# Bringing a Bible into Saudi Arabia
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 21, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843 "2005-05-21T03:03:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/61 "2005-05-23T14:06:32Z")
**spoke:** _So then the only way to bring about the confrontation that civil disobedience requires would be to be deceptive in the visa application and then bring in the Bibles anyway. I see no indication that the man made any effort to conceal the Bibles._
Well, we only know what **Paul** told us, but I didn’t get the impression that the Bible-smuggler was hoping or expecting to be caught. ISTM that his goal was to smuggle the Bibles in and then distribute them clandestinely, while ostensibly being just a law-abiding employee of **Paul** ’s company. Perhaps **Paul** can give us some more info on what was actually up with the guy’s intentions.
I think the argument that “you have to be deceptive in order to disobey the law in the first place, therefore deception is okay” is a bit sophistic. As I said, I believe most exponents of civil disobedience consider that you’re supposed to be honest about your intentions from the get-go. There will always be lots of laws that you couldn’t break without lying your way into a certain set of circumstances, but that just means that you don’t get to break them.
**spoke:** _Your last post is essentially an argument from authority. Why should there be strict rules to civil disobedience? Who gets to make those rules?_
Oh, I’m not claiming any supreme authority for the association of openness and truthfulness with civil disobedience, just that that’s the way it has been generally understood. “Clandestine civil disobedience” is kind of a contradiction in terms, according to the generally accepted meaning of the phrase.
And I think that there’s a good reason for that. IMHO, the biggest trouble with abandoning truthfulness in civil disobedience is that it blurs the moral message. Somebody who is openly and publicly breaking a law and accepting the legal penalties is obviously making a sacrifice for the cause of principle.
Somebody who is breaking the law clandestinely, on the other hand, is harder to distinguish from an ordinary criminal who’s trying to get away with illegal behavior and evade the consequences. Dishonesty and deception automatically call your moral _bona fides_ into question right from the start.
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### Author:  [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/62 "2005-05-23T14:17:34Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Paul, what is wrong with disrespecting a culture in which women must cover themselves and can’t drive cars, and where homosexuality is punishable by death? … What’s wrong with civil disobedience against tyranny?
Civil disobedience from foreigners ? Can of worms.
I think the issue isn’t really Saudi Laws… but the fact that an employee as a representative of that company flaunted a law and badly so. If he had come into Saudi Arabia on his own agenda, money and reputation… fine. By serving his bible bashing ways through Paul’s company he was reckless. He was hurting other people’s interest and security for selfish and stupid reasons.
I agree with Paul… fuck the guy and give him some jail time.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/63 "2005-05-23T14:18:00Z")
**spoke-:** _I fully understand Paul’s frustration with the man, and to the extent he also deceived his employer, he deserved to be fired. But he did not deserve imprisonment, or even a fine._
Wait a second. How come he deserves a fine for deceiving his employer, but didn’t deserve one for deceiving the Saudi government? Because it’s the Saudi government who imposes the unjust anti-proselytizing rule, and not the employer?
But the employer is at least passively complicit with the government in imposing that unjust law, because their contract with the government presumably includes their promise that they will abide by the country’s laws (at least, I’ve never heard of a foreign contractor who **didn’t** have to make such a promise). So why should they be let off the hook?
I think these pro-deceptiveness arguments may perhaps be colored by a bit of libertarian sod-the-government resentment, or automatic sympathy to any type of anti-government activity because the whole principle of government is just so darn tyrannical. Again, though, I don’t think this really accomplishes anything except to blur the moral issues involved.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/64 "2005-05-23T14:20:35Z")
Whoops! Stupid me, I misread **spoke-**'s “deserved to be fired” as “deserved to be fined”.
My point stands, though—there’s no logically consistent justification for saying that the guy should be punished for lying to his employers but not for lying to the government, since the employers are complicit in the injustice.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/65 "2005-05-23T14:32:27Z")
I’m really quite amazed. It used to be the liberals who stood up for individual rights, and opposed government meddling in such basic rights as what one can read. And now you are nitpicking over what constitutes — dear lord — “classical civil disobedience”. You’ve given to governments the mystical power of proscribing rights. As I said early on, the issue here to me isn’t whether the man should be allowed to bring in Bibles (although he should); the issue is whether Saudis have the inherent right to read them (and I believe they do). The whole reason for forbidding them to come in obviously is to forbid them from being handed out. I do not see how you can support this tyranny while condemning others, such as the dehumanizing oppression of women and homosexuals. The only injustice here is the suppression of rights by a government. The only surprise is that those who call themselves “liberal” excuse it.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/66 "2005-05-23T14:50:58Z")
**Liberal:** \* It used to be the liberals who stood up for individual rights, and opposed government meddling in such basic rights as what one can read.\*
Still is. Liberals continue to form the backbone of support for human and civil rights organizations.
**Liberal:** _The only injustice here is the suppression of rights by a government._
Agreed. (Perhaps a private firm’s complicity in this injustice is also an injustice, though.) I’m not saying that lying on your visa application and attempting to smuggle Bibles illegally is an “injustice”. I’m just saying that it’s not civil disobedience.
**Liberal:** \* The only surprise is that those who call themselves “liberal” excuse it.\*
What self-described liberals are excusing it? What liberals are arguing that Saudi Arabia’s religious intolerance is a good thing?
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/67 "2005-05-23T14:51:07Z")
Is not part of being liberal allowing people and so countries) to live as they choose to live? Was it liberal to colonize the world to bring the native people to their senses? I think not.
A liberal methinks adopts a live-and-let-live policy towards his neighbor and his neighboring nation. Certainly that wise and just policy has limits. As Pablo P, the Spanish philosopher pointed out, ‘All of any art is knowing where to draw the line.’
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/68 "2005-05-23T14:58:00Z")
> [@spoke-](#):
>
> I see no indication that the man made any effort to conceal the Bibles.
Nor do I see any indication that this was civil disobedience for the purpose of protest. It much more plausible that he was smuggling them in solely for the purpose of evangelism; any civil disobedience was merely incidental.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/69 "2005-05-23T15:01:17Z")
**Paul** , as long as you’re here, could you clear up the point that **spoke-** and I (and **Fear Itself** too, I see in preview) were wondering about above? Namely, can you tell us whether your Bible-smuggling former employee **intended** to be caught and punished by the Saudis in order to draw attention to the severity of their laws against religious proselytizing? Or was he hoping to bring the Bibles in without getting caught and continue working for you as an ostensibly law-abiding resident of the country?
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/70 "2005-05-23T15:07:48Z")
Oh, by the way…
**Liberal:** \*And now you are nitpicking over what constitutes — dear lord — “classical civil disobedience”. \*
I don’t think that the debate over what behavior is considered ethical in civil disobedience is “nitpicking”. I think it’s a pretty important issue.
We’re arguing over whether civil disobedience requires you to be truthful or permits you to lie and deceive. That’s a fairly substantial difference: hardly a “nitpick”, IMO.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/71 "2005-05-23T15:14:24Z")
His intent was to spread his version of the Word of God. The day before he left, he went around the base handing out Arabic-language tracts to school kids. I must admit if one desired attention, this was a sure way of getting it.
Like I said, a very ugly American.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/72 "2005-05-23T15:18:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> **Liberal:** \* It used to be the liberals who stood up for individual rights, and opposed government meddling in such basic rights as what one can read.\*
>
> Still is. Liberals continue to form the backbone of support for human and civil rights organizations.
Yeah, organizations. But I said “individuals”.
> [@](#):
>
> **Liberal:** \* The only surprise is that those who call themselves “liberal” excuse it.\*
>
> What self-described liberals are excusing it? What liberals are arguing that Saudi Arabia’s religious intolerance is a good thing?
All who refuse to oppose it.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/73 "2005-05-23T15:23:35Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#):
>
> His intent was to spread his version of the Word of God. The day before he left, he went around the base handing out Arabic-language tracts to school kids. I must admit if one desired attention, this was a sure way of getting it.
>
> Like I said, a very ugly American.
That’s the first time you’ve mentioned something objectionable: interfering in the parent-child contract. Until then, your defense of the Saudis rivaled that of Bush and Co.
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/74 "2005-05-23T15:34:27Z")
[slight hijack]
> [@Kimstu](#):
>
> (Tangential remark: I am personally pretty disgusted by what seems to me a transparent attempt to spin the Qur’an-desecration scandal as insignificant by emphasizing the religious intolerance of many Muslim countries, as in these PR pieces about Saudis and the Bible. “So what if we did something bad? You guys routinely do lots of stuff that’s much worse, so why should we care if we piss you off?” Another idiotic struggle for possession of the “white hat of the good guys”: i.e., as long as we can make a case that the other guy is worse than we are, then we can think of ourselves as the “good guys”, so whatever we do is by definition okay. Revolting, childish, and deeply stupid.)
Granted, the _tu quoque_ fallacy (“If I’m one, you’re a bigger one!”) gets ridiculous, but there’s a huge difference between \*tu quoque \* and an honest attempt to keep things in some kind of reasonable perspective. When anti-American bigots talk about Hiroshima and the internment of the Japanese as if these things somehow denied America any right to claim the moral high ground in the Pacific war, it is perfectly proper to remind them of the Rape of Nanking, the Bataan death march, biological warfare experiments on Allied prisoners and any number of other atrocities the Japanese committed. That isn’t _tu quoque_. That’s just reminding folks that there is, after all, a context to these events, and the significance of these events is difficult or impossible to grasp without that context.
When Muslims complain about Westerners’ disrespect or intolerance to Islam, it is perfectly proper to remind them that religious intolerance is far worse in the Islamic world than it is in the West. We aren’t living in the twelfth century any more, and the Islamic world lost the moral high ground on religious tolerance a long time ago.
[/slight hijack]
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/75 "2005-05-23T15:38:22Z")
**Liberal:** _That’s the first time you’ve mentioned something objectionable: interfering in the parent-child contract._
Hmmm. But by that rationale, **Lib** , didn’t the evangelizing ex-employee also (as **spoke-** noted) violate his contract with his employer by breaking Saudi law? His employer is presumably pledged not to violate the laws of the Saudi government, and he was presumably pledged to respect his employer’s policy.
This brings up an interesting sidelight on the foreigners-vs.-natives question. You can argue that citizens aren’t contractually required to abide by an unjust law, because it was imposed on them by the government without their consent (esp. in non-democracies like SA). But a foreign contractor is **voluntarily** choosing to work under that government and **voluntarily** agrees to abide by its laws. Similarly, an employee **voluntarily** agrees to abide by the employer’s terms of employment.
So I would think that according to libertarian principles, a foreign employee is **not** justified in violating the terms of voluntary contract by breaking a local law, however unjust. Wouldn’t that be considered fraud? Wouldn’t the employee have to openly repudiate or break the contract first in order not to be fraudulently violating its terms?
(And **Polecat** , you have a point; I worry, though, that we are using these _tu quoque_’s not so much to keep things in perspective as to distract attention from our own actions.)
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/76 "2005-05-23T15:42:25Z")
I agree with that, Kimstu. If he indeed had such terms of contract, then he had no business breaching them. Fighting the imposition of authority is one thing, but abrogating a voluntary obligation is quite another. Perhaps I was mislead by all the “ugly American” business and missed a central point. I’m not too big on the patriotismo rah-rah crap.
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### Author:  [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/77 "2005-05-23T15:52:00Z")
Okay, I can’t accept trying to influence children against their parents will. I feel the same way about politically activist teachers in the class room of the grade schools of my country.
Carrying on however
> [@Paul in Saudi](#):
>
> People who violate the rules should be punished. Do you take exception to that? Why?
>
> We are guests here. We are expected to behave as good guests…
> The young man of which we speak reflected poorly upon all of us foreigners who live here. He hurt my reputation. He did what he did on purpose, he did it because he did not care about the law, about people or society.
>
> He got off (I think) because he was an American. Darn shame.
>
> If you want to visit other people’s cultures, then respect them. If you cannot take it, stay at home.
Please don’t take this personally, but I do want to challenge the premise of your argument as laid out in the above post. You have stated previously in an other thread that you and your aquantances discreetly manufacture a crude form of beer with which to quench your alcholic thirst within the Kingdom. Do you deserve to be punished. Do you not reflect badly on foreigners? Do you not care about the law? Is it a darn shame if you get caught you will be let off less severely than a local? Nothing I’ve said here should reflect any disapproval of you on my part, but simply challenging your point
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### Author:  [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/78 "2005-05-23T16:18:54Z")
Oh and **Paul** , how the hell did this guy get a hold of these tracts? Presumably Saudi customs would have thoroughly searched his baggage after finding the bibles.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/79 "2005-05-23T16:30:42Z")
I have no idea where he got the tracts. He ran around with a group of like-minded people over in Kobhar. I suspect they have a little underground going, although I can not say that for sure.
As for the beer (or in tonight’s case, a pleasant apple wine), we have an ethic against selling to any Saudi or indeed any Muslium. If that is for self-preservation or an honest attempt to not injure the local culture is anyone’s guess.
As for my own hypocrisy (of which you point out a darn minor example, I might add) I would quote Whitman:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), “Song of Myself”
Forgive me, but it is bedtime here, I have school tomorrow.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bringing-a-bible-into-saudi-arabia/304843/80 "2005-05-23T16:32:25Z")
I have no idea where he got the tracts. He ran around with a group of like-minded people over in Kobhar. I suspect they have a little underground going, although I can not say that for sure.
As for the beer (or in tonight’s case, a pleasant apple wine), we have an ethic against selling to any Saudi or indeed any Muslim. If that is for self-preservation or an honest attempt to not injure the local culture is anyone’s guess.
As for my own hypocrisy (of which you point out a darn minor example, I might add) I would quote Whitman:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), “Song of Myself”
Forgive me, but it is bedtime here, I have school tomorrow. (Did I double post? Sorry!)
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