A seemingly good explanation, very well written by the article's author I must admit and relevant to the Keralite mindset, for after all the plane was from Trivandrum to Dubai and therefore filled with Keralites.
But his reasoning would scarcely apply to Gulf residents from other parts of India whose thinking is not as skewed as the average Keralite he speaks of and specially the ones who would opt for baggage over life. Let me give you the mindset of the Goans in the Gulf for example. Goans go to the Gulf for the same reasons as other people do, but the intense greed for money that the Keralites have, is absent. Why that is so, springs from many reasons: They know that if they remain in Goa, they will get by on employment and survival. Not so for others. Goans are more loyal to employers and do not endeavour to change jobs for a few bucks more. They make the best of whichever spot they are in and it eventually works out for them. Fewer Goans don't take their families than take them. They have a different outlook on life and prefer to have a good life at the cost of making less money. To the Keralite, specially the less educated ones, the objective of making and saving money is supreme. Being alone in the Gulf is the best way to do so. They will take the risk of their wives in Kerala going into depression and having other psychological and marital problems, their children scarcely knowing their father and a host of other problems that come with being absentee heads of household, so that they can make extreme money to build an extreme house back home in Kerala. Because of these different mindsets, there is no 'Kafala fear' for Goans. If Goans have to go, they go. They end up going to sea or work in some dead end job in Goa. Or in today's world they will make a Portuguese passport and off to Europe. For Goans, life and living is way more important than a laptop or a bunch of passports. We can blame the Portuguese for that mindset perhaps. I do not mean to debase the Keralites in any way. Kafala fear or not, they are hardworking and enterprising specially the Muslim lot among them (the Moplahs from the Malabar coast). They start off with a small neighbourhood grocery store and before you know it they own a couple of large swanky department stores or supermarkets. They pick up Arabic quickly and become trusted assistants to Shaikhs and other important local businessmen often getting free visas from them and selling them for large amounts or doing their other financial dirty work, enriching themselves in the process. Many of them can probably buy the planes they travel in, rather than push to retrieve baggage at the cost of their lives like the less wealthy of them. But the point, contrary to the article remains. If the Kafala fear, the fear of Liberty and of human rights had been predominant in their minds, they would have sent a telepathic message to their overhead bins. "Burn, baby burn". Roland Francis Toronto. > On Aug 10, 2016, at 9:47 AM, Marshall Mendonza <mmendonz...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Here is an explanation for the behavior of the passengers who grabbed their > luggage from the Emirates plane which crash landed. > > http://scroll.in/article/813593/emirates-crash-when-you-dont-own-your-liberty-and-property-your-possessions-become-most-important
