Sunday 5 August 2007

Apology to the Emirates

Dear Emirates

We, the inhabitants of the land, apologize for the way we have treated you in the past few decades. Unlike our forefathers, we have not been the ideal creatures in dealing with waste. You have rewarded our ancestor’s patience with black gold that we only turned against you. We seem to have lost our way and are in desperate need for direction. As our gas guzzling cars roam your beautiful streets and our cigarette buds are thrown out of the windows and burn the land that we live on, we don’t seem to care. We could start by driving smaller and less polluting cars but you have to understand the allure of the giant vehicle. It is a symbol of status you see. We realize that our grandfathers went about on ships of the deserts and sea that never caused you any harm but we could get to our destination much faster in a super jet. We have set a bad example to our children and our guests who have come from faraway lands to earn a living on your soil; we have even turned many of them into polluters like us even though they weren’t so in their own lands. The biodiversity of your marshes are slowly but surely disappearing under the weight of giant land developments that promise buyers unparalleled sea views. We have built upon your mountains, deserts and shores, and now we have built upon your sea. We have deposited land fill sites with chemicals, plastics, bottles, bags, cans, glass, paper and other poisonous items and still you survive. Three billion kilos of rubbish per year and still you survive. You haven’t abandoned us despite our greed for more and more. We have turned from herbivores into carnivores overnight, and you remain kind to us still. We have harmed you in ways that we will not know for generations to come, and by doing so, we have ultimately harmed ourselves. For you are from us, and we are from you. We made many promises to change and to adapt, we’ll introduce new earth friendly laws and regulations we said, but they get buried in paper work only to resurface every odd number of years with new vigor and determination, only to be reburied alive. We have realized that our laws were like our determination to change, still born. We are sorry for treating you so badly; we realize that without what you have given us we would be no where. Your kindness extended to more than black gold. You have given us men and women who were wise beyond their time and more valuable than any mineral can be; Sheikh Zayed the sage of Arabia and Sheikh Rashid the visionary of what is possible. We have let them down. We have cut down the trees that shaded them, spoilt the earth that fed them and poisoned the seas that carried their visions to far away lands. We promised that we would reduce our garbage per person to a much too high 555 kilograms only to increase it to 755kg. Catapulting us from amongst the least polluting nations to the top position that we always seem to covet in our endeavor for the extreme. Oh land, we are sorry indeed. Sorry that this letter was written on paper that will probably end up in your belly, unable to digest the flood of plastic bottles and cardboard boxes, and will ultimately render you weaker still. We are sorry that this letter will not find its way to where it counts and will be lost, as we are, in a pile of bureaucracy and red tape that gags our mouths and blinds our eyes. We claim to know what we are doing but we haven’t a clue. Alas, we find ourselves lost and in despair.

5 comments:

Rani said...

Very true and well (sharp) written. Can't agree more.

Rani said...

Very true and well (sharp) written. Can't agree more.

Steel Forge said...

True and sad. I always want to cry when I see the despoiled waters of Hatta. There is hope for the newer generation of our college graduates. They are much more environmentally aware than their parents.

Khaled AD said...

Very true, I agree 100%, you think with all the attention being given to environmental issues people would stand up and take notice.

i*maginate said...

Good points.

Everyone wants the best car they can afford though, there won't be a time when it's not Land Cruiser vs. Nissan against Sunny and whatever else.