Halas

In checking out a fair number of blogs by people travelling or living abroad for extended periods, I've discovered a trend.  People often start out posting a lot.  They write ambitiously about posting every few days and for a while they keep it up.  Sure enough, after a few weeks, though, the frequency of their posts starts to decline.  They go down to twice a week, then to once.  By the third or fourth month there's only one post every three or four weeks.  And then, abruptly and without explanation, the posts stop.  Many times after only 4 or 5 months.  It seems, like so many others before me, I too have fallen victim to this trend.

I think the reasons are fairly plain to see.  You start out so excited.  Everything's new and different.  The simplest everyday experiences are instantly noteworthy and as a foreigner in a strange land, nothing fails to warrant comment.  But as the time passes, and you get more and more used to your surroundings, your daily life shifts from extraordinary to anything but.  You stop looking at everything through the wide eyes of a foreigner.  The blog posts stop writing themselves.  You find yourself feeling almost burdened by the obligation to continue to post and successive posts seem more forced or like more and more of a stretch. As the frequency of your posts become less and less, you suddenly realize that you've gone a month without posting.  After feeling like you've already disappointed your readers and like they've probably already given up on you anyway it's only too easy to stop altogether.

Excuses (or maybe explanations ;)) aside, I'd like to provide some punctuation to my blog.

My time in Saudi has come to a close.  I've left a little sooner than I'd originally planned and a little sooner than the fulfillment of my contract would have required.  The reason is that I preferred to have a solid month of travel time in the Middle East before Amy and I start our next teaching contract in Honduras (did I mention Amy and I took a contract in Honduras?)  I'm currently in Palestine after having spent 9 days in Lebanon, 6 in Jordan, and 2 on the east coast of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.  The trip has been amazing and unbelievably educational to say the very least and I hope to put my thoughts together about my experiences--although I'll resist the temptation to make any promises about future posts.

As for Saudi, I'm extremely satisfied with and would even go so far as to say proud of my decision to go.  As with anything in life, there is always something to be gained from experience and I can say unequivocally that I gained a lot from my time there.  I accomplished most of my goals, especially after finally being able to travel in the region, and have left a little wiser and definitely not worse off financially.  

I also don't want to make it sound like my time in Saudi was some sort of burden or equate it in any way to a prison sentence.  In many ways my lifestyle and quality of life wasn't much different than it's been anywhere else that I've lived.  I made some really good friends, friends whom I believe I'll be friends with for life.  I drank homemade wine at the compound almost every weekend, participated in weekly basketball games and was part of a social network that had frequent get-togethers, parties, and engaged in some pretty regular tom-foolery.  In many ways, I was very fortunate to be welcomed into a group of friends that had enough connections and experience in-country to build up this network and will always be thankful to those who welcomed me in with open arms.  I gathered that not everyone there doing the same work I did was so lucky.  But still, my experience of life in Saudi, as a single white American man, is that it really wasn't all that difficult.  While I would never force it on anyone and probably wouldn't ask a wife who wasn't 100% on board to go or to raise a family there, I, for one, got along just fine.  

I am happy that it's over though, if only because it means that Amy and I can start the next stage of our lives together, something we are both almost too excited about for words.  I'd like to tell you to stay tuned for the blog, A Relford in Central America, but if I've learned anything from my first blog experience, it's that at this point, the beginning, the tendency is to make promises to readers that don't get kept.  I do plan on at least starting a blog, though how much I post, only time will tell.  :)

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

A Relford

National Narrative

I was in class yesterday, and during some down time I checked my email on yahoo.  I was using the e-podium which projected everything I was doing onto the smart board in the front of the class, so everyone could see.  The first news story that popped up was about Iran and prominently displayed the Iranian flag on the screen.  My students immediately shot in.

"Teacher, Teacher.  Iran very bad.  Very bad, teacher."

Not usually one to discuss issues that could be controversial thanks to the express warnings we've all received to that effect, I couldn't help but probe for just a bit.

"Really?  Why?" I said, playing dumb.

"Very bad, teacher.  They not Muslims.  Shia not Muslims," said one student to the immediate confirmation by everyone within ear shot.

Ignoring the grammatical mistakes I've been trying unsuccessfully for 13 weeks to correct, I continued to goad them.

"Really?"

"Yes, teacher, not Muslims.  Wallah," they continued.  "And they hate all Sunni.  They want kill all Sunni."

"Really? Why?" ever the Socratic, I said, examining further.

"They want Mecca and Medina, teacher," a wide-eyed student exclaimed, emphasizing the obviousness of the statement.

"We hate them teacher, all Shia.  All Shia very bad."

"Why?"

"They lie, teacher.  They marry prostitutes.  They think like animals."

And then I posed the final question:

"And how do you know this?"

To which they replied:

"Everybody know this, teacher."

It was the last statement that left the biggest impact.  "Everybody" they said.  There wasn't the slightest bit of doubt.  To them, these weren't even widely held opinions, they were widely known facts.  It's not hard to understand how this narrative became as pervasive as it is.  The religious clerics in this country are extremely powerful and use a great deal of that power to implement their propaganda and their narrative from the very beginning of education.  But it was the unquestioning acceptance of this narrative that was the hardest for me to understand.

I didn't have the gumption to probe any deeper, not in class.  I wanted to ask them questions like "Have you ever met any Shias?" and "What are your experiences with Shias that make you feel this way?"  I wanted to find out what stories they're told.  I wanted to ask about the the history that they learn.  I wanted to know what they're told the Shia think of them, where they think the conflict will head, if they support Saudis and other Sunnis perpetrating sectarian violence and/or governmental crackdowns on and against Shias.

In other conversations that I've had with Saudis outside of school, and from the conversations I've had with teachers who speak Arabic and who have been here much longer than I have, I've learned that the epistemological questions (those dealing with how they've arrived at their knowledge) have for the most part never been asked.  Most Saudis take whole sale what their told from an early age.  This applies to what they know about Shias as well as what they know about Jews, Israel and also the West.  As a good friend of mine puts it, you have to understand "the power dynamics in this part of the world.  Some people in the region are only now beginning to conceive of how to challenge that authority, which includes thinking for themselves, rather than following what they're told.  Other nations are more politically mature, and have demonstrated their anger by ousting their leaders.  Saudi belongs to the former, and throwing off a national narrative is not easy, but it is slowly changing."

It's interesting because at the same time that my students will make gross sweeping negative statements about a group like the Shias or about Israel, affirming their narrative, a few even making statements expressing fondness for Osama bin Laden, none of them have any interest whatsoever in perpetrating violence, or advocating war.  It's really as though the words in their mouth are just that, only words.  They're the words that have been put there and never questioned.  When they come out, they're only coming out as words, not from anyplace deeper, as they've never been processed on a deeper level.

As a Westerner and an educated person, I like to think that I challenge the history and the narratives that I'm presented with.  I like to think that I know how to find alternative narratives, challenge the commonly perpetrated ones, and think for myself.  Whether this is in fact the case or not might take a lifetime to reveal.  Still though, I take a certain amount of pride in my supposed freedom of thought, and seeing a society who in general buy what their sold unquestioningly makes me feel a certain amount of contempt for those in power, and empathy for those under it.  At the same time, I can see that things are starting to change in this part of the world.  I know that ideas are spreading more easily and restrictions to those ideas are more and more difficult to maintain.  But it's not an easy process.  It's one that takes generations and enormous amounts of struggle to pursue.  Only time will tell if Saudis will be begin to challenge their narratives and what the results of that challenge will be.  So we'll just have to wait and see.  But an understanding of that narrative and the forces that keep it going are essential to understanding this place, or at least beginning to.

Cowboys, Sunshine, and Oil

When I lived in Prague, I generally got a pretty similar response from my students when I asked them where they'd like to go if they went to the U.S.  Most people would say they'd like to see New York City and San Francisco and then rent a car, and in classic American road trip fashion, drive around the west visiting the many great national parks our beautiful country has to offer.  I attributed the similarity in the responses that I got to the fact that while most Czechs I met could appreciate a cosmopolitan metropolis, what they really loved was "the nature".  Across the board, many of my students and Czech friends were always doing outdoor activities ranging from canyoning to camping to just hanging out at their cottage and their mentality was reflected in their dream of an American holiday.

So when I've posed the same question to my Saudi students and people I've met in and around the campus environment, I've noticed some interesting regularity in their answers as well.   Some say D.C. because they're interested in seeing the White House and our other government buildings.  Others say New York or L.A. mostly, from what I can tell, because of a familiarity due to the movies and television shows they've watched.  Much more frequent responses are Miami and Las Vegas.  Fame and reputation seem again to be motivating factors.  Miami is heralded by most here to be the best place for beaches and parties in the States, while Las Vegas is seen as the place where everything that would be Haram here (and in most places) is not only allowed but encouraged.  And of course my students like to mention that whatever happens in Vegas stays there (talk about an effective marketing campaign).  There also seems to be no conflict between so much being restricted in their culture and religion and them wanting to go to places famous for indulgence and vice.  Actually, these two facts seem to reinforce one another.  They'd like to go there because they can do everything that they can't here.

But one response I've heard with surprising regularity has struck me as particularly intriguing:  Texas.  Almost without fail, countless students express interest in going to Texas and for many, it's the first place they mention.  Not to knock Texas in anyway but this idea was very hard for me to understand at first.  I couldn't get past the idea that first, Texas didn't seem to be much of a tourist destination for foreigners, and second, that Arabs might not be all that well received by some folks down there.  Unable to drop the issue as it continued to come up, I've finally been able to ask enough students who were willing (and able) to explain their reasoning to me to develop an understanding.  Again fame and a presumed familiarity are big factors.

The fame of Texas is pretty easy to understand.  I mean, most people I meet in other countries couldn't tell you where Indiana, Montana, Maryland or Arizona was, but everybody could point out Texas.  I think that Texas has also developed a mystique through film and television and is seen by many to be the birthplace of the cowboy mentality that many people attribute to Americans generally.  George W. Bush's presidency recently contributed to this reputation.

But even more than the fact that most of my students have heard of Texas is the fact that most of them feel like Saudi and Texas are actually quite similar.  "Same Saudi, teacher," they say when I show surprise and ask them why they want to go to Texas.  And their reasoning is as follows:

Cowboys, they say, are the equivalent of their Bedouins.   Both ride around astride animals in the open desert, tote guns, and hold somewhat less modernized beliefs.  To my students, there's really no difference at all between the two. Bedouins just raise camels instead of cows  If fact, when I've asked them about the Bedu many just simply say, "You know, teacher.  Same cowboys."

The next similarity cited is the climate.  While some of my students express a fondness for cold weather (their concept of "cold" being pretty different than a Mid-Westerner's), many have expressed a severe aversion to it.  Texas' weather, though, seems to them to not be much different at all from Saudi's and therefore would require no adjustment and resulting discomfort.  Climate is also a major reason why Miami and Las Vegas are high on a lot of my students' list.

The third reason (as you might have guessed from my post's title) is Oil.  Texas, they say, is an oil state.  Saudi is an oil country.  There are even a few prestigious universities in Texas, mostly in Houston I'm told, that have petro-chemical and engineering programs where a lot of Saudis do exchange course work.  Some even stay on to work in Texas.  This contributes as much to Texas' familiarity as it does to the similarities that Saudis feel KSA and Texas share, as many students have a relative or friend who has studied or worked in the Lone Star state.

For another similarity, one student went as far as to say that like Saudis, Texans love fast food and tend to be overweight, stereotypes that I neither confirmed or denied, but the fact that those ideas about Texas made it this far was interesting to say the least.

After grasping all of this, I wasn't sure what was more interesting:  the fact that my students wanted to go to the place in America they felt was the most like Saudi, or their reasoning for believing that that place was Texas.  The latter being kind of hard to disagree with.

When I suggested that some people in Texas might be Islamaphobic or prejudiced against Arabs, the response from some was surprise.  Most kids though, didn't give it much thought and kind of dismissed it out of hand.  I couldn't tell if this was because they figured that would be the case anywhere they'd go in America or if it was simply because they didn't think it was true, but I don't think the suggestion discouraged any of them whatsoever from their dreams of a Texas vacation, not that that was my intention.

So, again, interesting stuff to think about:  perceptions of places in the states, my students wanting to go somewhere they feel is just like Saudi, the contributing factors to those perceptions and familiarity, my own stereotypes regarding some places in the states, them wanting to go other places where they can engage in all things Haram (Miami, Vegas).  Regardless, I couldn't really argue with their reasoning.  I can suggest other places they could go that I've found to be beautiful or interesting.  National Parks, states like Vermont and Oregon, cities that I think are cool.  Most, however, have a pretty good idea where they want to go and what they want to do and don't seem all that interested in 'the nature'.  But I could never criticize anyone for wanting to travel anywhere.  Because despite what anyone says, you always have to go there and see it for yourself, whatever your reason.

A Good Weekend

This weekend offered me a few 'note'-worthy opportunities that I'd previously not had, and both were pretty cool.

Saudi Football (Soccer):

A student who I recently started teaching privately mentioned that he was going to a football match on Wednesday.  When I told him that sounded like fun and that I hoped he had a good time, he asked me if I'd like to go.  "For sure" was obviously my response.  It was to be an Asian Champions league group match between Saudi Champions Al-Hilal and a team from Doha, Qatar.  

He didn't call me until almost 8:30 on Wednesday night, so, thinking that the plans had fallen through, I was already out at the compound having a few glasses of home made (vinegar) wine with 7up. This was pretty unfortunate because I didn't have my camera with me, but having had a few glasses of wine, as we approached the stadium, I did find myself wondering if I was the only one in the joint rocking a little buzz.  

The stadium itself is quite impressive from the outside and the design is both unique and quintessentially Arabian.  It's made to look like a giant tent in the middle of the desert, which is pretty much what it is, and it was at this point that I both appreciated my buzz and wished I had my camera.  (check out a Google images search of King Fahad International Stadium if you wanna check it out)

Once inside, the thing that was most notable to me was the distribution of fans in the various sections throughout the stadium.  There were three prices of tickets that allowed access to one of three general admission seating areas.  The 20 Riyal (~5 bucks) ticket area looked nearly full.  It was directly across from us and stretched the length of the field.  It was two tiers and both levels all the way across were rocking pretty much the whole game.  Our side of the stadium was divided into two sections.  The center was VIP and while I wasn't told how much the tickets cost it was apparent that they were out of our price range.  The seats were painted yellow and those in attendance were basically all wearing white thobes and shmars.  The section wasn't nearly full and the fans there sat quietly and comfortably.  On either side of the VIP's were two general admission areas with tickets costing 150 Riyals (~40 bucks).  We sat in one of these sections which weren't nearly full either and the folks sitting around us were mostly younger people wearing western clothes (lots of European football jerseys) and some parents with young children.  

What stood out to me was that your view of the field didn't change with the price you paid.  In fact, you could get the same seat with the same view directly across from the VIP section in the center of the field (equivalent of the 50 yard line) for an eighth of the price.  What you paid for was the type of people you were around and how tightly packed you were sitting with them.  The stadium on this particular night was only about a third full (the seats behind both goals were almost completely empty) but it also occurred to me that in a sell out, when everyone was pretty packed into their seat, that there really wasn't much difference between the sections in terms of how comfortable you were.  It seemed to be more of an issue of status than anything, which considering other things I've observed here so far, wasn't all that surprising.

The game wasn't too exciting but a header goal just after halftime and another goal late gave Al-Hilal a 2-nil victory and sent everybody home feeling fairly satisfied.  

An Estraha:

On Thursday night, my good buddy David invited me to go along with him to a little event that his students had planned.  They were his class from the previous semester and had decided to get together and honor David and the other teachers who taught their section.  They rented what's called an Estaha which is basically a little place outside of the home to hang out.  Ours was a walled in area on the outskirts of the city with a large room for indoor seating, a barbecue, a small kitchen, a praying area, and a decent sized field of grass in the middle.  Estraha, which literally translates as "a break", are traditionally places that men go to gather and it was cool to see what one was like and share in the experience.  

The students picked us up and from the beginning two things were immediately apparent: 1) that planning was not the students' strong suit and 2) The teachers (and me by extension) were to receive the utmost respect.  

We had to head all over town to pick up another student who was trying to coordinate with other students to arrange rides for everyone.  Once in the car, finding the Estraha took another hour thanks to the fact that no system of addresses exists and that no one was quite sure how to give us good enough directions to guide us in.  We stopped a few times to ask people if they had any idea where the Estrahas were and finally, with a bit of luck, we happened upon it. 

We were a bit pressed for time because we had to be at another party later that night for a Polish friend of ours who was moving to Dubai.  This, however, put us in direct conflict with the general mood and from what I could tell, the culture.  There was absolutely no sense of urgency when it came to getting things put together and started with any sort of promptness.  For the first couple hours we all just kind of sat around in the seating area and chatted.  Arabic Coffee was poured, then tea.  Little bread pastries and cakes were distributed as people showed up bearing the gifts they'd brought.  Dates of course were served with the coffee.   There was also an assortment of juice.  Casually the gathering moved outside as it cooled down.  Some people kicked the football around.  David and I brought a frisbee which a few of the students got a kick out of.  There was also a t.v. set up outside which the students had rigged a PS3 to in order to play football video games.  We all just kinda sat around.  

For their lack of planning and promptness, though, it certainly seemed to work.  They seemed to plan on not planning and were totally cool with just hanging out as things took their natural course.  It made me wish we didn't have somewhere to be so we could just sit back and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere as well, but we were forced to encourage the guys to get things moving a little more quickly as our hour of departure grew closer.  We were finally able to get some guys to light the barbecue and we got to enjoy some delicious kababs (of which they'd bought 13 kilos!) and some cake before we had to go, an hour and a half after we'd originally planned.  It seemed that despite our best efforts, even we had succumbed to "Arab Time".  

When it came to dealing with us, the students were extremely outgoing and genuine.  One of us was always given the front seat in any car we rode in, and the students wouldn't let us get up to get anything.  They poured our drinks, and brought us the dates and sweets.  They were extremely appreciative of David and the other teachers who were there and even honored them at the end with a large cake decorated with pictures of their class.  It was nice to see students, even though they weren't mine, in this setting.  It highlighted to me the difference between the amount of respect a lot of the students have for the educational process (which is very little) and the amount of respect they have for us teachers as people.  It was also really great to hang out with some students socially.  There really are a lot of good kids amongst them which sometimes can be hard to remember when you're only dealing with them in the classroom and getting the worst of their behavior.


The going away party ended up being your usual expat compound fun complete with a hangover that always seems to be so much disproportionately worse than it should be.  There is something about homemade wine coupled with being in what has to be the brightest country on earth that makes even a tame night regrettable.


Altogether it was a good weekend.

Reaction

With the news that Osama bin Laden was killed by American Special Forces at a compound in Pakistan, concern for U.S. interests and citizens abroad has increased.  Being in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's birthplace, the home of his large extended family, and not to mention, where 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers came from, it is understandable to be a little more worried.  Some people here feel the same way.  The morning we all woke to the news a couple of the older Brits on my bus told me to expect notification from my embassy planning for all Americans' immediate evacuation.  One of them suspected that we'd all be on a plane within 24 hours and suggested if it wasn't the case, I should demand it first from my employer and then from my embassy.  This same man also hasn't been out of the hotel alone since the news hit on Monday for fear of being confused for an American.  And while I guess I can understand where this guy is coming from, his reaction is more than a little extreme.  The news' portrayal as well as my own experience of not only how the Saudi public but indeed how much of the Arab and Islamic world feel about OBL and his death paint quite a different picture.

The Saudi government long ago disavowed and publicly disowned Osama bin Laden.  He has been an enemy of the House of Saud longer than he has been of the United States.  He's proved to be a destabilizing personality, an embarrassment, and has cost the Kingdom a lot in terms of its reputation around the world.  Seeking out and killing or capturing members of Al Qaeda has been a priority of the Saudi government for a long time now and hundreds of suspected terrorists or people with terrorist links have been arrested and detained, Guantanamo-style, especially since the infamous attacks on Westerners and Western compounds that happened in the wake of September 11th.  The bin Laden tribe, who became rich building many of the roads and highways in and around Saudi Arabia and whose company name, The Bin Laden Group, I see plastered all over construction sites in Riyadh, have long ago disowned Osama as well.  They also consider him a murderer, an embarrassment, and a source of shame.  The government and his tribe of course have a lot to lose financially by not publicly disavowing OBL, so their campaigns of criticism and distancing themselves in that respect are somewhat understandable.   However, the opinion that he's an indiscriminate murderer of Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike, and a criminal against Islam seems to be fairly widely held as well -- at least from my experience discussing the matter so far.

For a moment, I considered taking on a different persona.  I practiced how to say "I'm Canadian" or "I'm Czech" in Arabic, just in case I was asked about my nationality.  I even, somewhat jokingly, got some basic facts about Canada and specifically about Vancouver from a colleague of mine, just in case I was questioned further.  But when it came down to it, even the first time that I was asked about my nationality by a cab driver, something that happens as soon as I get into a cab every time without fail, I didn't even hesitate.  "Anna Emriky" (I'm an American) I said.  More than just not wanting to lie and not wanting to let my behavior be dominated by fear, I wanted to know what this guy thought.  I was pretty sure he was Pakistani, as a great number of the cab drivers in Riyadh are, and I wanted to get his reaction.  As is usually the case he exclaimed positively when I told him where I was from.  He said things like "welcome, welcome" and asked me how long I've been in Saudi.  And then I asked him "So, what do you think of the news about Osama?" and this was his response:

"Very good.  Very good.  Bombs no good.  Dead no good.  Maybe now no more bombs (motioning from the sky).  Good thing.  Very good thing."

Now I was pretty sure that the bombs he was talking about initially were the ones that would have come in the form of terrorist attacks orchestrated by OBL.  The second ones though, when he made the gesture of bombs coming from a plane, I assumed to be a reference to the U.S. drone strikes that have taken place in Northwestern Pakistan and which have caused deep rifts between the two nations' governments as well as sowing anti-American sentiment among a number of Pakistanis not only in the NW region of Pakistan where the Taliban have a strong presence, but also among middle class people from various segments of society.  This man, for one, seemed to think that the death of Osama was a good thing.  The next two cab drivers I had, another from Pakistan and the second from Afghanistan (the first Afghani I'd met here) both shared the exact same opinion.

My students, despite my best efforts to avoid political conversations at all cost, have expressed almost entirely the same opinion, that Osama's death is a good thing and that he was a perverter of Islam and a murderer of innocents.  I did, however, interrupt an argument where a group of students were yelling at another one, and when I asked what was going on, the spokesman for the group said that the other student had a picture of OBL on his phone and was saying that he was sad.  The group was berating him for this and arguing that Osama was an evil person.  This was the first I'd heard about any one being even remotely sad about bin Laden's death and has been the only instance as of this writing.

Now I am well aware that I am not encountering a large sampling of the Saudi and/or foreign population and that I should resist making generalizing assumptions based on my experience so far.   I am also aware that it only takes one person enraged and radical enough to carry out an act of violence.  But while I won't take any unnecessary risks, I still won't let fear dictate my behavior.   The reaction to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden has not been cause for concern, in fact, it has been quite the opposite.  I will continue to be aware of my surroundings though, as I have always been, but for the most part, life here is continuing as normal, and trust me, I think I will be just fine.

Maybe Not: Streets and Gutters

Despite my best efforts at cultural sympathizing, some things about life in Saudi Arabia are hard to understand.  No matter how hard I try to suppose that my initial resistance to certain things is somehow biased or due to how I've been socialized, there are some things that still, at the end of the day, I just can't wrap my head around.  Initially, it was my hope that I could take everything as it came for what it was; that I could recognize things as different from what I am used to and not necessarily as better or worse; and that even things which at first glance seem to be so difficult for me to excuse could at least be attempted to be understood.  After five months here, I can now say that this hope has failed to be universally realized.  The stuff I'm referring to ranges in scope, application and significance from simple annoyances to disagreements over the dominant cultural ideology.  It also must be remembered that a lot of Saudi people themselves might want to change many of these things if they could.  So, at the risk of revealing my own Amero-cetrism and cultural and national intolerance, I've decided to relay some of these issues.  The first couple deal with matters of practicality.

When driving around Riyadh, there is enough to frustrate anyone.  From the crazed drivers flying up on everyone's tail to the youth taking any and all liberties, blurring the lines between transportation and recreation, to the 30 year-old buses and box trucks over-flowing with Bengali workers being transported to and from work sites with no consideration seemingly being given to their safety, it's a harrowing scene to say the least.  All of that, coupled with the fact that in order to obtain a driver's license in Saudi, little more than a note from your father is necessary, and it's easy to see how cultural understanding can fail.  For me though, the system (or chaos) does seem to have some functionality to it.  Everyone expects people to drive crazily, they allow for it, and react accordingly.  My biggest frustration, however, comes when trying to get somewhere I've never been before:  There are no street addresses in Saudi Arabia.

What pass for addresses are actually more like directions.  When I got what I thought was an address for the post office, I was given a sentence in Arabic that translated as something like "Go down so-and-so street, take a right at the third round-about, then drive for 10 minutes and it will be next to the fish restaurant." The directions themselves use landmarks which change frequently and street signs are almost nowhere to be found once you've gotten off of the highway.  With no addresses, there are of course no mail boxes, so anyone who would like to receive mail has to get a P.O. Box.  You would think that this would actually simplify the mail system and that it would run like clockwork but in fact the opposite is true.  I know quite a few people who are still waiting for packages that were sent to them months ago and the fact that I received two in relatively quick order is viewed by most as a miracle.  The private courier services have a system that seems to work for them:  they take your phone number and call you for directions when they get close.   All of this would be excusable in a country with no infrastructure to speak of, but in a modern city like Riyadh, even the Saudis themselves have consented that an address system should be implemented.  That was two years ago, they just haven't gotten around to it yet.  Soon, they say, Inshallah.

Another practical matter which is also related to infrastructure is that of a gutter and drainage system for rain water.  None currently exists in the country, including Riyadh and Jeddah, the two largest cities, and what they do have consists primarily of a few large holes to collect water.  After it rains, they just pump the standing water from the streets into large trucks.  It rains more than one might think here and if there ever is a significant amount low spots in the streets fill quickly.  For two years now floods have killed many in Jeddah, and even in Riyadh large floods completely filled underpasses and caused deaths in 2010.  Again it is an issue that the government here knows they need to address but no progress has been made in implementing a solution.  Like too many things here, it seems like if they can just weather the storm when it comes and immediately after, preparing for the next one fails to become a priority.

The Words of God

Something that stood out to me when I first got to Saudi and started learning common words and phrases in Arabic was how much God (Allah) was invoked in conversation.  It literally seemed like every other word or phrase contained within it the word Allah.  Greetings, interjections, exclamations, especially the most common ones, all referenced God or something pertaining to him.  Take the standard greeting and its response:

A salam alaikum -  May God's peace be upon you
Wa alaikum salam -  and may his peace be upon you

It seemed heavy to me.  I thought about greeting someone in English that way and the gravity of the statement stood out even further.  More deep sentiments when translated are also extremely common.  If someone asks "How are you?", it's very common for the response to be "Alhamdullilah"-- Praise be to God.  If someone says something surprising or wonderful and you wish to exclaim positively the response is "Mashallah"-- It is God's will.   "Inshallah" I've already posted about and it's frequency in use, while invoking ideas of fate and determination to some (we won't mention names), is again a reminder of the pervasiveness of referencing God constantly throughout the day.  "Wallah" means "I swear by Allah" and is used as commonly as we would say "really" whether to emphasize something or to question someone and ask for confirmation.  "I'm wallah tired teacher.  Wallah sick.  Wallah," is an excuse I hear from my students much too often.  "Yallah" is how to say "Oh God" and is used in prayer but is also how you would exclaim if something negative happened.  "Ma Salama" translates as "go with God's peace" and is used as a farewell.  There is also a phrase that I'm unable to pronounce and therefore unable to remember or relate to you all that translates as "May god correct and guide you" that is often interjected when someone says something ridiculous or misguided.

Again, I started thinking about speaking this way in English in normal situations.  I couldn't get the idea out of my head of someone asking me how I'm doing and responding with "Praise the Lord!" or maybe "Praise Jesus!".  While I found some humor in that image, it also got me thinking that the idea really isn't all that foreign after all-- definitely not for religious folks-- and why wouldn't you say that if you're doing particularly well.  It became apparent that the English equivalent of a lot of the other phrases are also used if not as frequently, almost as much.  Take for example 'Mashallah' and 'Yallah'.  Both are used the same way English-speakers say "Oh My God"-- one in a positive sense and the other to exclaim about something negative.  We say "Oh My God" all the time (OMG), or if not, some more benign version such as "Oh my goodness", "Gosh", "Golly'', or the like.  We also say "I swear" or "I swear to God" fairly often as well.  Less common and more old-fashioned, we even say "God help you", if someone is terribly wrong, or possibly somewhat sarcastically in a situation where someone says something ridiculous-- almost a direct translation of that phrase I can't pronounce.  "God willing" isn't that uncommon of a phrase either.  Suddenly after some reflection, I began to think that maybe the references to Allah that I was hearing so frequently really didn't set the Arabic I've been exposed to very much apart from English after all.  "Goodbye" even comes from the Middle English word "godbwye", a contraction of "God be with you", and is the equivalent of the Arabic "Ma Salama".  Further reflection and discussion ensued.

I then began to think that the reason we are less likely in Christian-dominated societies to use the word 'God' is for fear of offending the religious, meaning we are actually more sensitive to religion.  After all, it is seen by many as taboo or as using the Lord's name in vain and therefore we've developed less offensive words like 'gosh' and so on.  Just when I happened to think this wasn't the case within Najd (the region of Saudi I live in), I learned from a bilingual buddy of mine that they do in fact have more benign versions of phrases used negatively like 'Yallah'.  I also found out that there is an equivalent of "God damn it" which translates more literally as "Damn God" and is by far the worse swear you could use around these parts.  Again, similarities were outweighing differences.

It should be noted that the dialect of Arabic as well as the phraseology used in Saudi and particularly in Najd is not the same as it is in other places.  I've learned that people in Sham (the part of the Arab world comprising modern day Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine) are much less likely to use a lot of the phrases I've mentioned in this post.  They very often won't even greet each other with 'Salam Alaikum' and much to the chagrin of folks who do, won't return others' 'Salams'.*  So the words and references I'm mentioning should be thought of in the context and environment to which I'm exposed, one that is inherently more religiously inclined.

Still though, (as I hope is always the case with my 'notes') it's interesting to think about: the use of invoking God in language.  It makes you think about not only the roots, frequency and usage of phrases with 'God' in them, but also our own awareness of those phrases and their deeper spiritual meanings.  It reminds me of one of the most common exclamations used in the Czech Republic, "Ježíš Marie", which literally translates as "Jesus Mary", and how everyone from the elderly to young children use the phrase constantly, seemingly without any thought being given to offending anyone.  Where as in the States if I went around belting out "Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" every time something happened worth exclaiming about I'd be sure to offend people, the secular nature of their society means that the words themselves have very little meaning in any religious context.  They are just simply the words they use to exclaim whether positively or negatively.  The religious sentiment has been completely lost.  

In Saudi though, it is my feeling that the context is never forgotten; that the deeper meaning is purposefully referenced; that they are literally and meaningfully speaking of God, his peace, or invoking his name; and that this is done more frequently than in English speaking societies.  This may be because I feel that in the States we don't necessarily mean our similar phrases as literally and that religion and spirituality aren't as ingrained in our speech and daily life.  It's also hard not to notice the frequency with which people will add words like "Alhamdullilah" and "Inshallah" into much of what they say.  I have no doubt that this feeling has some inherent bias and is due, at least in part, to my own subconscious urge to reinforce my preconception that Islamic societies are inherently more religious than western ones.  I could be wrong, but still, again, it's interesting to think about.

*The common Shami greeting is "Marhaba" although devout Muslims anywhere in the world and people in more religious regions of Sham will often use "Salam Alaikum".

Approved!

It wasn't without it's share of suspense, drama, foot-dragging, procrastination and the like, but finally my travel to the U.S. was approved. It all had to happen according to a very specific plan and along a very specific timeline, but as can be the case when you have both faith and determination, it appears that everything has worked out.  I spent a wonderful week seeing close friends and family and of course spending as much time as possible with my sweet sweet Amy.   It was so necessary to see all those lovely people and for them to see me.  My heart is now running on full and the next three and a half months don't seem like much of a chore at all.  So as I wait for my connecting flight to Riyadh, I finally have the opportunity to relate some things I noted.

When it finally became a reality that I was gonna get to go home (a whole 17 hours before I was supposed to fly), I thought there would probably be quite a few notable instances of reverse culture shock to pass along.  I thought that seeing women galavanting around freely and uncovered would blow me away and that the ability to order a pivo in public would be just too much for me to take.  The truth turned out to be that I couldn't have been more wrong.  What ended up being surprising was just how much those things weren't shocking at all-- not even a little.  I immediately recognized and understood everything as the way that it is everywhere else in the world.  Instead of being blown away by the freedoms of the world outside of Saudi due to my previous withdrawal, I just kind of noticed them and said to myself, "oh yea, that's what it's like", and casually carried on unaffected.  Reverse culture shock failed to have it's impact.  Other than not being blown away by anything particular, I did notice a few things that weren't "Oh my god, have I missed this" type deals but were more like "Gosh, this is nice".

Two things I noted that were really nice to experience in the States and specifically in my home state of Indiana were as follows:

         1) Tap Water.   It is delicious and free and I can drink absolutely as much of it as I like, with no ill affects, all the while improving the strength and density of my teeth.  Tap water in Saudi isn't all that dangerous, but it's extremely hard, doesn't taste right, and if you drink more than just enough  to wet your whistle you might not feel right for the next couple days-- bathroom wise. To have seemingly unlimited, fresh, and delicious water at my fingertips, not to mention for free at  restaurants and bars, was enough to fill my heart with nostalgia for the good old U.S. of A.  It also made me appreciate growing up somewhere that has easy access to fresh, clean water-- something 1 billion people in the world can't say.

          2.) The Weather.  More than just being happy to enjoy the sunshine and not hide from it, my experience in the great state of Indiana reminded me how much I love four distinct seasons.  Spring particularly-- doing it's springing-- made me realize not only that I hadn't been in the US during the season of love for quite some time, but that I hadn't been in Indiana in the spring in 9 years!  I was overwhelmed with memories taking me right back to my high school days of driving my truck and somehow avoiding prosecution amidst all our teenage antics.  Four seasons are such a luxury and spring, with it's returning sunshine, thunderstorms, smells and sounds, trails only autumn as my favorite of all. Yea, sometimes spring takes too long to come, winter can suck, and summer can be brutal as well, but the transitions and the good moments make it all worth it, to me at least. A lot of places don't ever get it so good.

So now, as I sit at the bar in the Abu Dhabi airport waiting for my connecting flight, I'll continue to ponder what it was about the States that was so nice.  I'll also consider all the things that were cause for worry or that inspired hope.  The ladder hopefully outweighing the former.  But we'll see.  Meanwhile, it's back to the desert.

Where to turn

With all that's going on in the world, it's sometimes difficult to know where to turn for an alternative to main stream media.  Even apart from Fox news- AKA the propaganda wing of the politically right- editorial bias, or at the very least limitations, become fairly obvious when comparing coverage by the major news providers with other international and independent news sources.  I've actually had a lot of fun with it.  Viewing the coverage of Libya by say the New York Times, comparing that with Fox News, Al-Jazeera, the BBC and then finally with the Asian Times, the Guardian, and Democracy Now has made glaring differences become obvious.  The big discrepancies range from omissions and quickly breezing over key details to fear-mongering and ratcheting up rhetoric-- all of which seeming to be for clearly political reasons.    The comparison, though, is valuable.  It allows the careful observer to discern for themselves not only what actually took place, but also how statements from official sources can be interpreted.   Which key players are nervous, playing the spin game, ignoring, denying, or taking the offensive helps to paint even more clearly a picture of government policy.  Further exploring independent news providers, not forever beholden to corporate control or advertising revenue, allows for a much wider swath for comparison.

It's not always easy to know where you can find truly independent news sources.  No news comes without at least some inherent bias, but here is a sampling of some stories and videos from authors and sites that I've been checking out to get an alternative view of events.  See what you think.

On Bahrain:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201132982742988712.html

On Libya and key players and stakeholders in the Arab uprisings:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD02Ak01.html*
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MC30Ak01.html

On the US Economy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/20/debt-crisis-threatens-us-cities
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175375/tomgram:_lewis_lapham,_consuming_labor/

On the US labor struggle:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/1/democrats_vow_to_seek_public_referendum

On American Governance*:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/04/20114391843209245.html

On Cote d'Ivoire:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/110404/ivory-coast-gbagbo-ouattara

On Central America:
http://www.alternet.org/story/150474/obama's_drug_war_in_el_salvador?akid=6782.242536.EVVrwE&rd=1&t=24

On War Reporting:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-let-the-images-of-war-speak-for-themselves-2260019.html

On the Qu'ran burning:
http://www.salon.com/news/afghanistan/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/04/04/free_speech

On Israel/Palestine:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/fayyad-s-road-to-freedom-runs-over-israeli-law-1.353940


* One's I think are particularly sweet

Exercises in Maybe: Absolutism

"What do you mean?  Why don't you believe in the Truth?" a student asked a colleague of mine when she said she wasn't a Muslim.  You get that a lot here-- people confused by others not believing in what to them is clearly the Truth.  It's not specific to Islam.  Many Christians I've met feel the same way.  It's not hard to imagine those devoted to other faiths believing in the absolute truth of their religions either.  I think a lot of people though, myself included, have a hard time with this.  We find ourselves somewhat skeptical of "organized religions" and people who claim to know, without question, that the edicts passed down to them through holy scripture and religious leaders speak the infallible word of God or whatever higher power they happen to believe in.  I guess you'd call us agnostic, at least to some degree.  Many of us might consider ourselves to be spiritual.  We might even attend church services regularly, but I think that for the most part we kind of pick and choose the truths that we are most able to relate to.  We find our own truths in sermons and the allegory of religious texts, sometimes in more than one religion, and it might even be the areas where religions overlap and that enforce what we believe to define being a good person that we assign truth to.  We don't take every word passed down to us as being the unquestionable truth.  That's how I feel at least.  I have no problem with faith, or religion, or with houses of worship.  All can be beautiful ways to find peace and build community.  It's the absoluteness of religion and doctrine that I have a hard time with.  So let's try supposing I don't.

Without getting into the specifics of Islam, or any organized religion or ethos for that matter, it seems that most world religions are based on the teachings of one or a handful of enlightened individuals-- prophets let's say.  While there have been many, quite seemingly contradicting prophets, to suppose that there have been some folks that happened to be more tuned in than the rest of us isn't all too difficult.  The major monotheistic religions even share some of the same prophets like Moses and Jesus, and while assigning them different levels of importance, they still recognize the fact that these guys knew what was up.  So the idea that the teachings of individuals who were more in touch with the truth of our world, the human experience, and maybe even much beyond both into the realm of the metaphysical isn't too much of a stretch for me.  In the same vein, if we were inclined to believe in a singular God, a higher power, or an absolute truth, to suppose that that truth is accessible to us on Earth, or that that higher power has facilitated that access isn't too hard either.  That He/She/It could have spoken through individuals, and even later through subsequent individuals it seems, then, very well could have happened as well.  And if your willing to make even the smallest leap of faith, why not?

Then there are the acts that people take in the name of their religion fueled by the fact they consider it to be the absolute truth.  I'm gonna leave out the actions of countries and armies as it is my belief that religion is often used as justification for the very earthly aim of conquering lands and peoples, but the actions of individuals can definitely be attributed to absolutist ideals.  Converting others is something many people have undertaken in the name of the truth of their beliefs.  Again, supposing that what they believe just so happens to be the truth, it's not hard to understand wanting to share that with others, especially if the recipient's eternal soul is on the line.  I mean, geez, we should only be so lucky to be converted if that's the case.* The acts of murder and suicide on the part of true believers though, are just too hard for this particular blogger to try to understand, no matter how much of a leap I try to make.  But suffice it to say that if they can be justified by some higher truth, maybe I don't want to be privy to it.

The hardest thing for me to suppose might be true is the idea that the messages of enlightened ones and prophets haven't been distorted and have been passed on, ruled upon, and interpreted correctly and in line with that same absolute truth by so many people down the line in the course of human history.   At least part of human nature it seems is to wield power to one's own ends, and the power that would come with deciding how the reported teachings of probably the most influential people in history will be interpreted and passed on seems to be too tempting a possibility for the wickedly inclined to pass up.  It's very possible that the reason the world's major religions are such powerful things is because they express some absolute truth, but the idea that people at some point with the influence to do so haven't distorted that power in their own interest remains to be my biggest objection to the absolutism of religion.  The fact that there have been so many disagreements that so often have resulted in sectarianism and violence only furthers this reservation.

Still, at the end of the day there is a reason they call it 'faith' and not 'knowledge'.  The leap of faith may come in believing that God or whom or whatever is facilitating the dissemination of truth has done so through so many people and generations, and that that truth has remained intact and pure ever since the prophets bestowed it upon the world.  It may also come in believing enough to pass it on to others or to take the very biggest leap by putting yours or someone else's life on the line.  But it's not a leap that's easy to make, for me, all things considered, especially when people are hurt or subjugated as a result. I'll take comfort in the fact though, that I can't blame people, not for the desire for truth, not for believing it's been given to them, and not for wanting to give it to others.  I'll, however, continue to find it on my own, and hope that the truth that others find can be more along the lines of peace and togetherness as opposed to conflict and separation.


* An idea I've heard a lot here is that of "Reverting" as opposed to "Converting".  It supposes that everyone is in fact born a Muslim, so if you go from being a non-Muslim to being one, you are actually coming back to your true religion.  

Assorted

Four months in the desert allows a lot of time for reflection.  And while I'm not exactly living in a tent wedged between a couple of sand dunes, it sometimes feel like I am.  Here are some things I've noted recently when looking back on my time here, my blog, and when looking forward.

Four months is not that long of a time.  It flew right on by.  It really is true that the older you get, the quicker time passes.  I mean it makes sense mathematically-- a year is a much smaller percentage of my life than it was even 10 years ago-- but there's something else to it too.  The more you've lived the more you understand that no matter what, the time will pass.  You obsess much less about the future, about not being able to wait for certain things.  You live much more in the present and as such, it's always fleeting.  Now maybe there are fewer landmark moments to look forward to, or it's more understood that those will come when they do and there's no use driving yourself crazy waiting.  But for me at least, I'm much more comfortable with the present, and it's making time fly.

I've had the thought more than once that I'm right where I should be.  It's a really good feeling.  Don't get me wrong; I miss my friends and loved ones like crazy, but they understand, as do I, that my time here is about opening my eyes, and open they have.  I hope it's not too selfish a process though.

I've noticed how my blog has changed a lot in nature.  It's gone from being more about personal experience to about my thoughts on regional politics.  I hope this hasn't turned too many off, but at the same time I could never apologize for writing about what's on my mind.  And considering the amount of Al Jazeera I watch and the lasting impact the unprecedented events of the last few months in the Arab world will continue to have, it should come as no surprise.  Plus, I love this stuff.  More personal posts are good for me as well though, and I'd like to rededicate myself to more reflection, observation and things specific to my experience here.  But we'll see.

I've also noticed that a lot of things I've written aren't entirely accurate when I've gone back and reread my posts.  Sometimes almost immediately after posting, I'll have a conversation or learn something that makes me realize what I wrote about a certain topic isn't exactly true.  For the most part though, I've decided to leave it how it is.  I think those things say a lot about my impressions and my experience at the time which just so happen to be the only things I've ever claimed to relay.  Also, I wouldn't have realized that those things weren't true unless I had written them.  The act of writing, or speaking for that matter, gives one the opportunity to reflect on the words you put together.  You're able to hear or read the words and then compare it to the feelings you're trying to describe as well as the reality they relate to.  It's a way of creating and facilitating a dialogue, even if it's only with yourself, and it's from dialogue that the best questions come and some bit of truth can be ascertained.  Therefore, saying something, saying anything is such a worthwhile process, and the fact that afterwards you happen to find things you don't agree with or that aren't accurate only helps to prove this point instead of the opposite.

Along these same lines though, it would be fun to conduct some actual research for some of the pieces I write.  So many of them have very little other than my personal thoughts and feelings based on my limited experience.  Expanding that experience through more deliberate conversation, interview, formal research, and travel would only stand to improve my writing, at the risk of people assuming it to be more objective.  Being in Saudi Arabia, on a visitor's visa to work and teach, and with none of the protections afforded to international media in the middle of a regional political crisis might not be the best situation to start playing journalist though.

I've been able to accomplish some of the goals I set out for myself as far as personal development and self-improvement are concerned.  My struggles with some of them though, like learning Arabic and starting to floss, have highlighted two things I find to be true:  1) It's always best to take on one new hobby, activity, desired habit at a time.  Trying to do them all at once is a recipe for at least partial failure. 2) It's much easier to quit something than it is to start.  When all you gotta do is nothing in order to feel like you've done something good, it's much easier to accomplish.

Most of the novelty of this place has worn off.   I'm much more rarely surprised and unfortunately, most things I encounter seem to reinforce ideas that I've already developed as opposed to creating new ones.  It's also easy to be cynical.  My hope is that surprise will come when those generalizations are dispelled and I can again be confronted with the idea that things aren't always what you think.  I'm still excited about being here though.  It's still an education.

A Different Model

The wave of protests in the region continues to grow in strength and scope.  Just look at a map and it's obvious that an idea is a powerful thing.*  Arabs across the Middle East and North Africa have had that idea reinforced by the successful ousting of governments in Tunisia and Egypt; things very recently thought to be impossible.  Yemenis, Bahrainis and now even Syrians are wielding the power their very existence endows them with-- the power of numbers.  Only time will tell how far the wave will spread; how powerful it will become.  The model that the countries in the Middle East have created is compelling.  They've shown that people can come together, forget about sectarian, political, and religious divisions and focus on the issues that unite them:  unemployment, rising prices, ending corruption, being sick and tired.  The model itself is powerful.  It makes you wonder who outside the Arab world will take notice and be inspired; who will start to take to the street; which countries' governments will be forced to feel the pressure of their populations.  I think most people are looking at countries dominated by authoritarian regimes, but the model doesn't restrict itself to dictatorships.  The power of mass protest can be wielded anywhere, and what I'm really wondering is if and when, in the face of such trying economic times, Americans will start to take notice.

We have a history of mass protests-- labor riots, anti-war movements, the struggle for civil rights-- but it's something we don't really do anymore.  The attack on the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers in the Mid-West and many other states has offered an opportunity for people to come out and be heard, and the public's reaction has been noteworthy.  It's effectiveness is yet to be seen though, and after all, a hundred thousand isn't a million.  So what would it take to get people coming out in the millions, demanding that their voices be heard?  What would it take to unite Americans so seemingly divided by so many issues accentuated and exasperated by the so-called "news" media?  What would it take to change the way things are done in America?  Aren't the elements short of authoritarianism that were and are present in the Arab states experiencing mass demonstrations present in the U.S. right now:  unemployment, rising prices, a widening of the gap between the rich and poor, cronyism, slashing public services, a disappearing middle class?  Shouldn't Americans be sick and tired?   

So why are so few coming out against policies that are sure to pass the burden of an economic recession caused by the unregulated, irresponsible behavior of financial institutions --who have since been bailed out with tax payers' dollars-- on to America's poor and middle class?  Why are so few outraged that city and state budgets that pay for things like education, transportation, libraries, garbage collection, and healthcare are being gorged in a year that saw record earnings for huge corporations and the number of billionaires continue to increase?  To me at least, it seems like there are two major, mutually reinforcing factors:  a lack of reliable information, and partisanship. 

People aren't informed of the impact of policy-makers decisions on their lives, and they're not aware of what feeds into those decisions.  It's not as though economic policy is simple to understand. Nor are the secretive processes of lobbying and campaign finance that feed so much into what our elected officials decide to do once in office.  So a big problem becomes with what and where do people come out to voice their discontent .  So much is done that effectively confuses the issues and thereby the public at large who might, if properly informed, be incensed enough to participate in protests and demonstrations.  This is as much a product of the capacity of ordinary Americans to understand complex issues as it is their willingness, but nevertheless, where and from whom could willing people get reliable, non-partisan information is still yet to become obvious.

People also take at face-value the words of the politicians and news media that supposedly represent them.  Americans are so effectively divided by things that have no bearing on their lives as individuals and are so convinced which side they're on that the idea that they actually have more in common with people on the other side of partisan lines in the face of of such trying economic times fails to reach them.  Buzzwords like 'terrorism', 'socialism', 'patriotism', and 'fascism' are thrown around like Molotov cocktails inciting people and stoking the flame of  'us vs. them'.  Meanwhile we're made to believe that the place to fight these battles is at the ballot box where the leaders on either side represent the will of their constituents.  If anything was needed to dispel this notion it has so far been the presidency of Barrack Obama, who has failed to live up to the expectations of change that his supporters fervently projected onto his, in hindsight, actually quite limited campaign  promises.  What we can learn from this failure is that either the current system is so entrenched in the political process that the hands of those who might champion the rights of the many over those of the few are effectively tied, or that those people just simply don't exist in government.

We as a population have a responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable.  We as Americans have the additional responsibility to the rest of the world of keeping in check a government whose decisions have such far-reaching and dramatic implications.  It doesn't seem to me that these responsibilities are possible to uphold at the ballot box.  Seemingly then, the only method left is in the streets.  It's my hope that poor, disaffected and unrepresented Americans on both sides of the partisan divide will look upon what's happening in the Arab world with envy and will find inspiration in it.  Obama has shown that he's amenable to the demands of the populations of countries in the region-- even if not all of them.  So maybe he'd be more likely than most to implement policies that people demanded if the chains that bind him could be shaken loose by popular will.  There still remains the question of what people should demand.  Simply being upset isn't enough to get things done.  It's easy for people under authoritarian regimes to cohesively demand something: an end to authoritarianism.  But until there can be some unity in that regard in this country and with the population in general in the midst of complex issues, it's my fear that any popular will, even when voiced on election day, won't have any positive effect on the lives of so many troubled Americans.  So maybe it's time we implement a different model.

* a comprehensive interactive map of the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa 

    http://www.slate.com/id/2288928/?from=rss

The Language

Any learner of the Arabic language must first decide which Arabic it is they want to learn.  While some form of colloquial (spoken) Arabic is the first language of over 280 million people mainly across the Middle East and North Africa, many of these dialects are not mutually intelligible.  In addition to the spoken forms, Modern Standard Arabic, based on Classical (Quranic) Arabic, is widely used in schools, universities, workplaces, government and the media throughout the Arab world.  So naturally you have to ask yourself: Which form of Arabic do I want to learn?  Do I learn some form of Gulf, North African, or Mediterranean Arabic?  Where do I want to travel, work, or spend the most time?  Should I learn Modern Standard Arabic so that I can engage in intellectual, political, or philosophical conversations with educated people across the region?  Should I learn a spoken form so that I can interact with people on the street?  Which is the most widely understood colloquial form? Is it possible to formally study a colloquial language?  How do I want to be identified when I open my mouth?  The task can seem quite daunting, and has deterred many a potential learner of the language, myself included.

In my experience so far, I've been picking up mostly what I can of Najdi Arabic-- the colloquial form spoken in the central region of Saudi Arabia called Najd.  Originally I thought that learning Modern Standard would be the best, since it's used across the region and because I'm often want to engage in political and philosophical conversations (not that that's obvious to you all), but in the process of developing even the most basic vocabulary, I quickly ran into a problem.  No one I actually spoke with outside of an academic environment could understand what the heck I was saying.  Cab drivers, shop keepers, and even my students all looked at me pretty quizzically and kind of shaking me off would correct me with colloquial words and phrases.  My first crisis of the Arabic language had occurred.  So now, having decided that in my present situation learning the local spoken dialect would be best, I was immediately confronted with my next crises:  Well what happens when I travel?;  How well will I be understood?; and Do I really want to be identified by my Saudi dialect?  I felt like I was back at square one.

I can now say though, that it seems the best course of action is to learn a colloquial dialect, especially if you plan on living and working in the region.  It will be the easiest to pick up through interactions and the best to converse with.  Once some level of fluency in that spoken form is reached, I get the impression that differences, especially between dialects that are close geographically to each other, can be picked up more easily and mutual intelligibility isn't as difficult.  You will be identified by the words you use and your accent, but this seems to be unavoidable and unfortunately would mean that people wherever I'd go in the Arab world would know I'd spent time in Saudi and assume I've got money.  Modern Standard Arabic seems to only be useful if you plan on being highly involved in academia or government, and while it is the language of mass, pan-Arab media and literature, I don't get the impression that it would take you very far on the street.   You would be bound to run into somebody who speaks it, but for the most part people would assume that you've studied Islam extensively since it's based on the language of the Qur'an.  If you're not planning on living and/or working in a specific part of the Arab world, I've been told that Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood spoken form, thanks to the popularity of Egyptian movies and television programs, and would take you the furthest while travelling.  

Regardless of which dialect of Arabic one decides to learn, the language on the whole seems to have some unique qualities.  The thing that I've found to be the most interesting is how someone fluent in both Arabic and another language will transition back and forth between the two seamlessly and without giving it any thought, sometimes in mid-sentence.  It's crazy to be sitting next to someone conversing entirely in Arabic when they'll suddenly say "about 20 kilometers give or take" and then continue again in Arabic.  The same goes for someone speaking English interjecting Arabic into the conversation based seemingly on which language is best suited to express their sentiment.  It's cool, and while a lot of the words and phrases from Arabic that are used frequently by speakers of other languages (like "inshallah") have religious connotations, the fact that people switch back and forth so frequently raises interesting questions about different languages' ability to express different feelings and ideas.  Which things are better said in one language?  Which in the other? It seems like it would be nice to have more options.

Words after all, are the building blocks of our thoughts. So the language your given shapes the thoughts you can make. Learning another language gives you the opportunity to experience a different way of thinking.  It allows you to think using a different set of tools-- someone else's set.  In addition to offering rare insight into how other people think, it also gives you the opportunity to use more of your brain. Studies done on multilingualism's effect on the brain have shown that multilingual people have a higher proficiency in cognitive function and are less likely to develop age-related mental diminishment.  The additional acts of learning new alphabets and systems of writing can only mean more mental exercise with more benefit to the brain.

For right now though, I'll take delight in the cultural understanding and experience that my own adventure with Arabic and other languages allows for, and let the other stuff take care of itself.  But still, it's pretty cool to think about.  

This Week in Arabia

So not much came of the last weekend's Day of Rage.  On Thursday night, 3 Shiite men were shot during protests of a couple hundred people in the Eastern Province.  The official statement said the officers were returning fire and the men's injuries were not life threatening.   But on Friday, the day which coordinated protests were called for in cities across Saudi Arabia including Riyadh and Jeddah, everything was sufficiently locked down and the day passed without incident.  There were police and security personnel checking identification and searching cars in key positions in towns all over the country.  They were set up outside of mosques in the Olaya district of Riyadh when midday prayers let out-- the place and time set for demonstrations on social media sites including facebook.  My students complained about the police being everywhere and stopping people, but they seemed more annoyed at the inconvenience than outraged at the violation of their "universal right" to peaceful demonstration.

Demonstrations and clashes with security forces in Yemen are continuing to increase in scale and violence.  Yemen has seen scores of people killed and many more injured over the last four weeks.  Promises of reform are being seen as too little, too late.  The situation is growing less and less tenable for President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and considering all the talk in recent years of Yemen being a breeding ground for Al Qaeda, more concerning to the U.S. and its allies.

Protests have taken place in Syria, surprising many observers.  And in the West Bank and Gaza, tens of thousands gathered to show solidarity in the normally politically divided occupied territories.

The Sunni royal family in Bahrain must have been impressed with the how the Saudis handled their calls for protest, because they've enlisted the help of the Saudi military as well as that of other Gulf Cooperation Council countries to help "protect"  its citizenry.  One thousand Saudi troops as well as over 500 Emirati police were seen crossing into Bahrain on Monday.  The situation there has continued to progress in scale and violence as well, something which is extremely worrying to the house of Saud, whose own Shia population just across the causeway have been the only within the Kingdom to conduct demonstrations.  The U.S. is in a tough position as a close ally of both KSA and Bahrain, and the injection of Saudi military forces has come as an unwelcome surprise to the Whitehouse.  The State Department had been calling on the Bahraini ruling family to seek resolution through political means, so Saudis sending in troops demonstrates just how divided Washington and Riyadh are in terms of their reactions to the region's unrest.  So far all that has come out of Washington officially are calls for "restraint by all parties" but it is clear that the situation is tense.  Yesterday, emergency law was declared and an intensive campaign to uproot the demonstrators has already begun.  

It's pretty crazy being right smack dab in the middle of all of this.  Not only to be in the middle of the Middle East during this historic period, but also to be in Saudi, which is itself bordering 7 countries that have experienced unrest ranging from peaceful demonstration to popular uprising.  The royal family has to be feeling the same.  Still though, it does seem like an island unto itself, like a place properly equipped to weather the storm for the time being.  I'm sure this fact is welcomed by those concerned for friends and family living in Saudi (like me!).  But while you've always got to be careful what you wish for, and while it's nice to be in a place that is relatively secure where I can generate dialog with a number of Arabs, Muslims, and Westerners with a tremendous amount of interest in the region, I am honestly a little disappointed.  I would like to be experiencing a little more history first hand-- and not just so my blog gets more interesting.   I would like to engage the local population.  I'd like to know to what extent the local population is engaged.  I'd like to witness real democracy.  In the meantime though, I'm safe, secure, and sitting perfectly comfortably in the eye of the storm, with a front row seat.

But...

After re-reading "Smoke" and having a nice long chat with a Canadian friend of mine whose lived here for quite a while, I've decided that my previous post is in need of significant critique.  Statements like that Saudi is "by no stretch of the imagination in danger of revolution," or that no one here "is operating under the belief that anything will come of these calls to action", were put in way too absolute of terms.  Also, my generalizations about the situation here and the Saudi public at large were based on limited experience and don't give the voices of dissent or the many disaffected people here in the Kingdom any credit whatsoever.

My sampling of Saudi youth consists of 18-20 year old university students who come across as significantly spoiled and content in their lives and their ideas about the future.  I'm not sure that they would be in favor of bottom-up reform, but it also is very true that they most likely would not share those opinions with me and certainly not in a public or school setting if they did happen to hold them.*  Also, the Westerners I'm most likely to encounter are fed the same party line about people being happy and that the state is in complete control and wouldn't be well informed of any popular dissent-- quite similarly to your humbled blogger.

The truth is that there are a lot of people who I don't encounter who are young, unemployed, don't feel represented by the government, and lack the opportunities that the Saudi Arabia of as recently as 10 years ago offered them.  Sixty percent of the population is under 30, and unemployment figures are sharply skewed to mask the problem.  A vast majority of the population is not "pacified", as I put it, and it was unfair of me to make such a hasty generalization based on such limited exposure.  The old remedy of handouts and benefits is outdated and unsustainable and most likely will cease to be effective.   People want jobs.  My students even, who seem so carefree and contented, will find that the jobs simply won't be there when they graduate.  The world they will enter is not that of their parents when there was more money to go around to a lot fewer people.  Rising food prices and inflation have compounded these issues and wages and benefits in many peoples' case are not sufficient enough to start and support a family.

It should also be remembered that there have been voices of dissent even among the Saudi royal family, which itself is experiencing fractioning, and that this is a recent phenomena.  People high up have joined voices with influential Saudis living abroad in making calls for changes including more freedoms for women and implementing a constitutional monarchy.  These voices obviously face strong opposition from the many influential clerics and imams as well as a majority of the royal family, but their existence is something that needs to be recognized.

It is also impossible to predict how the government will react to demonstrations if they do take place, and it is even more difficult to say how and if Saudi police and military will take action against their own people including arrest and/or violent repression.  Additionally, the international community including the White House and U.S. based Human Rights Watch have called for Saudis to allow peaceful protest which may prove to further temper the governments reaction and will, at the very least, put a spotlight on it.

Personally though, I am still skeptical that much in the way of revolution will come from the actions being planned for this month or in the immediate future.  In addition to the power that the Saudi government itself will wield in order to limit demonstrations and any resulting uprising, the international community, especially (needless to say) the U.S., has a lot to lose if the power structure here is disturbed.  If things were to start going down here like elsewhere in the Arab world, it's hard to imagine that the U.S. would play as passive a role as they have in other countries.

In my last post, I overreacted to the what I felt was being portrayed in the U.S. media.  And while I don't retract any of the statements I made condemning those who stand to benefit from such propagations which still as of yet are patently false, I was much too hasty to assert that an uprising similar to those in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya or protests like those in Bahrain, Yemen, or Oman won't happen here and that they wouldn't find support amongst a pacified and/or scared population.  I still believe that there hasn't been enough fire to warrant the kind of smoke being blown around on U.S. televisions, but I will say that it is impossible to know what will serve as or if there will be a spark.  I should also iterate that the situation will continue to grow more contentious in the future, and while this might not be the time for dramatic change in Saudi, that time might not be too far off.

*  A teacher at my school was fired for discussing protesting with his students and we have been expressly warned in sternly-worded emails and an all-faculty meeting that such topics are never appropriate and are grounds for immediate dismissal.  

Smoke

While it seems that Saudi Arabia isn’t entirely immune to the wave of protests sweeping through and forever changing the Arab world, it needs to be understood that Saudi is not by any stretch of the imagination in danger of revolution.  The small protests in the Eastern Province, mainly by Shias demanding the release of political prisoners and more access to government jobs and benefits, have not been on a scale anywhere near that of even the smallest protests in neighboring countries in the region.  We’re talking hundreds of people.  Not thousands, not tens of thousands and certainly not millions—hundreds.  Present during both instances of protest last week were more security forces than demonstrators.  A few people were arrested but there was no need for violent crowd control.  Any mention of “eminent upheaval” and resulting $12 a gallon gas prices should be viewed with enough scrutiny as to seriously question the speaker’s sources, their sanity, and last but certainly not least, their agenda. 

That is not to say, however, that the Saudi Government is taking the threat of protest lightly.  They’ve recently released a statement reiterating to the public that any form of demonstration, protest, or sit-in is illegal, against Sharia law, and will be dealt with using all necessary force by security personnel.  There have been calls on facebook for mass protests, or “Days of Rage”, to take place in larger cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah, and more than 17,000 people have reportedly hit the ‘like’ button.  The first of such days is this Friday, immediately following the midday prayers as has been the modus operandi of protesters throughout this entire period of unrest in the Middle East. To be honest, I am more than a little curious to see what will happen.  But please don’t let that be any indication that anyone here, myself included, is operating under the belief that anything will come of these calls to action or of any protests that may happen to take place, or that they will reach a scale to put anybody here in danger. The idea to many, is laughable. 

First of all, they will in no way be able to get the number of people to come out as has been the case in the other Arab countries experiencing popular uprisings.  As I’ve written in previous posts, I feel that the general public is either too pacified, too scared, or both, and given the $37 billion benefits package the king has recently promised to roll out as well as the “reminder” of what the state’s response to protests will be, neither feeling is without justification.  The people who are pacified-- the large majority in my opinion-- assign the unrest to the small Shiite minority and some even agree that demonstrations against the king are not only against Islam, but unjustified.  Why would they want to upset a power structure that, after all, has benefitted them?  The ones who are scared-- and this basically comprises the rest of the population-- have very good reason to be.  Dissent will not be tolerated, especially on the days mentioned via social networking sites.  I fully expect there to be, like in the Eastern Province, more security personnel than protesters, even if somehow protesters manage to gather in the thousands.  I’d guess there will literally be enough police and military to arrest everyone present without much trouble and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what happens, if there are even gatherings at all.  The capability of the state’s security to largely outnumber protesters will almost guarantee that deadly force won’t have to be used-- if the Saudis aren’t altogether inept-- and therefore further protests and days of rage will not gather momentum as they have in other countries.  Bottom line, I and every single person, Arab or Western, Teacher or Cab driver, Muslim or not, that I have talked to can’t even fathom any sort of unrest or public demonstrations that would have any sort of destabilizing effect on the government or security.

So then why am I getting messages from friends and family in the U.S. asking me with great concern if everything is still OK in Saudi?  Why am I reading that the wave has finally reached the Kingdom?  Why am I hearing about news reports predicting worldwide economic collapse when the Saudi monarchy falls and oil exports dwindle?  The answer, I believe, can be found by looking at who is to benefit from the propagation of such falsehoods.  It’s hard to show that oil companies don’t reap the most profits when oil prices are at their highest due to fear in the market.  I also can’t help but point to the American media who have turned fear and “breaking news” journalism into profitable entertainment that is meant to enrage and incite audiences without any thought presumably being given to the idea of informing them.  I also wonder about neo-conservatives whose worldwide as well as domestic political, military, and economic agendas would stand to benefit from a more unified and fearful electorate in either the anticipation or wake of the next great shock.  

Regardless of these factors though, no one can say that any government in the Middle East no matter how effective their power apparatus is out of the woods just yet.  It's also worth noting that no one in Libya or Egypt thought revolution could happen there either.  But please, in the meantime, don’t believe everything you hear or read about what’s going on in the Kingdom.  Because for all the smoke, there doesn't seem to be any fire.

Brits

One of the opportunities that teaching English abroad allows you is being able to spend a lot of time with our cousins from across the pond.  For me, it's an especially interesting cultural and linguistic exchange for the reason that we have so much in common and yet it's our differences that we so often give weight to.  I've been given some fascinating insight into British culture, their sense of identity, as well as into the unique relationship that exists between our two countries.  I also generally think their accents and use of English are awesome and hilarious and seem to be straight out of a movie, something which I'm sure goes both ways.  Plus, having plenty of opportunity to work on my own impression can only come in handy down the road.

A lot of the British blokes I've been meeting around campus and in our accommodation are second or third generation immigrants to the isles from the subcontinent.  There are lots of Pakistanis and Indians.  It's given me a lot insight into the nature of the U.K..  I could definitely tell from my time in London that at least that city is a truly international metropolis, but what I'm learning is that the whole of Great Britain seems to have the identity of a melting pot and has for quite some time.  Imperialism has of course played a large role in this and it's interesting to talk to both Anglo-Brits and those of various ethnic backgrounds to get some perspective on how it's shaping the country today, and how people feel about it.  I've gathered that while there is an acceptance among white Brits that their country is a multi-cultural one and they even take a certain amount of pride in that aspect of their identity, there is still a pretty strong resistance to immigration, especially that which is done so illegally.  I've also found that a lot of the Indian or Pakistani-Brits I've met identify much more with the U.K. than they do with their parents' homeland and consider themselves British above all.  The effects of Great Britain's imperial past seem to be carrying over, and it' position as a hub for business as well as education in the modern world means that people will continue to try to move there and make it their home.  Sound familiar?

Linguistically, I could never tire of exchanges between British and American English.  The debate over which is more relevant, more useful, or better to me is ridiculous.  We both have to accept that our language has always been as much of a hodpe-podge as it is today and it is its nature to flow, adapt, give and take.  Modern English has been affected by no less than 30 languages including, Angle, Saxon, Celtic, Norman, French, German, Norse, Latin, Spanish, those of various native American tribes and far too many more to name.  There doesn't even exist a governing body over the language and the whole of the language's existence has freely allowed for adaptation and evolution. Neither is more correct and both have taken liberties in how they've developed over the years.  In some ways American English is more Elizabethan than what the Queen's English is today and words and expressions have been flowing both ways across the Atlantic ever since the New World was colonized.  So in my opinion all there is left to do is inquire, appreciate, and find hilarious one another's own quirky little expressions which often vary as much within one country as they do between the two.  Just the other night we had quite the time comparing anatomical euphemisms, and suffice it to say that I've grown a new appreciation for British wit.  I'm also thoroughly entertained by Cockney Rhyming Slang and for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's the way that the Cockneys of the East-End of London use rhyming words to express ideas in a round-a-bout way.  A lot of it is still in use today.  Some has even crept into American English and I recommend doing some wikipedia'ing for some interesting tidbits.

More than anything though, I've come to develop a better understanding of how exactly the States and the U.K. really are similar, although this doesn't always come as a welcomed opinion when I've shared it with British folks.  The history of the U.K. is one where people from mainland Europe were constantly coming, invading, fighting, conquering, leaving their mark and taking off.  It really was kind of a mini and more easily accessible New World, centuries before the "discovery" of the Americas.  The point I've made that to some Brits seems so contentious is that the U.K. actually has much more in common with the U.S. than it does with the rest of Europe.  I've even gone as far as to say that it's not Europe at all.  And as much as they hate to admit it, most of the people I've talked to are willing to concede as much after further explanation.  It is hard to argue the fact that there is an Anglo-American  ideological and political alliance.  It's also quite obvious that the U.K. doesn't want to let go of it's independence from Europe. Add to that the facts that the military and economic exchanges with the States have made our two countries inextricably linked in world affairs and that these links only encourage further cultural interrelation creating that much more of a sense of "us", and it's pretty easy to see how much we are connected.

Still though, I would never say that we are the same.   The U.K. is a pretty fascinating place with a unique history that's inseparable from our own.  Its use of our common language while sometimes bringing about tension with the American variety is equally intriguing and as native speakers ourselves we're in the perfect position to try to understand and appreciate with just what kind of flavor and creativity they've developed it.  I thoroughly enjoy the process of dispelling our mutual stereotypes (i.e. that Americans are stupid and Brits are pretentious) and while I never thought I'd care to know as much about cricket as I do right now, I can say that it's been more than a worthwhile exercise in cross-cultural understanding.