I had a conversation recently with a young man in Riyadh.
He was educated in a prestigious school in Riyadh (not the Manarat School) where, he claimed, students where encouraged to treat with contempt and disdain classmates who came from other regions of our country.
He further claimed that this was common practice in Riyadh schools and that it was only when he went to university (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals) that his attitude changed.
I was shocked.
I have lived in Jeddah all my life and the idea of differentiating our countrymen by what region they come from is, frankly, weird.
Here, we are raised to classify people by their economic level. We do not care where you come from so long as you have a fat bank account.
Let me give you an example how this works.
A student comes to school in a Toyota Camry because that is all his family can afford. He goes to a school where his fellow classmates arrive in Mercedes and Bentleys. Naturally he has only himself to blame when his classmates make fun of him.
What this student should do is go to another school where students arrive in Toyota Camrys like his. He then can join his new schoolmates in making fun of the boys that came to school on a bus because their families cannot afford a car.
Thus the pecking order is preserved and social harmony is enhanced.
Unlike people in Riyadh we have proper values and they are all in hard currency.
I was in Dammam last week where I visited the Aramco Museum.
It was the first time for me and I must say I encourage anyone visiting the Eastern Province to spend some time there.
The exhibits there cover all aspects of Aramco’s operations and through them it gives a broad explanation of the oil industry as a whole.
It is truly amazing to realize the size and complexity of Aramco and to get a small understanding of the crucial role it plays in the continued stability of the world economy.
As I wandered through the museum I could almost hear the soft but urgent whisper “The oil must flow!”
