Emirates Men Marriage to foreign women Conflict

LSS 2113 Intercultural Studies

Cultural Conflict presentation Outline - Emirates Men Marriage to foreign women Conflict

 

1. Background facts:  Historic  &  Present 

Since many years, people in UAE have issues when a man deciding to marry a foreigner woman. Especially if she is from non-Arab country. This is because there are no common traditions and language for both couples. Also their children has issues regarding identity and they don’t follow the Arabic cultural and traditions.  Recently, huge numbers of Emirati men are getting married with foreign women due to many reasons specially the high expenses of getting married to an Emirati woman.

 

1. Describe the conflict and participants – what are the two sides?  
   The participant of this confilict are from inter-cultural Ahmad, he met a Canadian woman called Annie and decided to marry her. He toke 3 years to convince his family to agree to this marriage. Finally the family agreed but they were not really happy. 
   During the first 2 years Ahmed went through many conflicts with Annie especially when he got a baby, till they reached a point to have the divorce. And this conflict was regarding culture & tradition, religion, and language.
    

3.  Root causes (possible minor symptoms of these)

The root cause of this conflict is selfishness and poor communication between husbands. As Ahmed and Annie didn’t agreed on many points before getting married, and even after married they didn’t sit together to agree on how to solve this conflict.

 

4.    Apply the WorldViews for All participants: HS / GI / PF   (others?)

Power/Fear

There are cultural conflict in Ahmed marriage. It is important to know that in Emirati society, it is very difficult to separate between culture and religion. As we are living in a Muslim region and believe in God. The Power/Fear attitude was shown on Ahmed, as he is a man, it’s his nature to ask for power. This was obviously shown when he repeated asking Annie to wear Hijab & Abaya or to attend Islamic occasions.

Also Power/Fear observed on Annie worldview, she choose to divorce from a sense of power over her husband. As having right to divorce give ones power, not having it may cause fear.

Honor/Shame

Ahmad is having good relationship with his family and friends. As he grow up his parents taught him what is bring honor and what is bring shame. He doesn’t want to be in shame position as he always want to appear honorable by other people. This was shown as  “culture conflict” on Ahmed as he kept himself away from family when there is occasions like Eid or Ramadan gathering. He did that because he doesn’t want people to judge on his honor or to say that he is not following Islamic rules, as in Islam wife should follow and obey husband requests, if she did not it means that he can not control his life as a man. Besides, we can see his worldview is influence by honor/Shame, when chose not to divorce in order to avoid the shame linked with divorce, despite his legal and moral rights to do so.

Innocence/guilt

This aspect was observed on Annie attitude. She wanted to do the right thing in her perspective, as she grow up her family taught her primarily what is right and what is wrong. Regardless husband requests, she felt innocence as all what she was doing were being right. Maybe she felt misunderstood that is why she want to defend herself. And to avoid being in wrong position she asked divorce, as she thinks it’s the best solution for her and her child.

 

5.    What is a suitable collaborative  Re-solution to this conflict?

How can this situation be avoided in the future in other cases?

This conflict can be avoided in other case by pre agreement. Couples who want to get married should sit together and agree on all points that might happen after marriage. This would give clear picture for both on how the situation would be in future. Also this would guarantee to both that other side is agree and would not complain about the agreed points, they would just follow the commitment.

 

Division of roles:

Nayef Ahmed yousef : Instruction & background of the conflict:

Ali Aref Alzaabi: Apply the worldview theory to Ahmad case

Amran Alzaidi: discussion of solution & summary

 

Resources:

 

Alsadafy, Mohammed. (2012). Emiratis Advised to not Wed Foreign Women, retrieved 03 March 2015 from http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/emiratis-advised-to-not-wed-foreign-women-2012-01-20-1.438608

 Sinden, John. (2014). Conflicting Cultures in the Umited Arab Emirates, retrieved 11 March 2015 from http://ironline.american.edu/conflicting-cultures-united-arab-emirates/

 Muehlenberg, Bill. (2013). Islam and Christianity: Competing Worldviews, retrieved 01 March 2015 from http://billmuehlenberg.com/2013/03/19/islam-and-christianity-competing-worldviews/

 Atherton J S. (2013). Doceo; Shame-Culture and Guilt-Culture, retrieved 03 March 2015 from http://www.doceo.co.uk/background/shame_guilt.htm

 Johnston, Janet. (1994). High-Conflict Divorce, retrieved 03 March 2015 from http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/docs/04_01_09.pdf