Lawrence Wright has just completed a year-long stint as guest editor of the Saudi Gazette, one of the two major English language dailies in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In the January 5 New Yorker, he provides us with a rare glimpse of closed Saudi society, in a disturbing and substantial (20,000 word) article called The Kingdom of Silence.
I hope Lawrence chooses to expand the material in this article into a
book (he has written several books, and screenplays including The Siege) by adding some analysis, and some lessons for us in the West. Some excerpts:
[I began to see] Saudi society as
a collection of opposing forces: liberals against religious
conservatives, the royal family versus democratic reformers, the
unemployed against the expats, the old against the young, men against
women. The question is whether the anger that results from all this
conflict will be directed outward, at the West, or inward, at the Saudi
regime...What I found [everywhere I went] was quiet despair, an ominous
emotional flatness.
Expats hold 70% of all jobs in the kingdom. [Although unemployment
among Saudi youth is astronomical] employers don't want to hire their
own people. "Showing up for the job is not a priority for [Saudis, the
secretary-general for tourism told me]. Even the culture of working as
a team is not there." Unemployed natives now view expats with
resentment rather than gratitude. "We hate it!" a Saudi friend confided
when I asked how he felt having to speak English or Urdu to order
coffee. But Saudis refuse to accept [entry-level jobs].
[Because of grossly inadequate sewage treatment] real estate prices
have dropped 70% in some districts, beaches are polluted, drinking
water is contaminated, marine life and 60% of the palm trees are dying,
sewage is eating into the city's limestone bedrock, and a recent study
warns of a hepatitis epidemic. "We will see people dying, and buildings
will collapse" [predicts a leading building contractor]. "We have new
diseases of the eye and skin that didn't exist here ten years ago. Lung
and breast cancer rates are 40% above the national rate. The sewage is
dumped in a huge lake above the city. The walls of this lake are made
of sand. If there's even a minor earthquake Jeddah [which sits on a
geological fault] will be flooded with sewage water four feet deep.
A middle-aged Saudi told me "I am worried about the next generation.
The abaya [black floor-length gown mandatory since 1990 for all Saudi
women] and veil obliterates fashion and curtains off women's bodies. As
a result, men don't see any real women at all. You don't see [or
communicate with] each other's wives, daughters, sisters, any woman. We
don't grow naturally, to be loved. Two thirds of marriages here are
basically loveless. Many men [although allowed up to four wives under
Islamic law] cheat."
In March 2002, a fire broke out, early in the morning, in the 31st
Girls' Middle School in Mecca, a dilapidated four-story building that
held 890 students and teachers. The only exit was locked. Fifteen girls
were trampled to death, more than fifty others injured. According to
eyewitnesses, the fire department and other volunteers rushed to put
out the blaze, but were blocked from rescue efforts by the dreaded muttawa'a
-- the government subsidized religious vigilantes -- because the girls
were not wearing their abayas. Religious conservatives believe that
education is "wasted on girls". The President of Girls' Education
announced that the fire was "God's will". [No charges were laid. The
woman Wright assigned to follow up on the story was blocked in her
inquiries -- women are not allowed in public libraries, cannot drive,
and cannot be in a room with a man other than their husband -- and was
fired from the Gazette as soon as Wright returned home to the US.]
There is a stark difference between the way the Saudi government treats
its own citizens and the way it treats foreign workers. "There is a
huge population that is not thought of as human at all" UCLA law
professor Khaled Abou El Fadl told me "There is a well-established
practice of 'disappearances' [of expats who challenge Saudi authority
or object to the sometimes fraudulent 'employment contracts' they are
attracted to Saudi Arabia by]."
With all their talk about martyrdom, there is another dark thought in
[young Saudis'] minds. "It might be government policy to send
[unemployed young Saudis] to Iraq, instead of having them here, acting
up", one said. The others nodded. They saw a conspiracy between the
clergy and the government -- a plot to eliminate unemployed Saudis.
[Two professionals at a men's dinner club told me "Our children] are
for Bin Laden. [They] see us as cowards. They don't want to study in
America as we did. Bin Laden changed our life. He proved that mighty
America is vulnerable. The youth think America is on the verge of
collapsing and it's time for us to fight it... We are afraid of our
children."
Wright describes a world of non-communication, of silence, of endemic
depression and anger, of fierce but arbitrary censorship, political
repression, of routine and brutal torture and 'disappearance' of
political opponents, of highly-educated women prohibited from working,
of prohibition of music and art (any portrayal of any human or animal
form, even in a museum, is forbidden), the deterioration of once-great
educational institutions into extremist religious indoctrination
centres, and very broad-based, extreme Anti-Western sentiment.
It is important that we understand the culture and the value systems of
the people in other countries. especially when we choose to intervene
in the affairs of those countries -- politically, economically,
commercially or militarily. Saudi Arabia, like many third world
countries, is a powder keg, and in our adventures in the Middle East we
are playing with fire. If we proceed on our current reckless course, we
should not be surprised to find ourselves at war with Saudi Arabia, if
not instituted by the current government, then by the popular uprising
poised to overthrow it. The same could be said of Pakistan, and many
other countries that today we conveniently call allies. We need more
stories like Wright's to remind us of this terrible danger. If only we
could get George Bush to read more than the sports pages.
Photo by Kevin Kelly.
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MADE IN CANADA
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