"In a manner of speaking, we’re 20th century Bedouins and now we’ve come to Saudi Arabia, the traditional Bedouin homeland." Martha Atherton, the president of the American Women for International Understanding, neatly characterized the group of 16 American women who visited the Kingdom for two weeks this month. Previous international visits have taken members of the group to places as diverse as China, Bangladesh, Syria and Mongolia. "We’ve been all over the Kingdom, met people in their homes and in organizations ranging from hospitals and colleges to charitable institutions. Now we’re going to take our impressions home and share them."
The AWIU exists to bring together a cross-section of women from across the US social spectrum who visit other countries to establish lines of communication with women of different cultures. The organization follows up the visits with planned study programs and reciprocal visits to maintain person to person contact. It is entirely non-political and aims to build better relations between differing cultures through establishing contacts between women.
"We must all learn to appreciate, accept and understand what others think and feel. This is tolerance, and it takes effort," said Carol Lewis, one of the 16 women in the group. "We have found that women all over the world are deeply concerned with the health of their children and family, education, employment and helping the less fortunate. The women we met in Saudi Arabia have certainly organized themselves with that in mind."
Martha Hertelendy agreed. "The women give their money and their effort to this in their charities," she said. "It’s not something they do out of peer pressure; they put their heart and soul into it."
Recalling a conversation with Prince Sultan ibn Salman, she said, "We live in the most powerful nation. I was encouraged to think we should accept a responsibility much as a strong member of a family does. We shouldn’t bully the younger siblings in our family; we are after all a human family. It’s a small planet, there’s nowhere else to go."
"We were not here to challenge or change the culture," said Joan McEachern. "We were here to learn and understand. I was overwhelmed by the way the women were so keen to communicate and share, enthusiastic about establishing understanding and a continuing relationship. What we found particularly commendable — and this is not meant in a patronizing way — was the way so many had left the country for a higher education — and then brought it back and put it to use in the Kingdom. That’s most unlike many other countries where, for example, doctors simply never go home. I suspect it happens here because of the strength of family bonds."
The strength of family ties made a strong impression on the group. Whenever the group socialized, they were struck by the size and closeness of the extended family. Katherine Heffernan observed wryly that in her experience of family gatherings that this wouldn’t normally happen. "There would probably be a soccer game they’d have to go to." She struck a common chord among her colleagues when she said, "I was very impressed not only with the support and inter-relationships in families but also their incredible generosity toward us, not only in the general hospitality, but in the care to detail that concerned us individually."
Saudi society has changed drastically over the last half century with the influx of technology and consequent changes in lifestyle. "In the US, we seem to forget a lot of our traditions and go all out to be modern," she continued. "We noticed that the Saudis we met are very proud of their traditions and make substantial efforts to keep them."
This was particularly obvious in areas where technology, especially IT and Internet technology, had been brought in. The group found that in this area, women were readily using it and establishing themselves as a significant and able work force. The group found that IT allows them to use their talents and creativity while observing the constraints of their culture and generally agreed, "There’s no reason why we can’t integrate the two and have the best of both."
The group came to Saudi Arabia as tourists. Getting visas was, as Marianne Alireza who was instrumental in organizing the tour put it, "a nightmare." Even with her extensive experience of, and long-term relationship with, the Kingdom, the group was not sure if they were actually going to get their visas until the very last possible moment.
"Tourism here is not easy, but we got a rare opportunity to see something we knew nothing about." Given the bureaucratic difficulties the group encountered in America, mass tourism has little chance of becoming a viable prospect. Marilyn Hartwell didn’t see that as necessarily a bad thing, given that the traditions of the country are, as she understood it, central to the way of life rather than just acknowledged in passing.
"I don’t think mass tourism will be the way forward," she said reflecting on how the Kingdom might promote its image and develop understanding with other cultures. "I think the authorities will continue to let in small groups and let them get a better impression of the country. At least, that’s my hope. All we knew before we came was what we read in the press. What we saw while we were here was very different. We saw the future, with young women working in all sorts of important jobs. The future is very bright," she concluded.
A formal and very highly organized tour of Saudi Arabia might be criticized as a crude public relations exercise. That might be a valid viewpoint if the visitors were passive onlookers rather than very active participants. In an aside by a slightly stunned senior aide after a meeting with the American ambassador, they were told that their questions had simply "blown him away." Kathleen Hunt summed up the meeting, saying, "We had had some time here before we met him and we had begun to understand something of local feelings and of the Saudis we had met. We were able to articulate them and ask informed questions." The aide confided, "He will certainly not forget this group."
The tour was not all formal occasions and study. The lighter and informal moments provided some unexpected insights into attitudes and assumed behavior in daily life that they felt sharply defined the difference between Western and Muslim culture. Nahid Farazian, the only Muslim in the group, recounted her visit to a local mosque. "Inadvertently I left a favorite pair of slippers in the mosque after prayer. As we went to Riyadh immediately afterward, I gave up hope of ever seeing them again." Almost a week later when she returned to pray in the same mosque, she found them in the appropriate pigeon hole in the porch. "At one level, I couldn’t believe it; yet on reflection, I should have expected it," she said. "It simply proved a point for me. People here do respect their traditions and religion in the way they live."
Kathleen Foerster recalled the intense experience of a visit at night to Bait Naseef in Jeddah. "Climbing the stairs to get to the roof of the house, using only a kerosene lantern, its warm glow enveloped us. There was a powerful feeling of being at one with the history of building and the shades of the hundreds of people who had climbed these stairs before." Within living memory, the address for mail to the house was "the house by the tree," because the only tree in Jeddah — which is still there today — was just outside the front door. This puts into perspective the distance the Kingdom had come in just one generation. Therein lay the essence of the visit. The formal enriched by the informal, the planned made real and brought home by the unplanned, what was anticipated as being troublesome turning out to have hidden benefits.
"We all wore headscarves and abayas while we were here," said Martha Atherton. "It was a new experience and we were a little self-conscious at first. However, we just felt more comfortable reciprocating courtesy and accepting an established tradition. It had a couple of benefits as well. One very obvious one was that Saudi women in shopping malls clearly felt easier spontaneously talking to us and guiding us around, frequently in perfect English and with no sense of embarrassment." The presumed distancing effect of the veil actually created an unexpected comity between strangers.
The effect on the Saudi women the group encountered seems to have been as profound as the impressions the visitors felt. Marianne Alireza said that the most frequent question from Saudi women about the AWIU was "Why are they here?" On realizing that the group was simply making contacts, attempting to understand and lay the foundations for future understanding, the reaction changed drastically. "‘Thank you for coming and taking time with us’ was the immediate response. There was an instant enthusiasm, a spontaneous outpouring of goodwill," she said. "The whole visit was such a positive experience for everyone involved. We just have to do this again."