Shaikh Hamdan buys camel for record $2.72m
ABU DHABI - Shaikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, has bought a female camel for a record $2.72 million, an organiser at a camel beauty pageant said yesterday.
Shaikh Hamdan “bought camels... worth Dh16.5 million ($4.49 million), including a female camel... for Dh10 million ($2.72 million),” Hamad bin Kardoum Al Amiri said.
Now i don’t know about you bunch of cynical halfwits, but i have to cheer not only the embracing of traditional beddu values, but the unabashed celebration of said values (not to mention the wily investment decision). Yee-haaaaaaaaa! so to speak. Why is our first instinct, on hearing this sort of Breaking News, to react with supercilious disdain (or worse)? Does it not behoove us to acknowledge the fact that here we see someone not ashamed to embrace his simple culture and traditional values? What a truly wonderful example it will set for his compatriots, many of whom are actively rejecting their age-old traditions.
On the other hand, we ethnophobic Anglophiliac Packies, living it up in this desert paradice, cannot shed our Packyness fast enough. Our shalvar kameez are piled high upon on the pyre, to be replaced by rejected Armani designs and Levi Strauss’ finest, and our language jettisoned down the loo in favour of twangy American colloquialisms we never fully comprehend. Mera Pakistan nahin, ye tera Pakistan hoga!
So, whether the bright young Shaikh rides around town on his multi-million dollar dromedary, or just parks it in the driveway as a killer conversation piece, let’s give a nice, warm round of applause for the triumph of character and sense of values over rampant postmodernism.
10 comments:
Indeed. *nods in agreement*
Whither pride in age-old traditions? I for one know we could never be too proud of our stumpy Kashmiri mountain ponies.... (On whom, when fully grown 6-feet-plus men ride, they have to wrap their legs around the ponies' bellies so their feet don't scrape the ground...)
Aah...The luxury SUV of the Bedouins, I presume! :D
What a wonderfully unique perspective on the traditional v. the modern. I'm not of your culture, as you know, but this post made me think about such things in my part of the world & across cultural lines.
i happened to be in dubai when i read this and my first impression was "how much fucking money do these guys have"
which is the only rational reaction to news like this.
L/B/V: no doubt those pygmy ponies are important to local dental floss cultivation.
: )
siddhusaab-ji: supercharged by Land Rover, no less!
anna: god created money and said, go forth and spend. (and then forgot to give me some!)
shez: money to burn? but then they aren't the only lucky (?) ones... there's lotsamoney all over the world. and as noonraysaab pointed out, the amount paid in this case is a fraction of what is spent on thoroughbred racehorses all over the world.
whats simple about that sum of money.... jeeez i couldnt see it in a lifetime. To spend it on a camel is sheer sheer waste.
Nothing gainst his culture just his taste.
Haaaaloooohhhhh-ji...
Wherefore, Kinky-bhai?
i live uptown
i live downtown
i live
all
around
except in cyberspace.
been developing an allergy to my blogs (which is a more original response than my usual one... which is to say "i'm suffering from writer's block.")
hope all is well in your neck o' the woods.
hey that's not fair, you didnt post the rest of the news story - the Sheikh, in his most noble senses, must've had good reason to purchase said she-camel... you're just a cynic... clearly :D
i applaud the sheikh's move - not in your very tongue in cheek not so impressed sarcastic manner - but in that gushing falling over my face excited about being surrounded by such nobility kind of manner.
:D
actually i was, most of all, impressed by the sheer wealth and the evern sheerer display of it. yeeeeeeeee-ha!!!
as roger waters used to sing, "money, it's a hit.
don't give me that do goody good bullshit."
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