Spinney's: Racist Adventures a la Arabian Gulf

I have refrained for years from shopping at Spinney's. Still back in the 1970s, it was the store that catered to westerners who lived and worked around AUB and its satellite campuses, IC (International College) and BCW (Beirut College for Women). In that sense, Spinney's served an expatriate clientele.

Fast forward to the 2000s and Spinney's now has a bunch of supermarkets around Lebanon (besides its other subsidiaries) and in the Gulf. This is how it is described on Wikipedia:

"Spinneys is an Arabian multinational supermarket chain active in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, Lebanon, Oman and Pakistan. It began as a railway provision merchant company, and expanded to a grocery firm importing British Empire goods to Mandate Palestine. The largest shareholder and manager of the brand is the Dubai based Al Bwardy Investment, founded by Mr. Ali Albwardy."

"Arabian", they say, as if a horse in a British stable. While "Arab" might be a bit too ethnic and therefore cause an itch to the superior class of consumers to whom it caters, Spinney's chose "Arabian" as it conjures up a vague romantic nostalgia for the long gone colonial times of the likes of Lawrence of Arabia. As you can see, Spinney's is essentially of British colonialist vintage now based in Dubai in a region where foreign workers make up most of the workforce. In the Arab, oops! Arabian Gulf in general, foreign workers often come from poorer countries. They accept pathetic wages in exchange for jobs in which they are treated like scum. Qatar was the flagholder of this abusive culture during World Cup 2022, but the fact is that the rights of foreign workers from poor countries (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc.) are rarely respected in Qatar and elsewhere in the Gulf. Many Lebanese expats live in the Gulf and bring back with them this deeply-rooted "Arabian" racist culture toward those they consider inferior people, as has often been documented in their mistreatment of their "maids".

Maids in Lebanon come from poor countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, and others. Luckily and thanks to the crisis in this self-mutilated country, many of them have gone home. But for decades, we heard about violence, rape, mistreatment, work 24/7 without a break, abuse, beatings, and the outcome was suicide when those poor women would throw themselves out of balconies in despair. Their papers are held by their employers, so they can't even escape.

With this background, and commuting as I do in recent years between my country of birth and my country of exile, I was initially reluctant to shop at American-imitation supermarkets because they were expensive, snotty, catering to the nouveaux-riches in this disgusting vertically-stratified society without a middle class, and in general oozed of a fake revolting "me-too" cultural monkeying of the West. Not to mention the impact they have on local businesses and shops, like the little "Dekkaneh"s or the butcher shops and bakeries of every village and town around. The clientele of me-too monkey supermarkets is often made up of the very corrupt class that lives off bribes and backpays in the flithy administrations of this country; these are the people who drive around in huge SUVs with shaded windows and 4-number plate numbers....It seems they're the only ones driving around these days: They are making money, so why leave the cesspool in which their slime is so successful?

Of late, I decided to try Spinney's for a few items that I miss from my country of exile. First, they don't know how to process credit or debit cards. It is always a hurdle in which the cashier has to leave his/her station, walk to some front desk, and a whole laborious process takes place whose result often is "No, you can't use the card". Fine, we live in a cash economy, and cash it will have to be. Then, the Lebanese employees of Spinney's, I found out from this experience, are some of the most rude I have ever had to deal with; they never smile (I hope they never do because it will be phoney), there's never a hello or thank you or any of the basic courtesies that civilized people exchange. And they often can't help you find what you are looking for. You ask a question, and they look at you with a bothered air and raised eyebrows, then make a couple of unintelligible grunts and return to what appears to be their work. Now they are Lebanese, and to be forced by circumstance to work at lifting items onto shelves is so degrading that they obviously are very unhappy on the job, and it reflects itself in their dealings with customers.

Of course, for the real menial jobs (cleaning toilets, sweeping and mopping floors, bagging customers' items, etc.), the supercilious arrogant Lebanese who would not degrade themselves beneath their occupational standards (as the pseudo-discoverers of the phonetic alphabet some 3,000 years ago), hire Syrians and other lowly creatures such as Bangladeshis whose wages are way beneath those that a Lebanese might accept. Also, it would be politically incorrect to hire Syrians (what with all the commotion about the Syrian refugees), but it is culturally correct to hire the even lower-than-Syrians on the Lebanese racist pecking order, the Bangladeshis.

The last time I was there a week ago, I was in the cashier's lane. Behind the cashier stood a black-attired stiff supervisor who seemed to be directing a moon-landing operation, a sort of black widow or silverback, and at the end of the line stood two Bangladeshis who put the items in the bags. I walked to one of the Bangladeshis and asked him in Lebanese to please place the cold and frozen items in the same bag. He turned to his fellow bagger and began conveying my request to him in the Bengali language, when suddenly, the black-clad Nazi supervisor turned to the two men, frowned at them, wagged her index finger at them, and tsk-tsk'ed them to shut up. 

I turned to the black widow and asked her if there was a problem. At first, she did not answer. Then I pressed her, 

"Did you just shoosh these two men and forbade them from speaking? Or was it maybe speaking their own language?". She nodded. 

I asked "why is that?"

She replied with a smirk, "Maybe they're talking about us, we don't want that".

"But how do you know what they're saying if you don't understand their language?" I said.

"Well, it bothers some of our customers", was her reply.

"Do you realize what you are doing?" I retorted. "Because of some of your fucking snotty racist clients, you deprive these human beings of their right to speak their own language. They can barely speak Lebanese, so how do you expect them to communicate to better serve your clients?"

This is the sort of "silly" racism that the Lebanese expats in the 'Arabian' Gulf countries bring back when they come home for visits. This behavior is pervasive in the Gulf countries, where filthy rich Arabs think that having money somehow elevates them above other human beings. Huge SUVs, maids to torment, monkeying American consumerism, showoff culture,.... The Lebanese expats get trained in these attributes and bring it all with them to Lebanon. Unlike, for instance, those Lebanese expats in Europe or the Americas who bring back a bit more humility and less racism, or at least they have been conditioned not to be ostentatious about their racism and to keep it to themselves.

At Spinney's, I was upset. I had never seen anything like this. I walked to the front desk where a similar exchange with the head black widow who confirmed to me that this was the policy of Spinney's because "some" of its clients don't like to hear "them" speak their own language. I said, "but I am one of your clients, I don't mind hearing these folks speak whatever and however they want, and I find your policy and behavior insulting and racist". I told her that I will do everything I can to tell this story and show Spinney's as a racist organization with abusive policies vis-a-vis its employees, especially those from poor backgrounds. I yelled a curse about "what a fucking country this is" and walked out, pledging to myself to never return.

I wrote a message to the only Spinney's contact I found online, and the only answer I got was in very very bad English to the effect that the issue I raised was forwarded to the "responsible" (a literal and bad translation from Arabic المسؤول since "responsible" is both a noun and an adjective in Arabic while only an adjective in English). 

The filthy rich Lebanese expatriates of the Gulf come home in summer and they bring with them a hefty dose of Arab racism against those they see as sub-humans from lowlier cultures. I have interacted with Bangladeshi workers at gas stations and as house-cleaning workers. They are professional and polite, but they project an image of meekness to the emotionally-repressed, frustrated and aggressive Arabs and Lebanese who then see in it a sign of vulnerability and weakness to pounce on, inviting more abuse. 

I will test Spinney's a couple more times to see if the racist behavior and policy have changed. In the meantime, please spread this story to your friends on social media if you disapprove of the likes of Spinney's. If on the other hand you approve of the rich and snotty abusing the poor and the foreigner, then fuck you too.