In a previous article, I mentioned Saudi Arabia in what was perceived by some to be an unjust light. One of my best friends is Saudi Arabian, and she’s had a lot of defending and clarifying to do pretty much all her life: “So, do you like live in tents in the desert?” “Do you have oil in your house?” “Wait, you wear normal clothes under the abaya, I thought you just wore nothing?” “Do you ride a camel to school?” “Do you have, like, seven mothers?” “Do you know lots of terrorists?” To be fair, she did get most of these questions when we were in middle school. (Note: If you think any of these questions are valid, maybe you should reconsider whether Cornell is the best place for you.)
Hence, I’d like to take the opportunity now to talk a little about the side of Saudi (by the way, cool people drop the “Arabia.” They also use words like “hence”) that you don’t see, and to clarify that all people in Saudi don’t have oil fields in their back yards, although I’m sure they wish they did.
You hear a lot about Saudi Arabia on the news, especially in the wake of 9/11, and rarely is the news positive. The Al Saud-Bush relationship, women’ rights issues and most recently, the story a girl who had been gang-raped have all been at the forefront of the American media. I asked a friend what came to mind when she thought of Saudi Arabia: “Closed, oppressive and controlling,” she said, and I’m sure many of you would agree with that. I certainly had that impression of Saudi, but decided that I wanted to go there to see for myself.
My friend who was going home to attend a wedding invited me to go along with her and her family, so I jumped at the opportunity. Overall, it was a very nice and enlightening trip — I decided that I wanted to be a rebel and do as many illegal/socially taboo things in Saudi as I could. I drank beer (non-alcoholic — it actually tastes horrible), I drove (don’t ask me how) and I removed the hijab (headscarf) at a mall in Riyadh, though the “religious police” (called the mutaween) did ultimately make me wear it again.
Other than the culture shock that I felt at these restrictions to my freedom, I did have a very pleasant time and spent my days, like any suburban kid, wandering the shopping malls and having Pizza Hut for dinner. But the truth of the matter is that these restrictions are in place. What many people, both in the U.S. and across the world, do not realize is that many Saudis do not defend these oppressive taboos. Many, in fact, want change, but it is not simply a matter of changing a law.
My friend described the situation in Saudi this way: “In Saudi, there is a new generation, and they want to live normally, as defined by American standards. They want to drive, to go to the movies, to just be normal. It’s like in Saudi there are two societies: one that is the extremely religious people [who] are mostly the older generation, and the people who want Saudi to modernize, mainly the younger generation.”
In 2005, King Abdallah became the new king of Saudi Arabia after King Fahd’s death. Although he may not have a perfect human rights record (but really, who are we to criticize when our own government has secret torture-prisons hidden around the world) there is something to be said about his attempts at modernization. He is building the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, scheduled to be finished in September of 2009, which will have state-of-the art resources and a $10 billion endowment. Not bad for a university that hasn’t even been completed yet. (Cornell’s been around since 1865 and we’ve got only $4.3 billion to show for it.) The university seeks to be an enclave from the world outside, where Saudi’s “religious police” have no authority. Is this is an adequate solution to the restrictions of Saudi society? Of course not, but change in Saudi cannot come in one swift step, it has to come in stages.
Upon returning from my trip to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. customs officer looked up from squinting at my passport and stared blankly at me when I said that tourism “was the reason for my trip.” I don’t expect you to perceive Saudi as a nation with a libertarian government, because that simply is not true. It is true, however, that there are many people in Saudi who literally are just like you and me and want change in their nation.
But bringing Saudi into the 21st century is not an easy process. It is one that may not even occur in our lifetime. Nevertheless, the change has begun. This past month, the Saudi Arabian authorities lifted a ban that forbade women from staying in hotel rooms alone without a male companion. I know what you’re thinking, but for Saudi, it’s a monumental first step that will hopefully pave the way for many other needed changes. King Abdallah has said that he is willing to lift other bans, such as the one on women driving, if society would accept it.
I don’t think that those Saudi friends were upset with me because what I said about Saudi was untrue. I think that instead they were sick and tired of having to defend their home country, a country that they love very much despite its flaws. With the American media constantly focusing on the negative side of Saudi, living in the U.S. and being Saudi Arabian is not easy. I hope this column shows the other side.