Middle East Airline’s Racism Problem

Racism in Lebanon’s flag carrier is not made of isolated incidents. It’s a wide-ranging and systemic problem.

I landed today into a post by Abed Shaheen about a racist incident that took place in Beirut’s RHI Airport. I encourage you to read it and sign the petition, but to sum it up, an MEA employee used the airport’s intercom to publicly admonish a bunch of foreign passengers to shut up. She apparently had the tone of a teacher scolding pupils and she did so using the phrase: “Filipino people stop talking”.

Thankfully, this incident is getting a fair amount of publicity and likes and tweets. With luck, you guys too will spread the word and eventually MEA will have to respond and make a statement. The statement will probably read that this was an “isolated incident”, that a few “bad apples” were responsible, and that MEA will take the right measures to discipline them. That would be wrong and would fall short of what MEA should really do: Overhaul the culture of the company and train its entire staff to have more sensitivity and respect for non-whites.

A wide ranging problem

As someone who travels regularly between Lebanon and Africa on MEA, I know a thing or two about how the cabin crew deals with non-whites. There was an incident I witnessed where the flight attendant scolded an African businessman (someone who probably makes 10 times her salary) because he took more than one of the complimentary candies she was offering on landing. The Lebanese woman before him had just taken a handful, but for him it was “ONE PLEASE!”

There is also a very common yet secret practice where flight attendants whisper to white people who are sitting next to black people that other seats are available on the plane, “for their comfort”.

Don’t shoot the messenger

It is easy to blame or demonize the flight attendants, and it is also easy to miss the real source of the problem. The flight attendants are offering the above “services” because they believe it’s what the customers (ie the Lebanese passengers) want. If you think of it, it’s really the same with the ban on swimming for foreign domestic workers: It’s the Lebanese swimmers who are complaining and the pool owners are just obliging.

The solution can only come from MEA itself. It should ban discriminatory practices and train its employees to be more respectful. We should all be pushing for that because the way things are is just embarrassing.

Update: As expected, MEA released a statement and called this an “isolated case” and promised vague “disciplinary actions”.