| According to the Post, Rumsfeld contended that Muslims avoid "physical labor." He expressed the belief that oil wealth removed Muslims "from the reality of work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world." His memo said, "Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed." Rumsfeld also warned, "An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism." White House press secretary Dana Perino said Rumsfeld's observations were "not in line with the president's views." She said she could understand why Arab Americans would be offended by the comments attributed to Rumsfeld. The report brought a terse reaction from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Spokesman Kareem Shora told CBS News Radio, "It seems very clear from the quotes that Mr. Rumsfeld had a very stereotypical, negative pessimistic view of Muslims. He's labeling 2.2 billion people in the world as lazy and against physical labor. It's going to be very harmful to our efforts in the Middle East and to winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world." |
One Katie Couric blogger screwed up the quote which is amazing cutting off a crucial part about Saudi Arabia which I gathered he was talking about and not every single Muslim in the world. But in this piece from 2002 in SPTIMES, oil wealth did make for a sizable chuck of the population to be lazy and feeling entitled.
| At the peak of the oil boom in the early '80s, young Saudis didn't have to take jobs like this and even though the boom is over, most Saudis still don't want them. Alshammar's father doesn't like that his son works in a hotel, where Saudis are more used to being waited upon than catering to others. "He had this idea I was a servant," Alshammar says. The discovery of oil in 1938 sent Saudi Arabia on a whirlwind of development that drew millions of foreigners to build roads and refineries, staff hotels and hospitals, and work for rich Saudis as cooks, maids and drivers. In the past few years, though, oil revenues have plunged and per capita income is less than half what it was in the '80s, meaning more and more Saudis need to find jobs. Yet almost a third of the country's 22-million residents are foreign workers at a time when the jobless rate among Saudis is 30 percent. "It doesn't make sense to have high unemployment for Saudis when half the work force is not Saudi," says Fahad Almubarak, a financial consultant. ....In general, Saudization has been a long, slow slog. For one thing, there is a strong perception that Saudis are lazy. A recent study of Saudis in office jobs found that 21 percent made zero contribution to the work place. Many failed to stay in the office more than two hours a day. Even Saudi newspapers are critical. Writing in the Saudi Gazette, a columnist noted that while he was glad to see young Saudis manning checkout counters at his local supermarket, he couldn't help but observe that they were surly and slow while the foreign clerks were friendly and fast. "Now here is the dilemma," the columnist wrote. "Do I live up to my stated principles and patronize the local checkout guys? They're Saudis, they're doing a job and so, in theory at least, are contributing to the national economy. "Or do I avoid them like the plague and pass through the till where the cheerful little man from Dhaka asks us how we are doing, bags the groceries efficiently and sends us off with a smile in two minutes flat? It's not a difficult decision to make, is it?" Some say the problem is less laziness than a lack of discipline. |
The rate didn't drop till around 2006. Just because it sounds insensitive doesn't mean there isn't some truth behind it.
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