Summer has arrived. I was not apprised of its advent through the usual channels of migrating birds or sweltering hot temperatures, but by a method which could be deemed wholly unconventional. A traffic jam!
It was, in actual fact, possibly one of the world’s longest, could have got our nation into the Guinness Book of World Records alongside our rather more illustrious entries and took place just outside the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh. I was visiting this area in order to give a talk and had left plenty of time for any unforeseeable delay. What I hadn’t figured into my estimated traveling time was the fact that I live in a country that can safely be termed a haven for those who do not make plans.
Irrespective of the fact that this season has presented itself with alarming regularity since the beginning of time it is as if Mother Nature is springing a surprise upon the country every year.
For all intents and purposes the entire population reacts as if it is suddenly and unexpectedly given a last-minute vacation. This galvanizes citizens with an impulsive desire to leave the country en masse. In order to achieve their common objective of leaving, it becomes incumbent upon them to rush to the various embassies to process their visa petitions. Hence the resulting pandemonium and chaos that inconveniences those of us who actually bother to plan ahead of time.
Another great example of this kind of short-sighted behavior is if you happen to have the misfortune of availing yourself of a flight on a Wednesday or Friday night. Entire cabin loads of passengers turn up without reservations angling for a seat by using their nefarious powers of influence. Those that do have bookings don’t have boarding passes and those that do have boarding passes make sure that they arrive just seconds before the flight is due to take off! There are long queues, frayed tempers and harried Saudia staff trying their utmost to look as if they are proud to serve you.
Such a flagrant disregard for forward thinking is also amply reflected in choosing which foreign destination to visit during the holiday season. Many families make multiple bookings so that they can select whichever place suits their transient whim or fancy at any particular juncture. This invariably leads to several wasted seats on flights and hotel rooms that have been reserved and left unutilized, and perhaps even more damaging than this a national reputation for engaging in such frivolous practices. I had called to check my booking on a Gulf airline from London recently and there ensued a somewhat peculiar inquiry.
“What nationality are you?” demanded the agent. “Are you British?”
“No,” I replied wondering how this could affect my seat availability. “I am Saudi.”
“Oh,” she replied disdainfully. “You will have to reconfirm your request 72 hours in advance.”
“Does everyone have to?” I asked with consternation.
“No,” she replied indignantly. “Only Saudi nationals.”
This laissez faire attitude comfortably extends to almost all aspects of our daily lives. Not only are we hopeless at arranging trips overseas, our endeavors at home are not much better. Take the biannual festivals of the Eid celebrations. People rush out the night before to purchase all sorts of basic items for the day ahead that could very well have been bought in advance. This creates anarchy on the streets and in the supermarkets. Irate shoppers compete with each other over rapidly depleting stocks and tempers often boil over into fits of rage.
I had to coordinate an event involving the foreign press recently and found that the minute the print icon was activated on my laptop, I would receive a call informing me of a change in plan. People would cancel interviews at the last minute, unabashedly renege on commitments that had been made months in advance at a moment’s notice and come up with the most creative ways of demonstrating their fickle-mindedness. Schedules would change the minute they were hot off the press and the poor journalists working on this project had to sit around for hours killing time never knowing quite whether their efforts at synchronizing matters would ever pay off. It was a highly embarrassing and frustrating experience that put forth a terrible impression of the country. When I once made the mistake of asking the producer whether we were proceeding as planned for a particular engagement, she sarcastically replied, “Honey, are you feeling OK? I mean we don’t want to create history here. Of course we’re not going!”
The concept of planning in itself is ill-defined. Somehow, it is seen to be an excuse for an augmentation of the bureaucratic process. If there is a plan that is well documented, then it must be subject to “approval”. The definition of approval can quite easily be interchanged with that of obstacle. This in itself, more often than not, renders the effective planning process obsolete.
I often wonder whether it is part of our heritage to be so ad hoc in the responses we proffer on an individual and global basis. However, such an explanation does not hold true when you actually analyze our deep Islamic roots and traditions that ascribe a great deal of importance to preparing for eventualities and contingencies alike. The basic foundations of our religion depend on both daily and annual forecasting. Prayers take place five times every day and lend a structure to the rest of our activities. The Haj in itself requires massive strategizing in order for it to function efficiently. This in itself weaves a degree of intrinsic planning into the basic fabric of our society. The very fact that as a nation we can host the largest convergence of humanity onto such a small city during the annual pilgrimage proves that we can think ahead when we are forced to. Throughout the history of the Arab world our past glories and victories have been made possible because of the ability to look ahead, prepare and choose a course congruous with those of the circumstances prevalent.
Unfortunately, we are rarely ahead of ourselves nowadays when it comes to fulfilling objectives, honoring commitments or just being where we are supposed to when we are supposed to. What we need are not more irrelevant committees to oversee our plans and higher committees to monitor those committees. We need instead to instill a sense of organization within our youth so that as a nation we become more proactive. We have to stop reacting to situations, especially in the political arena, and instead anticipate what could potentially happen and make it happen rather than belatedly respond to events that have already taken place. The only certainty in life is that of change. The world that we are planning for today will probably not even exist tomorrow.
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)