Saudi Arabia is back in the headlines today with King Abdullah's pardon of a teenage rape victim. As some Kossacks may know, I recently went to Saudi Arabia in order to work at a children's hospital. What you may not know is that I have since returned to the United States, having been unceremoniously ejected from the Kingdom.
What happened, in a nutshell, was that the Saudi authorities didn't care for my blog, Jon of Arabia. Now, I had set this page up as a journal of my adventures intended primarily for friends back home in the States. But I had given the URL to a few people I had met in Saudi, one thing led to another, and the next thing I know I'm being approached by people I don't even know asking me if I'm "the blog guy."
On the one hand, this was flattering. Who doesn't enjoy a bit of positive attention? And, after all, why bother writing something online if you don't intend for people to read it? So I was enjoying my little brush with the lowest possible level of celebrity that can be attained.
But apparently Jon of Arabia came to the attention of someone who wasn't a fan. In short order, I was informed by my supervisor that the powers that be (read: the politico-religious monopoly) was not amused. Apparently sarcasm is lost on them. Some of the things they didn't like:
Two of the more recent additions to the city’s skyline are the Faisaliah and the Kingdom Tower, the only true skyscrapers in Riyadh. Both are super-sleek and super-modern looking. The Faisaliah, which is right across the street from my apartment building, looks something like a giant, metallic pyramid with a ball wedged into the top. The Kingdom tower, about a mile or so up the road, is surmounted by two points that arc upwards from the center and are connected by a kind of bridge, leaving the building with a hole in the top. Some people have jokingly pointed out that the two buildings look like a giant carrot and a giant peeler. Others – less charitably – say they look more like a colossal penis and vagina. Hmmm. Paging Dr. Freud...
Nevertheless, there is only one entrance point to our building, and it is guarded round the clock by a contingent of Saudi military. There’s even a machine gun nest. Granted, it’s manned by the most bored-looking group of guys this side of a "Vagina Monologues" audience, but it’s still a machine gun and therefore totally freaking cool.
I had read that hospitality is a big part of Saudi culture, but even so I have to admit that his warmth and willingness to open up to a perfect stranger was something I didn’t expect. Granted, it’s entirely possible that it was all a ploy to lure me into some kind of weird sadomasochistic sex dungeon, but I don’t think so. Besides, what are the odds of that happening to someone twice?
There's more, but you get the gist. Nothing insulting to Islam or the monarchy or anything like that. Just irreverent, not-particularly-well-written silliness. The type of thing that Americans take for granted. But not acceptable in Saudi Arabia.
But the thing that really stuck in their craw was a piece I wrote called "An Evening With Mo & Mohammed," in which I detailed some comments about Saudi life made by a native. This guy was funny and well-spoken (and not afraid of dropping the F-bomb two or three times a sentence) and he talked about dissing the Mutawwa (religious police) and smuggling alcohol into the country. The authorities, i was told, would want to know who he was. Luckily I didn't know. All I could tell them was that he was an Arab guy in a thobe and ghutra, named Mohammed. I'm sure they'd have no trouble tracking him down.
So, anyway, a few days later I was on a British Airways plane heading home.
In a way I'm disappointed, because Saudi Arabia was by far the most interesting and exotic place I've ever been. Despite my fears – and the comments of some of my unfortunately unenlightened fellow countrymen – the people were gracious and wonderful and welcoming. Far from being an infidel pariah, I was treated like the belle of the ball wherever I went. You'd be surprised how many Middle Easterners have never met an actual American.
On the other hand, despite an easygoing surface attitude, Saudi can be a difficult place to live. Many people there genuinely did not understand the hubbub about the aforementioned rape victim. After all, she was cavorting with an unrelated man. So the treatment of women was hard. So too was their general immaturity regarding sex and relationships. It's not hard to understand why. If you forbid any contact between males and females, you're bound to create a generation of men stuck at about age 14. I was amazed at how many grown men talked about sex the way Western males do at a middle-school sleepover. It's really kind of sad.
In fact, one nurse I met who worked at a fertility clinic told me that many of the young couples who are having trouble conceiving aren't infertile at all – they just literally don't know the mechanics of having intercourse! When queried as to exactly what they're doing, the husband would usually respond "same same man," meaning they were doing the only thing he knew to do – literally the same way he'd had sex with men in the past (yes, homosexual behavior, while officially nonexistent, is extremely widespread).
And, finally, there was the work. While the hospital was well-equipped with high-tech and modern equipment, the standards and practices were right out of the 1970's. Nurses, unlike here in the West, have NO independent authority or ability to make decisions (they even need a doctor's order to put petroleum jelly on a kid's dry lips), and the doctors are arrogant and poorly trained. I saw unsterile and dangerous practices being followed as a matter of course. All of which would have been tolerable if the hospital had at least acknowledged that it had some work to do. But it didn't. Instead, it touted itself as the "best in the region," and insisted that it's way was the best way. It was very difficult to bear coming from a modern American hospital.
So in the end I'm OK with what happened. Fleeing to the US embassy is an experience everyone should have at least once! And I basically got a 6-week paid vacation to a country that most Americans never get to see in person. That's worth something.