As always at around this time of the week, I tend to go into panic mode cognizant of the actuality that yet another column has to be produced even though I have dealt with practically every subject under the blazing desert sun that can subversively but tactfully be broached.
A combination of an empty stomach and an even emptier mind didn’t endow me with the requisite inspiration I was so utterly devoid of. It was therefore with cloaked anxiety that I garnered suggestions from fellow invitees at a dinner party last night.
Just when I had jadedly prepared myself for early retirement, having been regaled with everything ranging from the outrageous to the mundane, I happened to chance upon The Captain. Not quite the sea-faring voyager you’d imagine, he struck my mind with the comment, “Why don’t you write about Saudi hospitality?”
“That’s a bit generic,” I retorted, already bored by the non-controversial undertones, “and besides I think that I wrote about our generosity in my last article.”
“Look,” he enunciated acutely aware of the fact that I had entirely missed the point. “That’s not what I mean. I just think that it’s important how people in the outside world realize why it is that expatriates from all over the place come to live and work in Saudi Arabia.”
“Money. Mortgage repayments. Standard of living,” I half-heartedly replied, already compiling my resignation letter in my head.
“That’s precisely it. I didn’t come to Saudi Arabia for that. In my job I could have gone anywhere, but I chose to come here and it wasn’t for any of the reasons you mentioned.”
I began to listen more intently cogitating deeply as to whether the following disclosures and revelations were fit to see print.
“Go on,” I prodded spurred on by my own vested interest.
“I lived in the Kingdom for 12 years as a child. I wouldn’t have been the man I am had it not been for that amazing experience. There is just such a sense of history here that I love.”
“History!” piped up my Italian friend, an Armani-clad modern-day reincarnation of Machiavelli, shaking his head indignantly. “Oh no, Looobna! You can’t about write that. It’s just too boring, boring, boring.”
The Captain mercifully begged to differ and continued unabashed by this untoward interruption.
“I became culturally more aware of and sensitive to so many things that I would never have even contemplated had I been back in the UK. This is a really great place. Most people when they think of Saudi, two words enter their heads: Terrorism and oil. The 1970s and 1980s were decades when new-rich Arabs went to the West and became renowned for blowing all their money. Then Osama Bin Laden made this place famous for blowing people up.”
The Captain’s rhetoric struck a chord with me and I ignored the feigned contempt writ over the Italian’s visage and continued to make mental notes.
“There are many people like me who live here because we love it. Let me give you an example of what I meant by Saudi hospitality. One of my colleagues came down from the UK and had a nasty fall. He was really sick and is still in hospital. It was his first time in this country and he was astonished when the Saudis we work with all came to visit him. Some of them even brought their families to see how he was doing. Even our Saudi clients when they heard of his accident came laden with cakes and bouquets of flowers. They were all so concerned and he just couldn’t believe it. I’m telling you the guy was stunned. People here are so warm. Can you imagine anyone doing that back home? That’s what I try to explain to people who don’t know what it’s like. This level of caring and hospitality are what this society is all about. It’s so family-orientated.”
Admittedly, his recount was like a breath of fresh air, which is undoubtedly why I stood mesmerized by his theorizing and the sincerity with which he conveyed his point of view. There are many in the expatriate community who are often too quick to judge when it comes to their surrogate society. Over the years I have heard the same old slights repeated innumerable times all too often to the accompaniment of cliches about the veil, the abaya and other mores and norms that exist within the country. There has, on the part of some, been an inherent patronization of the Kingdom and its people. A quasi “we’re just in it for the money” sort of blase approach. They come in with the single-minded objective of filling up their coffers and making a quick dash for the exit.
Of course, we as Saudis are complicit in all this misconception as even in spite of the insurmountable external pressures that preponderate we refuse to open up. We live behind our high walls barren of the proclivity to mingle with others who are not a constituent element of our own societal niche. Much of our treatment of workers that come to the Kingdom is similar to that displayed in medieval times toward mercenaries.
However, there do exist foreigners like The Captain and many whom I have come across who genuinely try to benefit from their time spent in this unique culture and very often experience a different side that makes them stay for 10 or 14 years, rather than the one or two they initially came for. To these individuals Saudi Arabia is not just a home away from home, but home itself.
I wonder though, had the injured expat been of Bangladeshi, Filipino or Indian origin how many floral tributes, chocolate boxes and Saudi visitors he would have received? But that’s another article!
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— (Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)