A colleague visited Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park; he returned with a smile and a surprised look on his face. He told me what he had seen and said that he was happy to see people speaking and interacting with such freedom — even if much of what they were saying was total nonsense. In fact, he was so amused that he decided to make a trip to Speakers’ Corner a weekly diversion. A little later, he came back and said, “I have seen that most Arabs don’t know how to engage in a reasonable discussion.” I wondered how he had arrived at this conclusion and when I asked him, he explained. He said that on one of his expeditions he had seen an Arab man standing on a chair and so naturally, he was interested in what the man had to say. He was speaking about Iraq, its integrity and its many problems. From among those listening to him there came loud voices, some approving and others disapproving. What began as one man expressing an opinion soon became an exchange of insults and in the end, an actual fight.
I was not surprised and asked my friend why he had been; I recommended he watch some Arabic TV talk shows. When any topic is brought up, you soon realize that no rules are being followed and that each speaker is simply announcing that his ideas are right and all others are wrong — in other words, things end up as a verbal boxing match. Why, I wonder, is this so often the case? What makes many of us so intolerant and defensive? Why does each one of us think that he or she is always right? With these thoughts swirling in my head, I soon found another example of how Arabs handle debates.
An Arabic website featured an interview with a young Saudi woman writer who wrote a novel titled “Girls of Riyadh.” According to the writer, Rajaa Al-Sanae who is a dentist, the novel deals with real issues in every Saudi girl’s life — love, marriage and family matters. She maintains that her novel is a reflection of the social life of Saudi girls and that every Saudi girl will find something to relate to in it. Initial reactions were that she had betrayed the Saudi social code and “exposed our girls.” Now in a society where privacy comes first, such comments and complaints are hardly surprising.
Then, however, there were a number of comments that reflect the less attractive elements in our culture. One reader wrote that the author should have the decency to stop writing; another said that the book reflected a desire to break free of all traditions and moral values and he even said that girls who complain of “social pressures” were simply drifting away from Islamic values.
Yet another said that if the book were not controversial, it would have been published in the Kingdom and naturally, there was one who said that as a woman, the writer should have stayed at home. Many of the comments were well off the subject and strayed into the familiar areas of our traditions, how to protect the social fabric from dangerous influences and even a direct attack on the origins of some Saudis whose ancestors came from outside the Kingdom! And in the middle, to be fair, there were those who supported the writer and thought she had done a good thing. Most of the comments, I am sorry to say, dealt with irrelevant issues — which goes back to what my friend said about Arabs not being able to participate sensibly and unemotionally in a real discussion. Keeping all of this in mind, I must say that the whole idea of discussion and debate is new to us; in the past, neither was a part of our education and so in time, with experience, I hope we will learn how to do these things in a way that will help us and also inform us. It is of vital importance that we learn to listen to others — this doesn’t mean agreeing with them — and take in what they have to say without declaring them totally mistaken or misguided.
Girls Visit Shoura Council
Fourteen schoolgirls recently visited the Shoura Council as part of their school program. They had the opportunity to look the building over and also to attend one of the council’s sessions. At the end of the visit, the girls had some ideas and suggestions to pass on to the council.
The first was the great need to increase the number of girls’ university departments.
The second was the need for local recreation centers for girls. Both are surely reasonable requests. As the girls were leaving, their last wish was they might have another chance in the future to visit the council and that there would be women members of the council to receive and greet them. When I read this, I could not help but share the thrill the girls felt and I hope too, that by the time of their next visit, their wish concerning women members of the Shoura Council will have been fulfilled.
