Job Discussion Forums

[Beast]

International House Saudi Arabia is a miserable place to work. When I was there it was a daily verbal assault on Westerners and Christians by the Local and Converted Muslim staff. Daily insults to Christianity and if you stick up for your beliefs, then they threaten to have you put in Jail. Muslims would get preferential treatment by the General Manager who is another case of nastiness. When I was there�. There was a man who�s mother was on her Death Bed. The General Manager refused to let him go unless he paid him three months wages.

Stay away�It�s a dismal place to work and you will be sorry you ever opened yourself up to such abuse and nastiness by Muslims and converted Muslim.

[scot47]

There are better places to work.

[nanosecond]

Most Muslim converts and many western Muslims of Asian or African origin, (who have found religion, as they put it) will tell you that they are in Saudi Arabia mainly to be near the cities of Mecca and Medina. In other words, they are here for religious reasons, not for the financial reasons which drive most expats. Some are further radicalized by adopting the strict Salafi doctrine of the locals.

From the perspective of a normal westerner, some can be pleasant and friendly but some can be decidedly unfriendly. The unfriendly ones know they are among like-minded people and they are the vast majority and sometimes they hope to rally their Muslim brothers against normal westerners they don't like. But even the most friendly will tell you that they, as Muslims, are the real Christians and they are the real Jews, thus negating the beliefs of other religions.

What can you do? Almost nothing. The practice of other religions is not allowed in Saudi Arabia. But there are secret house churches you can join. And you will be like the early Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs in fear of Nero's legions. Except the Roman legions in Saudi Arabia are the bearded Mutaween. It all makes your own beliefs that much more precious because they are not allowed. For a practising Christian, Saudi Arabia is enemy territory!

[Cleopatra]

[zilzal]

Cleopatra:

Thanks AGAIN for constantly bringing some sense and perspective to this forum. Apart from you and a few select others, the Middle East forums-and Saudi's in particular- have degenerated into a soap box for racist, bitter, and/or fashionably challenged Western expats to have their say about a whole slew of matters they really know very little about.

The only question I still have is why I waste my time perusing through all this illogical nonsense...

[nanosecond]

The sentence from my post you quote, Cleopatra, is a simile and not to be taken literally or in the heavy-handed way you do. You are so desperate to score cheap points you lift a sentence out of context and focus your venomous sarcasm on it completely ignoring the main point of the post. It is obvious you have never had discussions with Muslim converts. But then again, you have set yourself up as a critic and rarely offer anything from your own personal experience, even hiding your true gender. If you did you would perhaps leave yourself open to the same cheap attacks you make. Why don't you tell us what you're really up to? Have you ever done anything in Saudi Arabia other than sit at a computer? Perhaps you haven't. Because you appear to have never come into conflict with Saudi society in the way other posters have.

Considering that the Mutaween in Yanbu broke into a children's Christmas play at the international school some years back and roughed up the expat parents and children, there is no telling what they are capable doing at a religious service. Any group that can send girls back into a burning building to die because they are not wearing abayas are capable of literally anything.

[Desert Storm]

[nanosecond]

Ah, Desert Storm, obviously the mention of the burning school and Christmas play has hit an unpleasant cord with you. Actually many Saudis found the burning of their children at the hands of mutaween offensive too, not just the westerners. You obviously have a lot of anger stored up against the west and I'm glad we can see it for what it is, finally.

I am offended by the complete lack of freedom for other religions in Saudi Arabia. Yet you are allowed to practise your religion in western countries. Doesn't seem fair. Some westerners only want the same freedoms in Saudi Arabia that a Saudi would have, say, in England. And you would like to deny a few school children and parents a furtive Christmas play?

You appear to take criticism of a country and society as racism. If you are black, no problem. One of my friends is from St. Kitts in the West Indies and I have other friends from Ghana. You mention slaveowning. In many cases, it was the Arabs who captured black slaves in Africa and sold them to whites. Saudis were allowed to keep black slaves up until 1970.

I don't care what religion you practise just so long as you don't force me to accept your beliefs or so long as your religious beliefs don't infringe on my freedoms.

[Turando]

No-one is forcing you to change your beliefs. Just don't enter a country that clearly doesn't allow you to have Christmas plays. That's actually ridiculous to go to a country that you know you can't openly practise your religion and then whine about it.

Stay where you can practise your religion. I have no sympathy for people who go somewhere and then complain when they knew beforehand that this place won't allow them to do what they want to do. It's like taking drugs into Singapore knowing there is a death penalty and then complaining about it. Countries have laws. Regardless of what you think of it, the laws aren't going to magically change for you because you don't like them. Don't break them and you won't have an issue.

[nanosecond]

The laws you are defending which limit religious freedom are oppressive, and thought oppressive by the UN and almost all other countries except Saudi Arabia and perhaps the former Afghanistan. So you are defending the indefensible. You are using a kind of "It's different but it's the law" arguement to defend oppression. Such laws should be broken. If England, say, was to suddenly ban worship for all Muslims, would you simply keep quiet and think : "It's their law so it's OK." Of course not.

It is quite obvious that you would like to get rid of any contrary voices from Saudi Arabia and from this forum, leaving only dubious fashionable liberals like Cleopatra. But it isn't going to happen. Perhaps I should suggest those of the 20 million Muslims who are living in European countries and don't like it should stop taking Christian money, get out immediately and go back to their Muslim lands and stop lining up outside our embassies for visas or sneaking in on leaky old boats. At least, the_prodigy, the beast and I, confine our discussion to this forum and haven't turned on our hosts violently like in England or Spain by forming secret cliques to blow up people on Riyadh buses.

[veiledsentiments]

I agree with Turando... if you don't like the situation and rules of a country, don't take a job there.

Seems rather a DUH....

VS

[Cleopatra]

[nanosecond]

What's to like. If they hadn't blown up innocents in New York, London and Madrid, they wouldn't be so despised.

[veiledsentiments]