twitbthifd

The Nazi is coming!

By on Sunday, May 23, 2010

I couldn’t believe my eyes as I drove to my office this morning…

This is what I saw:

When I called the owner to offer advice, she abjectly refused to accept that “Nazi” might be an bad choice for such an establishment. And a drunk Nazi is even worse!

“How do you know?” she challenged
“Because it’s common knowledge,” I replied
“Yes but did you check on the Internet?”
“No, I don’t need to”
“It’s MY name anyway, I don’t care what you say. I’ve used it all my life” she said
“What’s your name dear?”
“Naziha, and Nazi is my nickname” – you can almost see the determined jaw there
“Why that’s a lovely name, in Arabic and Persian of course, but it has a totally different meaning in English” I tried to explain
“But the Ministry registered this name and they never complained” she retorted, naturally assuming they know better!
I felt that I wasn’t getting anywhere so I thought I’d end the conversation:
“Well, I explained my points to you and I hope you will get the facts checked. This could affect your business and as a neighbour, I wouldn’t wish that on you.” I concluded.

Putting the phone down, I decided to look into the CR records to see if some moron actually registered names like these, and guess what? They did!

We have:

  • Commercial Registration No 27226-3
    Commercial Registration Name NAZI BOUTIQE in Bu Kawara
  • our new neighboars: Commercial Registration No 43249-10
    Commercial Registration Name NAZI BEAUTY SALON
  • Commercial Registration No 59215-1
    Commercial Registration Name NAZI CONSTRUCTION in Qalali

I hope someone bothers to educate the Ministry of Commerce soon on these things for them to at least advise business owners before they formally register such names.

The most worrying thing, however, is not the name, it’s the young lady’s complete ignorance of recent history. And that of the employees of the Ministry of Industry & Commerce too. I would excuse the former, but not the latter.

Sad.

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  2. Tanya Degano

    I think the name is going to be the least of her problems. Who’s going to visit a garbage dump to get prettied up??

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  4. Shaker N Cutty

    Hmmm, I don’t think it’s so simple. It’s her name, and every name will mean something inappropriate in at least one of the many languages in this world. As long as she doesn’t have aspirations to spread out globally, she’ll be fine. The ones who snigger at the Nazi moniker, would never walk into a “Saloon” to fix their hair anyways; so, that’s not her Target Market really. The plebs who give her custom, won’t care a hoot about being PC, they’d be more worried about their elaborate hairdo and inch-thick make up. After all, “what’s in a name? That which we call my Barber’s pits, by any other name would smell as stale.”

  6. Anonny

    Usman,

    Nothing happened to the “mantra”. She’s free to use the name. She’s even free to pay money for branding and signage. She’s free to be as ignorant as she wants, bless her. She’s free to defend it. She’s free to do business and I for one hope she does ok, despite the unfortunate connotation of her choice of business name.

    And people such as Mahmood, myself, and a significant proportion of global humanity are free to express their mirth.

    Does that answer your question? Perhaps you’d like to share a mantra with us?

  7. Barry

    Usman: A lot of people assume freedom of speech means not voicing an oposing opinion, and that anyone who does voice an opinion to the contrary is somehow “censoring” the other person. I don’t get why that is, though.

    Mahmood is as free to warn her about the bad choice of “Nazi” (in terms of a western viewpoint) as she is to use her nickname for her “saloon”.

  9. Mike Diboll

    I’m reminded of “Paul” > بول Sometimes in these circumstances a change of spelling helps, say, “Paul” > بوول (I’ve seen this in City Mall). There is a British brand of firelighters called “Zipp” in English: they are marketed under a different name in GCC markets. So in this case a slightly different spelling would make all gthe difference, say “Nazzy”, or “Naazy”? The spelling “Naazy” would in fact be much closer to the Persian pronunciation of نازي than the offensive “Nazi”. See what I mean? Why can’t the minsitries &ct be sensitive or knowledgeable to this? Maybe there’s a niche for me as a branding/توطين المفاهم consultant? 😉

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      mahmood

      and you would definitely do a much better job than those whose task it is to register companies without any idea of world issues and cultures. The sad thing is that I suspect that if one would go and complain to them now, they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say that it’s done now, or worse, they’ll side with the Nazis!

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