The Middle East certainly
seems to be in a hell of a mess these days, some of you may know that I lived
there and became involved with some of the locals there. Mind you it was a long
time ago, back in the seventies and eighties, I just wonder how different it is
now. Back then in Saudi Arabia there was a certain arrogance by the Arabs stemming
from, I would guess, a rich new nation trying to establish itself in the world.
Not many expatriates at the time liked it but it was a way of earning a larger
than usual wage packet. This meant that the expatriates no matter what their
nationality tended to form a closed community mixing only with their own except
during working hours. Of course this lead
to a distorted view of the Arab nation by the expatriate, a lack of
understanding of how a land made up largely at the time of rural folk and
wandering tribes could enter the twentieth century.
King Fisal and the elders
of Saudi made the courage’s decision to invite foreign expatriates in to teach,
by on the job training, their nationals to embrace the technology of the west.
Boys who were shepherds were given a course in their trainers language which
they picked up with various levels of success. There were a few problems where
American English was taught and a spanner became a wrench, so that an English
trainer found an additional difficulty. This could lead to a wrong assessment
of the trainees intelligence. Small things could rankle a trainer Saudis never
used the phrases “please and thank you” but then they didn’t to each other so
they didn’t appreciate these niceties. Religion was another area of
misunderstanding the Koran lays down fairly definite rules for Muslims (and all
Saudis are Muslims) some of which conflict with western ideas, this is not to
say the west is right but it is an area wide open to badly made judgements.
In all at the time I was
there, there were plenty of areas open to lack of understanding on both sides.
Personally I got on well with the Saudis though it was difficult as a woman
being only able to meet them through my husband, also their women had little
understanding of English and I knew very little Arabic. But friends learn to
understand each other and if there was a problem we would haul one of the men
in to interpret. Yes generally the women and men were separated unless you were
accepted as part of the family which I’m happy to say in most cases I was. It
was such an enjoyable experience getting to know the Saudis both personally and
through my husband that I began to feel unhappy at this gulf in understanding
between the expatriate and their Saudi counterparts. So I wrote a novel to try
to explain, in fictional form, each sides cultural values. It is a love story
that tries to explain the Saudi domestic way of life in a way acceptable to the
West.
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