Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi

Muslims all over the world celebrated Eid Al-Fitr holidays despite the fact that the Muslim world is suffering from wars, political turmoil, and killing of innocent people in crazy civil wars. The only ones who benefit from these wars are the enemies of Islam who instigate the parties involved in the wars. The reason why Eid is called as such is because it returns every year at the same time. Each country celebrates it in its own way. As Muslims, we have two Eids: Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha. The former comes after Ramadan and it brings a lot of happiness and joy to Muslims who fast for a whole month. The later comes after Muslims have performed Haj, one of the most important pillars of Islam.



During Eid, all Muslims get happy and forget about grudges, enmity, and hatred, if any, and focus on love, peace, happy wishes, and beautiful memories. When they attend Eid prayers, they dress in their best clothes. One can see children smiling and joyful while women prepare to go to the mosque to perform the prayers. All men, women, and children raise their voices when they say ‘Allah Akbar’ or ‘Allah is Great’.



Even patients at hospitals feel happy because people come to visit them and present them with gifts. There are committees in charge of patient care and organize visit programs to those patients to check up on them and give them flowers.



Children at orphanages feel happy during Eid as well when philanthropists give them gifts and toys and try to make it up for them. Prisoners enjoy Eid as well and royal orders are issued to pardon some of them. There are committees which help prisoners pay up their debts and allow them to get out and celebrate Eid with their families.



The elderly, who don’t have relatives and live in special homes, also enjoy Eid when volunteers visit them and give them gifts.



Eid Al-Fitr has made some people feel pity and sympathy for street cleaners who get low pays and do a difficult job. I have written several articles about the street cleaners in this newspaper and talked about a lecture delivered by the deputy chairman of the Human Rights Commission in Jeddah few years back. I said the situation of the cleaners has not changed, let alone improved ever since the lecture was delivered over a decade ago. I don’t think their salaries have increased as well.



I was happy when I saw some young men took the initiative and presented street cleaners with gifts as a way to thank them for the work they do. The young men distributed calling cards to the cleaners to allow them to talk to their families back home. Although I welcome such initiative, I think it is not enough.



The least thing we can do for the cleaners, which is also fair, is to increase their salaries so that they do not have to beg and they do not have to search for other sources of income.



I was told that a street cleaner gets SR300 a month. This is not right and I would call it a crime. The heads of municipalities who supervise cleaning contracts should be held responsible for their low wages.



The cleaning companies get billions worth of money to sign cleaning contracts and the heads of municipalities don’t have any say on the number of workers and the salaries they will be given.



The whole matter is left to the companies to decide. The people working for these companies do not have a shred of humanity in them. I’m certain of this fact.



— Dr. Al Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast Asian affairs. He can be reached at [email protected]