Recently, officials in the tiny Persian Gulf, Arab monarchy of Bahrain stated that they intended to clamp down on the “excesses” of foreign tourists. Bahrain’s liberal tolerance of tourists had made the island fertile ground for alcohol-drinking, sex-craving young visitors from Europe and Australia. The tiny nation attracted two million tourists last year, more than its population.

The authorities have declared that this is not the tourism they want and intend to induce modesty in visitors. Whether Bahrain should adopt such a policy or simply live-and-let-live is not the purpose of this post. What I find interesting, to say the least, is that while Bahrain did allow foreigners to behave as they wanted it would mandate conservatism for Bahrainians.

The short-lives Arab version of Big Brother was short-lived because of the sensibilities of the Bahrain parliament body. In the first episode of Big Brother, a Tunisian woman kissed on the cheek her Saudi male contestant in greeting him. French greetings are standing in Tunisia between the sexes [as in Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Syria (I think), and maybe some other Arab countries]. But in the Gulf, sexes do not greet one another by kissing. Such behavior is considered an example of public indecent.

And so when that kiss was captured on camera, many Bahrains - both the lay and politicians - responded as if the woman had just had sex with the Saudi. The show was pulled from the air.

Such is an example of the double-standard. But you may say there is a difference between the public behavior on television and the private domain of tourists. But the double-standard for natives extends into the private domain. A Bahrainian woman was recently sentenced to jail for 20 days for kissing a man in public.

Such hypocrisy. But Bahrain is not the first government to treat cash-filled White tourists better than its own people.