My friend is due to leave the Kingdom at the end of the month after having spent almost two decades here. In her estimation the period she has spent here has constituted the best part of her life, although her memories are somewhat lacking in substance.
“What will you miss the most?” I queried as she sat reminiscing one afternoon.
“So many things,” she replied wistfully. “Riyadh has been more our home than home itself. My friends. The shopping. The easy life. But you know what?”
“What?” I inquired watching a peculiar expression pervade her face. It was as if a realization of great magnitude had suddenly dawned upon her.
“I will miss more what I haven’t had the ability to experience than what I have.”
I was perplexed by her rather ascetic statement and probed further. “What do you mean? What is it that you haven’t encountered?”
“Do you know what the saddest thing is? I have spent my youth here, all my golden years and yet I have hardly had any cultural contact with the people of this country. With the Saudis themselves that is. People who spend a year in other countries have had more success in this regard than I have had in 20. Their frequent acquaintance means that they even become fluent in the language. The only Arabic I can take away with me is ‘Mafi Mushkila’ and a few other choice idioms but that’s about it. I don’t think I could string together one coherent sentence in Arabic even if my life depended on it!”
I began to ponder upon what she had said. I felt certain that this has been the common experience of most expatriates who arrive and leave this exotic place without having had any form of interaction with the locals. Perhaps this may be deemed as “sad” but for me, this is nothing short of tragic.
Gregarious and outgoing, most expats possess an innate curiosity as to the customs and traditions we follow and crave firsthand knowledge of who we are and what it is that we represent. For the most part, the majority of Westerners are limited to shuttling between the confines of their compounds and the shopping malls in scheduled airconditioned buses in absence of any better form of exposure to our highly defensive and guarded society.
A trip to Dirriyah or the carpet souk is about the closest they get to experiencing Saudi culture. They appear to be recreating their own idiosyncratic world within their luxury havens and are often criticized for not bothering to assimilate. But where is the opportunity to mingle with the general Saudi public? In addition to this, they are normally too intimidated to directly approach people in a casual manner. Language is a definite and tangible barrier. Arabic, being a very complex and difficult language to master, serves to compound the problem, but there are so many other ways we can communicate with others if we have the inclination to do so.
There is something quite forbidding about approaching a stranger here. I remember one instance recently when a cameraman had arrived from the States on his first visit to this part of the world. We were in a lift with some women and in all innocence and politeness he looked at each of them individually with a huge grin plastered across his face and said a generic “Hi!” You could visibly see them twitch with disdain under their veils as if he had attempted to molest them in public.
I cringed with embarrassment and chided him for his waywardness. “You don’t do that!” I accused.
“Do what?” he asked with genuine concern.
“This is Saudi Arabia!” I challenged as if we were on another planet. “You can’t ogle at women here. It’s just not done. You can’t talk to strangers for no reason.”
He was shocked and confused.
“Come on! Relax. I wasn’t ogling. Besides they were all covered up. I couldn’t even see them.”
It was not until I began explaining to him why it was not the modus operandi to smile for no reason and how anything more than a fleeting glance could be misinterpreted for something entirely dishonorable that I realized the utter absurdity of my sermonizing. Even our Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, stated that a smile was a simple act of charity and here I was contradicting this saying.
As Saudis wherever we wander around the globe, we expect to be treated with equality and courtesy. How many of us, barring recent history, have gained a unique insight into a diversity of cultures wherever we travel and have felt welcomed and accepted by the natives? Millions of people of different nationalities have come to Saudi Arabia during the past, many of whom are incredibly grateful to the Kingdom for affording them the opportunity to work in a secure and pleasant environment. True, they are remunerated for their services, but this general attitude of a master-worker relationship reflects a common misconception that we as a society have to address. These are the very people who have served our country alongside us and have contributed greatly to its present success. So instead of receiving them with a degree of superiority is it not about time that we impressed them with our richness of spirit and tremendous capacity for humanity and gratitude?
Culturally, as well as religiously, we are expected to welcome travelers and even go to the extent of offering our homes to them. Such is the hospitality of this great nation of ours. Would it then not be a logical extension to afford a more diluted version of this premise to our guests? Is it too much to ask of ourselves to be more open and receptive to foreigners who we see on a daily basis? Is it not just common sense to remove the shrouds of mystery that surround us so that the outside world can see that we share the same hopes, fears and aspirations that they have?
In a world where modern-day perceptions have become so distorted and spurious, where being a Saudi is virtually synonymous with espousing values of terror and fanaticism, it is a dire shame that we rely on massive and expensive public relations campaigns to redress this balance. It would be far superior for us to introspect and capitalize on a unique form of advertising in which positivity and correct understanding can be gained through firsthand experience.
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)