engineers, doctors or executives, are not allowed to live in the city.They have to find accommodation in industrial areas,” said Abdullah Al Shwaikh, spokesperson for the municipality.

Al Shwaikh said the municipality has started random inspections at residential apartments in co-operation with Sharjah Police, and hundreds of bachelors have been evicted in the past four months.

“There won’t be any more warnings as they [bachelors] have already been informed about the move by the media several times in the past. Now we are resorting to stringent measures like disconnecting water and electricity of people who refuse to co-operate with us,” said Al Shwaikh

“We have already allocated designated areas for labour accommodation in industrial areas. But that solves only part of the problem as even bachelors, no matter what category of the labour force they belong to, create embarrassing situations for families by their indecent behaviour,” he said.

When asked whether industrial areas have facilities to accommodate bachelors, Al Shwaik [sic] said a number of new buildings that suit all pockets have recently been built in the area.

He added the municipality has issued orders to landlords in the city to not have rent contracts with bachelors.

Responding to the issue, many bachelors who are currently living in the city said it is unfair to push them out just because a handful of people are indulging in undesirable activities.

“I don’t understand why I should live in the industrial area when I can afford to stay in a plush apartment in the heart of the city. I am not planning to get married in the next two years. Does it mean that I have a ban to live in the city until I find a wife?” asked Shinoj Karunakaran, a software engineer from India.

Shayar Salim, a marketing executive, said authorities will be driving bachelors to the wilderness if they force them out of the city.


This arrived in my In-box yesterday. It certainly has the aura of authenticity about it: Anjana Sankar apparently does work for Gulf News, and Abdulla Al Shwaikh is indeed a senior official in Sharjah Municipality. Furthermore the writing style resembles that of the local newspaper. The subject matter, too, is not beyond the bounds of possibility. If the Municipality can enact immediate legislation to ban bicycles (which incidentally had precisely zero effect on Sharjah's two-wheeled population), what limit can there possibly be to its powers?

However, where is the date on the article? What is its source? Is the email reproduced from Gulf News? Khaleej Times? National Enquirer? Sunday Sport?

I particularly like the way that we cause "...nuisance to families by indulging in immoral activities." and "...create embarrassing situations for families by [our] indecent behaviour..." and spend our time "...indulging in undesirable activities." Ah yes, that would be me.

I suspect, this is a wind-up, or possibly an attempt to put the wind up the 'male bachelors' [sic] in the city (as opposed to which particular other sort of bachelors? Hermaphrodite bachelors, perchance?). Would the actual author please step forward to receive a reminder that April Fools' Day is over a month away.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe it came from a girlfriend intending to give you a hint?

Unknown said...

The scary thing is, I'd believe Sharjah would try something like that!

You crazy immoral bachelor, you!

Quick, what's the last immoral thing you did? Oh, wait, probably have a sausage with dinner or something. Yeah, clearly you're trouble.

KJ said...

So the UAE wants the following:

All residents to be families.
All members of the family are to work to be provided residency.
All kids are to be attended by maids with no vocabulary.

Interesting.

 

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