SOMETIMES it's illegal. Sometimes it's unauthorized. Sometimes it's simply stupid. But most of the time, it's just rude. It has long since grown utterly boring to watch so-called experts in anything and everything, from economy to sociology to breast feeding, tell you how societies, nations and countries can never advance without vigorous business, free speech and proper baby care. That's all good advice. However, you can have all the prosperity you can handle, the most entertaining internet blogs, and the most prolific lactic nutrition in the world, but one thing is for sure: no society can ever become better without a sense of decency, common courtesy and an acknowledgement of one's place in society. That is, people just can't get along with one another if they're rude to each other. And being rude doesn't only mean sticking out your middle finger to the cab driver who just cut you off, or not opening the door for a lady at the mall. Besides being illegal and potentially lethal, running a red light – and thus endangering other road users' lives and stealing their right of way – is simply rude. So is driving beyond the yellow line at a million miles an hour to overtake thousand other vehicles at a time. The same goes for jumping the queue at the bank teller. So is letting your mobile phone ring aloud at a press conference or a lecture. Even worse, actually taking the call verges on the outrageous. There are several people waiting to use the lavatories at a crowded mall. Each of them waits his turn until a booth is unoccupied. And then a policeman – yes, a cop! – strolls right in and dashes into a booth right at the moment the man who was using it walked out. Another traffic officer pulls over a driver for whatever traffic violation he may or may not have committed. Everywhere in the world, the law stipulates that the offending driver should remain in the vehicle unless asked to disembark, and it is the officer who should leave the patrol car or the motorcycle and process the incident. But for the officer to stay in his patrol car and have the offending driver walk over to him is completely against the self-proclaimed “to serve and protect” motto splashed on top of every traffic booth. Here in Saudi Arabia, we have money, the internet, hospitals, highways, glass buildings, world-class malls, universities, and everything else in between. But a sense of courtesy and integrity on the personal level is seriously lacking among the population, both Saudis and expatriates. Perhaps it's about time a courtesy book is added to grade school curricula. __
