<sob> It’s called sleep deprivation - gimmie a break.
Ahem - now, to drastic_quench - Mecca is the Muslim holy city. Most Muslim’s will make a pilgrimage there at least once in their life when they go for a period of time (a week? two?), do a crap load of praying, lots of charitable works (typically donating a number of animals based on the individuals income), etc. etc.
I’m not clear how non-Muslim’s are kept out, but if you’re not Muslim, you’re not welcome. Not even reporters are allowed in (well, Muslim ones are, but not to report).
Someone else will need to report on enforcement - I have all my knowledge from when one of my good friends was planning her haj and was discussing it with me - specifically trying to determine the number of camels it was correct for her to donate. And yes, I believe she was actually going to buy the camels.
I’m not entirely sure that’s accurate, as I’ve seen plenty of professional photographs of Mecca taken from inside by (one assumes) Muslim photographers, as well as having read at least one illustrated National Geographic article on the Hajj and seen a TV documentary (Not sure if it was BBC, but it was someone respected) following Muslim pilgrims and including filming inside the Masjid Al-Haram as pilgrims ritually cast stones at the Devil and prayed and so forth.
The National Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur has a small exhibit on the subject, including one of the Kiswah (cloths covering the Kaaba, the holy building/site in the centre of Masjid Al-Haram), along with photographs, and there are several Wikipedia articles on the Hajj and Mecca and various aspects thereof which have illustrations, so clearly people are allowed to photograph and report on what goes on in Mecca and during the Hajj.
To actually get into Saudi Arabia in the first place, you need a visa- and if you’ve got a non-Muslim name and you’re from a non-Muslim country and the purpose of your visa is to undertake the Hajj, you have to get a chit from a respected Imam in your country to the effect that you are actually a practising Muslim etc before the visa will be issued.
And I’m fairly sure that once you actually get on the road to Mecca, there will be checkpoints outside the city to look for people who appear Non-Muslim and demand some sort of proof that they are Muslims.
Having said all that, Non-Muslims have visited Mecca, most notably Sir Richard Burton, who pretended to be a Sufi from Afghanistan (amongst other guises) to visit Mecca in the early 1850s.
He apparently got tickets for refusing to show identification and having expired insurance. The article isn’t very well-written so I didn’t catch it at first, but it is claimed that on the police report, the officer wrote that his name didn’t match his race. I can’t vouch about what is written on the report, and something may be lost in translation, but in any case it seems that he probably got an overzealous cop.
But Burton never said he wasn’t a Muslim; he avoided organized religion throughout his life. He’d studied language & culture diligently in preparation for the trip & even had himself circumcized. Checking Wikipedia for convenience:
And he later was the consul in Damascus. Due to his contrary nature, his time there was not easy. But I don’t think his Mecca escapade was held against him.
I think that refers to the Cockpit Country, specifically an area of it called “Land of Look Behind” known for its treacherous terrain.
There was a documentary about this area titled Land of Look Behind that had a native of the area explaining its name in patois as “If-I-call-you-no-come.” In other words, you fell into an unexpected sinkhole and now you’ll never be seen again. Not xenophobia, then, but a warning about the terrain to anyone who goes walking around there.
Actually that movie showed a map at the beginning of it with the legend “Me No Sen You No Come.”
I can understand if the people there would be wary of outsiders for historical reasons. The Maroons escaped slavery and found freedom in the easily defended Cockpit Country. Like the Seminoles, their core territory remained unconquered from outside and the population today is descended from the Maroons who successfully fought off the British colonial forces attempting to enforce slavery.
“…And that way, in the Look Behind: It is the baddest land we have, in the Look Behind. That is the Look Behind forest over there. There is lots of bad land right over there. There you have holes, that you call sinkholes. You have cliffs that you’ll drop off. And when you drop over there, you will die and no one ever see again. That’s why it’s called ‘If-Me-No-Call-You-No-Come and If-Me-No-Send-You-No-Come.’ That is what they call it, because there’s lots of bad land over there in the Cockpit Country. I travel this Cockpit a long time; I walk it too. I know that it is very bad. Sometimes me a miss and fall down there in the cockpit and [?something in patois] get bust head and cut foot and all them things there, in the Cockpit, because Dread! And we need something good in the hills fe help us, because we suffer bad. [Then he expresses a plea for infrastructure and economic development to come to the area.] It is very bad over there; no human being was supposed to go over that Cockpit. It is only bird, mongoose, and rat should run there. No human should go inside of that Cockpit to look at the living. […] Don’t go over there, unless one of our native bearers carry you over there, so you know the way and no go dead over there. Quick Step, the Cockpit: my birthland. We are loving people. We only want to have money so we can help ourselves. What a joy would be if we can get it. We would be very, very, very happy.”
Dude is practically begging for outsiders to come in and economically develop the area.
I know a couple who camped and biked through Russia and China and found a real difference between the two. Rural Russians would always offer what they had (a bathhouse, tea, water, etc.); rural Chinese tensed to be suspicious and in one tiny village they couldn’t get anyone to sell them a bite to eat.
I’m pretty sure one of the major criteria for being a Muslim is declaring that you are a Muslim (the whole “There is no God but Allah…” thing, for a start). Of course, as you note, Sir Richard was a noted Arabist (as the contemporary term was) and a very well travelled and learned individual- but all my readings on 19th century Exploration and so on categorise his trip to Mecca as being undertaken by a Non-Muslim and being one of the few Europeans to manage to do so at that point (when “European” and “Muslim” were totally exclusive terms).
I took that to mean Sir Richard was saying “If the locals find a Non-Believer trying to sneak into Mecca, Very Unpleasant Things will happen. Ditto anyone who looks like a Believer, gets in, and then says "Well, that was interesting. By the way, I’m not actually Muslim, but thanks for the Hajj.”
When visiting it was not common but every once in a while we’d walk into a small mom & pop place for lunch while sightseeing and if my wife and relatives walked in first it was all smiles and “Welcome” until they saw me - then the mood changes considerably.
We were never asked to leave but it was pretty clear how the wind blew.
You don’t wander into a lot of strange bars do you?
A bar and it’s regulars become more like a group of friends. It starts to feel like a private party - inside jokes, we know who’s cool and who’s an ass, who can handle their booze and who’s gonna out of hand, etc.
So here you come - how do we know you’re cool? Are you gonna cause shit after a few shots? Are you gonna freak when we start tellin’ offensive jokes? When Pete over there whips it out (like he always does - it was funny ONCE!) are you gonna cause a problem? Do you know the rules for the pool table?
And WTF! EVERYONE knows that’s old man Johnson’s seat! - Get the FUCK up!
And so on and so on…
Of course this usually applies more to small neighborhood bars.
Well, I live in a big city and I’m a fairly cute female type, so whenever I’ve wandered into bars and started talking to strangers, I’m usually greeted with merriment.
Zoid gave a very good explanation of the phenomenon, so I will just add an experience. There was a bar in my city that had just won the local newspaper’s ‘Friendliest Bar in Town’ contest. A couple of days after it won the contest, I was in the area and figured I would check it out.
When I entered there were 5 customers, other than the bartender. They were all at the end of the bar. The patrons all had full beers in front of them. The bartender looked up as I entered, so I know he saw me. I sat down toward the end of the bar, leaving an empty stool between myself and the group as a courtesy.
They were engaged in the type of conversation that let anyone listening know they were friends. No biggie. I had my money out and it would have taken 10 seconds for the bartender to serve me. He could have then gone back to his conversation. I waited for 5 minutes and then said, “Hey, could I get a tapper here?”
The bartender held up his hand toward me and continued in conversation. I waited another 5 minutes and asked again, this time a bit louder. The bartender looked up and said “You can just fucking wait, we’re in a conversation here!”
I replied with, “Or I can just get ahold of the owner and tell him what an asshole you are.” His attitude suddenly changed and he came over to serve me, but I just glared at him as I walked out the door. I did get ahold of the owner and told him what happened and he was pissed off about it and apologetic to me, but I never went back there.
