Browsing the shelves in a bookstore I was amazed at how many magazines they sell. It was a good thing to see. I picked up one magazine and it was very expensive, as usual, since it was a British magazine. So I paid SR43, consoling myself that the magazine is huge and there must be lots to read to compensate for the high price. But then the unpleasant surprise hit me. Pages had been torn out. I said to myself: That’s normal here, maybe there was something provocative and the censors decided to take it out. But the more I went through the magazine the more ripped edges I saw. I decided to count how many pages were torn, and they totaled 12. Suddenly my interest in reading the magazine faded. I felt cheated. I felt I should be compensated for those 12 pages. I regretted that I bought the magazine in the first place, and decided to stop buying it from now on and resort to the website, which is available for everybody.
A thought occurred to me: This magazine was a house and garden magazine, so basically nothing indecent could creep in. I checked the torn edges again. Some of them continued on the facing page, some were ads, mostly for makeup. OK, so makeup ads are not allowed, but how come we have all sort of Arabic magazines that have makeup and perfume ads and they do not get censored? Some local magazines are even dedicated to beauty, and they have all sorts of pictures, and they seem to go down well with people.
It is the same mentality that forbids putting makeup posters and ads in stores. Women go into these stores and they are expected to imagine what the new colors look like, and they can see the pictures in some magazines and on TV, so what is the point of preventing stores from putting up those posters?
It is a dual way of seeing things. It is the same when you come into the airport carrying movie DVDs or video tapes. The first reaction of the customs official is to take them and tell you to come back later. Sometimes you get them back, other times they get confiscated. Now I am sure there is a point behind this policy, but to just clear up the duality there, should not someone be told that there are TV channels that are available for everybody now and they air all kinds of movies? Some people use parental guidance and decide what sort of movies they allow their children to see and choose whatever is appropriate for them.
A friend was complaining that when she bought a TV series abroad and brought it with her, customs took the tapes and, on checking a day later, she was told that she would have to pay a fine because the series was not allowed. “But it is aired weekly on TV channels here and people watch it all the time,” she tried to reason with the official. But there was no logic that could reverse the decision.
Another friend told me that he brought a copy of a book that he thought was all right, but it was confiscated at the airport. My friend just went to downtown Riyadh and bought another copy of the same book since it had been allowed into the Kingdom.
Another friend went to buy a magazine and found a very interesting story there, but half of it was torn out. He simply looked at the pages and said to himself: “OK then I’ll check it on the Internet.” Again you have something that is obviously open to everybody, but when it comes in another form it becomes forbidden. There are endless instances of this confusion. To understand how it works will just take us into a maze, since most of the time the decision depends on the individual who is checking your magazine or your books.
