I am sick of Saudi Arabia!

The BBQ Pit
21

Hey, Paul, look on the bright side. If you get bored, you can go out and watch a few public executions by decapitation! Panama can’t offer anything better than cockfights.

I had a friend who spent several years in Saudi working on a wildlife project. He told me he was especially creeped out just by passing by the site for public execution when he stayed in the city(though of course he never attended one.)

By the way, the dry season’s in full swing here, and the trade winds are lovely. Eat your heart out! :wink:

22

I took Arabic in high school. It really is an interesting language, and although I can’t remember any of it now, it makes me feel good when I hear or read a word that I recognize. Plus, I can impress people by writing my name in a different language.

It may be too late (or unnecessary) to learn Arabic now, but it’s not too late to learn Spanish. You can make a hobby out it. My sister bought my father one of those self-teaching Spanish CDs for Christmas (he just got a job in a heavily Hispanic elementary school). If you give it a shot and fail at least you can say you tried. But (not to be mean), it seems pretty pathetic to not have tried at all. And I’m sure your wife will appreciate the effort. Maybe you can learn some phrases without telling her and then surprise her one day by speaking in her native tongue. I know that would make me feel happy.

23

Well, I had a nice night’s sleep and feel much better now.

I suppose all in all, I am just ready to get back to my finca for a little vacation and see my family.

I called the local Mexican contingent and set up twice-a-week Spanish lessons. Let me see just how gruesome mine really is. Fatigue make all of us question ourselves. It is best if I stay offline when I do so in the future.

Thank you all.

24

So, is the official term for someone from Panama a Panamaniac? or a *Panamodiem * :slight_smile:

Ok, my serious thought. If you said to a foreigner born student in the US " I hate Iraq and I wish your country would be blown up. It’s nothing personal." You could bet your bottom dollar that the person you said this to be pretty quick to contact the ACLU for ethnic intimidation.

I hate all this war jibber jabber. Why can’t we go back to more peaceful times and just blame the Irish for everything.

I’m part Mick, so give it a rest.

25

And I was all set to say A-hem?? until I read this.

26

Just remember tax, Paul. T.A.X.

Take the oily dollar, just take the oily dollar…

:wink:

27

I am sick of Saudi Arabia!

As are we all. Nuke the bastards! ( :slight_smile: )

28

I had an Arab explain it to me, once.

He told me that one on one, most Arabs don’t have a thing against any given American, except for certain politicians and individuals… in much the same way you or I might not like a given person.

…but, depending on the local fundamentalism, they do have a problem with our CULTURE.

Y’see, it’s basically the same thing with women.

Y’see, one should be a good person, right? One should be right with God, and live one’s life in a good and proper and righteous way, right?

This is why women should wear veils.

When women don’t wear veils, and if they are permitted to show off parts of their anatomy… well, this is temptation. It is easier to resist temptation when you don’t have it wagging in front of your face. This is why women should wear the kaffiyeh, or whatever it’s called. It makes it easier for men in general to behave.

And if this assumption is true… then what would one say about a society that not only produces a show like “Baywatch,” but makes it possible to receive that show, on any television on the planet, so long as one has a satellite dish?

It is not that America is evil. It is that the fact of its existence, the temptations it produces and licenses and sells and waves all over the place… make it so hard to be GOOD.

It’s like trying to be a Southern Baptist when one lives just around the block from an all night whorehouse and porno video store… that not only isn’t illegal, that not only isn’t ashamed of what it’s doing… but is making money hand over fist and having a really great time while they do it!

That, and the fact that not only do we support Israel, but urban legends over there are so insane that they’re convinced that ninety percent of all the taxes paid by Americans go straight to Israel, either in cash, or in the form of guns, bombs, and PCP to feed to berserk Palestinian-hating Israeli soldiers.

How the hell are they supposed to deal with us?

Well… theoretically, they should preach the Koran to us, and show us the error of our ways.

Unfortunately, Mohammed wasn’t real big on this “love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek” stuff. Mohammed was, in fact, known to kick a little ass on occasion when folks weren’t willing to see things his way.

And between the fact that we support Israel… and the fact that we truly suck at foreign policy… and we tend to come across more than a little arrogant… and the fact that we’re just generally a sinful and unrepentant society that, while we exist, represents a colossal temptation to good Islamic types… well, you can see where the temptation to kick our butts can get mighty strong in some folks.

The guy who told me all this got out of Iran about ten seconds ahead of Khomeini, and assured me that he personally did not feel this way… that he was about as good a Muslim as I was a Methodist – but, nevertheless, this was how a great many of his countrymen felt.

As we were discussing this over vodka shots, I took him at his word.

Still, I never forgot the conversation…

29

Wang from my experience that’s pretty accurate. Urban legends here are just extraordinary.

30

Meanwhile, back in the US…

OUR culture looks at the Arab-Muslim culture and thinks very little of men with so little self-control over their impulses that they can’t handle the sight of a woman’s face. The Americans who can lie on a beach with the men in swim trunks and the women in bikinis without it turning into a rape/orgy just don’t buy the notion that men require such insulation.

Then there’s the problem in Saudi Arabia where women are not permitted to drive a car, although it is permitted in (as far as I know) everywhere else in the world, and many Saudi women have obtained driving privileges in other countries. There’s the whole cover-yourselves-and-never-be-seen-without-a-chaperone thing, which to Western eyes looks like condemning half the population to life imprisonment/parole merely for the crime of being born female.

And Americans have no monopoly on arrogance. I’ve met many Arabs visiting the US who have no qualms about telling us how morally inferior our culture is, how they do it differently at home, and most annoying to me, looking down their noses at me and sneering “Back home we would not permit a woman to do such a thing as you’re doing”. Well, FUCK YOU asshole, you should have stayed home if you find my country so offensive.

As far as our TV shows being available via satellite - who is forcing these people to watch them? If they are such good Muslims why are they watching it at all? I watch very little TV because I do find much of it offensive, but I don’t advocate destroying those people who do find something in these shows.

To my eyes (and yes, this is personal opinion talking) these fanatics who find much of what I care for and cherish to be somehow offensive to their way of life, have no self control or moral strength. If they had self control they wouldn’t fear the sight of women to the point they have to keep them wrapped from head to toe and locked in their homes. If they truly had morals and moral strength they’d be able to reach out and change the damned TV channel, or the “off” switch. But inside of developing their inner strength they want others to do it for them - tell them what to watch and what to think, what to do and how to live.

Yes, it is a clash of cultures. While I can appreciate many things from the Middle East in terms of art, history, and yes, SOME of the current culture there, there are parts of their society I can NEVER accept because they are at such odds with what MY culture and beliefs are about. It just so happens that my belief system does not require me to impose my system on everyone in the world - if a group of people want to live differently than I do I’m perfectly happen to live and let live - as long as they’re not burning down my house or trying to deprieve me of my life and freedoms. MY biggest problem is not the lack of inner moral strength in the men or the imprisonment and restriction of women but they fact they want to impose THEIR system on ME - half a world away!

31

There’s an old Arab saying …
My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

I suppose you’re saying that in a roundabout way, my enemy’s friend is my enemy :rolleyes:

32

I beg your pardon?

33

Gee, Broomstick, your comment would seem to be narrow, moralistic, arrogant, and generally condemning.

It’s also pretty hard to argue with.

I don’t know if what I said was true. I was passing along what an Arab told me, and I believe it.

You’re quite right. We have no monopoly on arrogance. I have heard on more than one occasion that there is no murder, no theft, no rape, and certainly no child molestation in places where Islamic law holds sway. Therefore, we are a bunch of degenerates, and they are holy and good.

I dunno if I believe this. I do believe that such stories might not be well reported in places where a free press is not a working proposition.

I also find it pretty interesting that according to 60 Minutes, as much as a third of the population in Saudi Arabia either owns or has access to a satellite dish… in a country where satellite dishes are illegal for private citizens to own.

…and then, there’s Israel.

It’s hard to argue with hate. Hate is a great emotion. It comes quickly to human beings, and there may be no better political tool when one wishes to quickly unite and aim one’s fellow man at a common enemy… while distracting one’s fellow man from one’s domestic problems or the shortcomings of one’s rulers.

The rulers of the Gulf States have their own permanent “Wag The Dog” scenario. Any time things at home suck… any time there’s a government scandal… any time there’s a problem you just can’t fix… it’s time to have the local paper run another article on Those Darned Israelis.

And encourage more suicide bombers. After all, most of them are Palestinians, who aren’t members of any of the Gulf states, right?

And rail about those naughty, evil Americans, who not only support Israel, but broadcast Baywatch reruns where any poor chap could be easily tempted by them if satellite dishes weren’t illegal in our good and holy Islamic land.

Boy, I’m coming across pretty poisonous, aren’t I?

Am I wrong?

34

Broomstick, you said what I have wanted to say, only you did it a lot better than i would have.

35

You have it, my son ;j

36

???

Who/what are you getting at? (if anything?!)

37

Every so often I’ll get interested in a culture and I’ll do a lot of reading about it and as a result I’ll come away with a deeper understanding of them. I won’t necessarily like them better in every respect, but I’ll find things I like a lot and things I don’t.

Frex, I got interested in South America and found that I liked their more relaxed, open approach to sexuality and life in general. The whole manana thing. Xuxa with her kiddie show and her nudie calendars. But I found that most South American countries had a history of having LOTS of trouble with transfers of power. As in, rarely happened without bloodshed. And lots of history of torture and such. Didn’t care for THAT at all.

I got interested in the Japanese. Was totally disgusted with their history in WWII – rape of Nanking, treatment of POWs, the mass sexual enslavement of Korean women as “comfort women” – all very much below any kind of standard of conduct for civilized people. Left me feeling very calm about the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There’s no doubt they had it coming. But then I find myself totally won over by their anime, particularly the adult stuff, which unlike American adult stuff, has actual interesting story lines. And I’m won over by their sense of humor, and their general openness to other cultures and new ideas. Just a lot of cool elements to Japanese culture now that WWII has cooked most of the evil out of them. (OK, they’re still kinda parochial about foreigners and they have that whole disfigurement thing going, but no culture is perfect.)

All this is by way of saying that I’m interested in Islamic culture and have been reading about it, and sadly, most of the really cool stuff happened centuries ago. 12th century Spain under Islam was a hotbed of freedom, tolerance and intellectual advancement at a time when the rest of Europe consisted mostly of smelly buggers hacking each other up with sharpened shards of metal when they weren’t starving.

But current Islamic culture mostly seems to be a depressing melange of intolerance, stupidity, bigotry and ugliness. I’m not sure why this is so uniformly the case – how a culture that stretches from Tunisia to the Phillipines can be so full of hatred and oppression is quite the mystery, but there it is. My best guess is that it’s due to the tradition of schools being run by the mullahs in so many countries. Apparently, they’re teachign a lot more than reading and writing.

Well, I don’t have any explanation, and I still hope to find some good points about Islam, but, no luck so far.

38

Having Lived in Saudi for over ten years…I have learned some Arabic. I made an effort. I have been invited to Saudi weddings, Parties and over for tea/coffee. I have also experienced a beduin hospitality. Having said this, I do live on a compound where we have a pool, bowling alley, grocery store ect. and I do not know Saudi life and no matter how long I live here will. It is an Eastern mentality V. Western.
It’s different, not wrong just different.

FYI:There are some Saudi Women who do drive(in the desert) who do not cover their faces(mostly in Jeddah).

The only thing that makes it worth will is the MONEY and the amount of Travel we do. At the end of this time I can go to back to the states. The Saudis can’t:cool:

39

OK … I’ll take it real slow

You said …

the vast, vast majority of Arabs that I associate with and work with on a regular basis do hugely resent what they perceive as being the US’s pro-Israel stance,

I said

There’s an old Arab saying …
My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

I suppose you’re saying that in a roundabout way

My enemy’s friend is my enemy

There, now. That wasn’t too hard was it :rolleyes:

40

The whole thing about "I hate your country and wish the government would all die/the Jewish lobby controls America/Americans are the spawn of Satan thing is extremely common. Even the most westernized of Saudis will pop out with this crap occasionally. Fundy types because they believe it, Abdullah Average because he’s been brain-washed, and the royal types say it for public consumption but live a life as westernized as anyone.
The kind of crap that goes on here is something that gives me cold chills whenever I see fundys in the US trying to sway public officials or gain power in their own right.
As far as the locals making you feel welcome; you aren’t. The Saudis wish every one of us evil Western expats would get the hell out of here and stay home. Unfortunately, they also know what would happen to their economy/country/life style if we did and that pisses them off something rotten.
Sorry to hear you’re down right now, it happens to everyone at around the 6 month point of being here. If you stick it out for another few months it’ll get better.
Shoot me an email sometime and we’ll chat or something.

Regards.

Testy.