I received a call from a good friend of mine the other day. Anywhere else in the world good friends are generally at liberty to get to the point very quickly. Here, as many of you may be familiar with our customs, even the best of friends have to make at least five minutes of small talk inquiring as to how you are, your physical mental and social welfare, how the family is, how work is, how you are all over again in light of all the previous how you-ares and so on and so forth. This brand of waxing lyrical is unique to our culture and tradition because in the Arabic language we have the maximum number of permutations for asking how-are-you type of questions.
My friend who spent a large portion of her life in the United States is considered to be quite liberal which is what made the nature of her call even more surprising.
“I am quite upset with you,” she began sternly. I wondered what I had done to “upset” her. Being frequently guilty of making inappropriate comments I decided to follow the Fifth Amendment: Keep my mouth shut and defend whichever faux pas she chose to employ as the basis of her accusation.
“It’s your writing. I mean can’t you find anything good to say? All you ever do is complain. Don’t you realize that you are giving such a terrible name to our country and our people by writing all this garbage?”
“Well actually,” I ventured highly relieved, “the whole point of my column was to complain. We were going to call it “The Grouch” but that didn’t happen. Besides, don’t you think we have to be self-critical in order to precipitate change?”
“We can criticize ourselves among ourselves! What you are doing is opening up and exposing our faults to the universe. Don’t you see that people will use what you write against us? You have to talk about all the positive things that happen here. This is the face that we must show to the outside world.”
I pondered over what she had said quite deeply and came to several conclusions.
Since the inception of this column I have made friends and enemies in equal measure. I have been ostracized and eulogized for the same piece of writing and I have learned to deal with criticism and acclaim. I have been chastised for being a spy, an apostate, a Jew, too Westernized, too modern, immoral, amoral, morally bankrupt while simultaneously being commended for my solid principles. All of this because I have taken the liberty of scribbling down some of my views. I believe that my writing is a reflection of the progress that is spreading throughout this society rather than a catalyst behind the change itself.
We had managed to maintain for quite some time a level of pretense that everything here was hunky dory simply because we didn’t talk about issues. I have always found this attitude rather peculiar. It is as though if we just pretended that everything was perfect and nobody talked about what was wrong, then no one would realize that we had problems. We were in denial. However, it is only when such simmering symptoms actually boiled over into tangible social ills that we then recognized the urgency to deal with them.
As a society we experienced the rudest of awakenings in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The implications this event had for us were extraordinary and forced us to scrutinize so many practices that had remained unquestioned for years. Our authorities responded swiftly and decisively. Positive action was taken in so many different ways. We suddenly realized that we had to re-assess certain basic principles that had formed the bedrock of our unchallenged modus operandi. This has been an extremely important move in the right direction. There has been a very real commitment made by the powers that be toward reforms. As a journalist I have experienced firsthand the shift in attitude pertaining to what I could have written a few years ago to what I can freely and candidly express now. This has been the acid test for many of us in this profession and there is a consensus that what is happening is out of a genuine desire for advancement rather than an eyewash to keep the wolves at bay. Whereas in the past movement toward a free press seemed like a wild imagining, it is now becoming a tangible reality.
One of the basic flaws that we have increasingly come to terms with as a people is our lack of critical thinking. Our education system did not really empower us to think for ourselves. At school we were frequently reminded to parrot whatever it was that our teachers cited as the best answers to any given problems. We were encouraged to churn these out during exams fully aware that if we didn’t proffer responses ad verbatim then we would lose marks. Irrespective of whether we were capable of producing solutions more intelligent, constructive or creative than those belonging to the establishment, we had been trained on a most profound level to banish any thoughts of our own in favor of this kind of mass mimicry. This left little scope for improvement or introspection.
New policies that have been implemented by the government aim to completely revamp the way our children are taught. We have brilliant young minds waiting to be given a chance to succeed. This long overdue overhaul of our academic institutions is integral to our survival in a world that has no room for complacency.
There is an earnest attempt being made to instill a better work ethic in our youth. Vocational training courses have been implemented to ensure that young men and women are being given the correct training to accomplish well-defined objectives at work. The whole culture of the work place has been transformed. It is no longer considered a shame to perform menial tasks. Saudis take as much pride these days working at check-outs as they do in fulfilling managerial positions.
The capacity to empathize with the plight of others is another arena where I feel we have frequently fallen short of the mark. Yet when the tables are turned we expect everyone to demonstrate compassion toward us and sympathy toward our state of affairs. This will not happen unless there is some form of regular quid pro quo. As a nation we host one of the largest expatriate communities in the world. Each and every guest in our country has, in some way, augmented our communal success. If we acknowledge and pay tribute to them and salute their contribution it doesn’t diminish our own standing in any shape or form. New citizenship opportunities have finally recognized this and for some it is the ultimate reward for the many years they have spent here. We have finally woken up to the fact that assimilating people from other nations can perpetuate a process of evolution on the fast track.
If I were given the chance to live anywhere else in the world I would never avail myself of it. I truly believe that my homeland is the best place for me. I am convinced that I am witnessing one of the most exciting and challenging times in my country’s history. I don’t subscribe to the accusation leveled against me that I am a traitor simply because I verbalize what so many of us have been thinking for such a long time. It is my duty as a Muslim and as a citizen to clarify practices that have incorrectly been attributed to the religion en masse and that find no basis in Islam at all. To love one’s country and to believe in one’s faith is to do so with an open mind and heart, not with eyes wide shut.
As Saudis we have the courage to identify where we have gone wrong. We have the determination to improve upon the past to build a better future. We have the ability to make a difference. And we will.
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)