Middle East Focus: On Globalization and Forced Sex and Sweatshops and Jordanian Humor, a Plebeian DSK in Irbid, IMF…….

Arabia Deserta

On Globalization and Forced Sex and Sweatshops and Jordanian Humor, a Plebeian DSK in Irbid, IMF…….

Rattlesnake Ridge

BFF

“After a garment factory worker told Jordanian police she had been raped three times by her boss, the case escalated into an international campaign that threatens to close down Jordan’s largest garment exporter to the U.S. It could also force government and business to do more to improve conditions in an industry that has been crucial to this kingdom’s economy — and to its relations with the United States. The 27-year-old Bangladeshi seamstress who had worked four months at the Classic Fashion plant brought her allegations to Jordanian police in June. She claimed that her Sri Lankan manager, Anil Santha, raped her twice in March and once on May 16 in a scruffy hotel room in downtown Irbid, a city near the Syrian border. Santha, 46, has been charged with rape by Jordanian prosecutors and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He denies the allegations………..”

WTF? Are we facing a Jordanian DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) affair, only a bit seedier, more plebeian? Let us face it: the frustrated streets of Irbid (or Amman for that matter) have got to be seedier on the outside than the frustrated corridors of the IMF.
A Jordanian garment plant (succinctly called a sweatshop in the USA), exporting to the USA, managed by Sri Lankans, with workers from Bangladesh. Definitely a classic Victorian-style garment sweatshop. What does this have to do with Jordan, pray tell? Doesn’t Jordan have a serious unemployment problem among its citizens? And I wonder if all this has anything to do with that famous Jordanian lack of humor. Hell, even the sex life is humorless: at least it is for Sri Lankan managers who assault Bengali sweatshop laborers in cheap hotel rooms in Irbid (or in Amman for that matter). Ergo, the 'intimate' life must also be humorless for the natives. That may go a long way toward explaining the general lack of a sense of humor among the populace (the kids are born out of humor).
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com