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redeyes · Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 254

Is Saudi REALLY like the article says, or is the guy exagerrating to get into print?

Or does it depend if you are going out of your way and looking for trouble?

"There is no doubt that living in the kingdom is dangerous. There have been dozens of isolated, targeted killings of westerners in recent years - not including the 2003 Riyadh compound bombings that resulted in 35 casualties and more than 160 wounded (including Americans, Australians and Britons) in a single, co-ordinated attack on three residential compounds. Of the isolated murders, some people were killed in supermarket car parks, using cashpoints, shopping, sitting in their cars at traffic lights. Despite these events, thousands of western expatriates continue to live and work in the kingdom.

To leave, foreign nationals must obtain exit visas. The application process is weighed down by layers of bureaucratic officialdom. Many of the teachers at the college where I work are desperate to leave by the time annual holidays are due. They have endured stifling temperatures, which the government reportedly misrepresents to avoid declaring public holidays, and restrictions on a western lifestyle. The lucky few who know people of influence obtain their visas early and leave. The others, like the dispossessed European �migr�s in the film Casablanca, wait and wait and wait."

http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2007/07/saudi-arabia-black-english

007

Never Ceased To Be Amazed · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:51 pm Post subject:

I'd say that the writer doesn't wander far, at all, from the truth, except the part of the liquor runner from Bahrain. THAT sounds fanciful to me, althought I did have a diplomat friend/student smuggle my liquor from Bahrain in his trunk..but he DID have a diplomatic passport, so was not subject to search. So, if before, he had a diplomat friend do the same thing, then it's believable. I recognized MANY of his representations.

The thing that surprised me the most was that the writer published his name. My hope was that it was a pen-name.

Not, at all, far from the truth.

NCTBA

trapezius · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:46 pm Post subject:

Cleopatra · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:22 pm Post subject:

I don't think the article is wildly inaccurate, rather that it seeks to present a very partial, sleazy view of KSA and its people. As others have said, it belongs in the tabloid press - or perhaps a Daniel Pipes style website - rather than in a supposedly serious journal like the New Statesman. It would be as though I spent a few months in Britain and wrote an 'expose' of the entire country based on a few stories I'd heard at some sleazy nightclub. Such stories wouldn't neccessarily be false (although they might be) but they certainly would not provide an accurate insight into the country as a whole.

In other words, this is sensationalist c*** disguised as serious journalism. That there is a market for such garbage is not in doubt. The only real question is why the New Statesman accepted it.

johnslat · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:53 pm Post subject:

This article reminds me a lot of the equally unbalanced view many of my Saudi students had about the USA. I recall one student who was going to leave for New York a few days later. He came to me full of apprehension about what he was going to encounter there, and his imaginings had been fueled by - what else - movies and TV shows.
The kid was absolutely terrified, certain that once he deplaned and got into the airport, he was going to be robbed, assaulted or even killed.
Well, New York CAN be a dangerous place, but it's not the horror show that
was playing in that student's fevered anticipations. I told him to calm down, that he'd be quite safe if he acted with common sense and didn't, for example, pull out his wallet and start counting bills of large denominations in the middle of the concourse. I told him not to go wandering out alone at night, especially in sections of the city that housed a lot of bars and nightclubs. And I told him that as long as he acted with good sense and proper caution, the chances of anything bad happening to him were extremely slim.
He contacted me about a month after he'd gotten there and joked about how exaggerated all his apprehensions had been.
Now, just reverse the situation to one in which a teacher, preparing to go to the Kingdom, reads an article like the one in the New Statesman.

RestiveBob · Joined: 21 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

I won't quibble or mince words with the article's writer. I lived and worked in Saudi from 1996-2000 in the Eastern Province.

Here's Saudi in a nutshell: It is like a skating rink on a pool of sharks. If you behave yourself, thoughtfully consider the advice (good and bad) you will get from your western coworkers and keep your mouth shut, it is quite possible that you can spend a number of years there to little ill effect. However, if you are silly enough to judge people by their outward behavior, then you're in the same boat with Hannibal Lecter's last meal. Arabs are commonly duplicitous, and you needn't spend your life reading the works of Robert Spencer to find out why.

My experiences in Saudi were overwhelmingly positive, and I have a lot of respect for Saudis and Arab culture. That doesn't mean I'm silly enough to take them at face value. If you've ever seen the movie "The Kingdom" then you are aware of just how quickly things can change in Saudi.

For me, there isn't enough money to get me back there, ever, for the rest of my life. Not after 9/11 and what my former coworkers told me since I left.

If you're desperate for money, that's one thing. If you'd like to experience Arab society, go anywhere BUT Saudi. It is the worst place in the Middle East.

johnslat · Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 5:42 pm Post subject:

Dear RestiveBob,

"Arabs are commonly duplicitous, . . ."

And Jews are miserly and the Irish are all drunks, and Brits . . . well, why go on.

Generalize much?

Regards,
John

Mia Xanthi · Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:58 pm Post subject:

Cleopatra · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:24 am Post subject:

007

RestiveBob · Joined: 21 Jan 2009 Posts: 4

Johnslat & 007:

Your avatars say it all!

johnslat · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:53 pm Post subject:

Dear RestiveBob,

"Your avatars say it all!"

Wow - impressively deep analysis. Judge books by their covers much?

"Arabs are commonly duplicitous . . ."

Sorry, silly question.

Regards,
John

sharter · Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 878 Location: All over the place

Bob...come on man!

Saudi arabs are the most honest people you'll ever meet. They never lie or mistreat women. None of them drink Whisky or go whoring in Bahrain. Other religions and cultures are particularly respected in KSA, especially those that come from Asia.

As for the teaching? Well it's a pleasure to educate such motivated, intelligent learners. They must be great because they always pass all their tests. That means that the people who teach them are unusually brilliant. Rumours of weirdness, alcoholism and the like are started by deviant teaching forces.

All the car crashes are caused by foreigners you know.

No. The great Arab hospitality you read about in books can be found in North Africa, where cash hasn't spoiled them and traditional values haven't been betrayed by delusion and adherence to more radical religious ideas.

I thought Saudi was a terrible experience.

johnslat · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:25 pm Post subject:

Dear sharter,

"I thought Saudi was a terrible experience."

Wow - I never would have guessed, especially after all the wonderful things you wrote before that.
Aha, I get it - you were being ironic.
Seriously, I'm sorry you had such a bad time In Saudi Arabia. But for you to extend your reaction to that bad time to all Arabs (as in "Arabs are commonly duplicitous") would be just as erroneous as for someone who had a "good time" there to write something like "Arabs are the best people in the world."
While I was there. I met "good Saudis" and "bad Saudis", kind of just like every other country I've lived and worked in.
Generalizations such as "Arabs are commonly duplicitous" are the origin of most of the prejudice, bias and racism in the world.
Regards,
John