“So how’s it going?” I casually asked a friend of mine who is in the Kingdom producing an economic report.
“Well,” she said pensively, “I don’t know how we are going to get our work done within the time we have left.”
Even though she hadn’t apprised me at that particular juncture of the travails of getting appointments with the various people necessary to completing her task, I sensed the disappointment in her voice. It betrayed the rudimentary “ahlan wasahlan” (welcome to the Kingdom) that is so often extended to foreigners. This is invariably in the form of promises, promises and yet even more promises. An unusually long length of yarn that is spun without much effect and yet produces copious amounts of frustration.
“You know, you might be able to get your visa extended,” I volunteered with a degree of disingenuousness, knowing full well that the flight of a certain contraband animal over the Riyadh skyline might potentially be more feasible.
“Yeah, we tried that,” she said sounding utterly defeated. “In fact my driver just returned today from the third appointment to get our passports back.”
“What do you mean ‘third appointment’?” I questioned secretly dreading the answer.
“There was a guy we met who told us that he could extend our visa, so we gave him our passports.”
“Well, are they done?” I probed, cringing in the unequivocal knowledge that they weren’t and hence the driver’s failed ‘third appointment’. “I don’t know,” she proffered somewhat hopefully. “I mean, the guy says that they are done but every time we ask for them, he gives us appointments to send the driver and then he doesn’t show up.”
At that point I felt like a psychiatrist who had diagnosed in yet another expatriate the symptoms of the country’s most virulent, seemingly mysterious and yet altogether common malaise: optimism.
“Look,” I said somewhat brutally, “I really don’t think it’s going to happen.”
“But according to the guy, everything is done and ready in the passport department. I think that it just needs to be stamped.”
“If that was the case, then why on earth would he keep attempting to meet with your driver? He would just tell you to wait until the darn thing was stamped and then call you, right? The point is that he just hasn’t done it. I know. I live here. I know the way things work. I mean you have to understand the culture,” I concluded exasperatedly.
“But he told us. He promised!” she accused as if I had just destroyed her faith in Santa Claus.
“I am sure that he meant to help you and had good intentions. One thing that you are finding out the hard way is that a lot of people will promise you a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that they will follow through on them. It’s just that they have trouble in implementation. It really is a national phenomenon.”
“I know that,” she agreed. “I have been in 32 countries with my work, but this place has got to be the slowest when it comes to doing anything. Second place was Kazakhstan and once we got the ball rolling there it wasn’t too bad.” Second place to Kazakhstan! I thought to myself. I could imagine Ali G having a field day if he was ever granted an entry visa.
“It’s just that people here will make commitments and in the few seconds whilst they utter the words they genuinely mean what they are saying. But then khalas, it’s over and they move on. The other problem is that when you try and ask about what’s going on, you will never get a straight answer. Instead, you will be greeted with an awful lot of dodgy, suspicious and evasive behavior.”
“That’s what I can’t accept,” she said plaintively. “I mean if they could just say ‘no’ then I would be fine with that and find another way of dealing with it. But what they do in lieu of that is stop answering your calls, make times to see you and then don’t show up and just do this vanishing act.”
If I could have a halala for the times that I have been through similar situations I could retire very comfortably. What’s worse is that such irreverence for honoring commitment has become a characteristic that has almost defined us in Saudi Arabia. I know many foreigners who equate the word ‘insha-Allah’ with, at the very best, a promise that an urgent matter will be put off for as long as is humanly possible with the blessing of God and at the worst, the certainty that something will not be done. This is the exact antithesis of the meaning of the word itself and, in fact, quite contrary to our beliefs.
Our religion teaches us to place a great value on honoring our word and working to the best of our ability to bring to fruition what we have promised. Shame on us as a society that we have earned the reputation of not having our word trusted or valued simply because we are too arrogant to recognize that we don’t have the ability to do everything we may want to or, with all the good intentions in the world, intend to. We may be one of the richest countries in the world but that does not necessarily make us one of the best. In order to become that, we have to begin recognizing the importance of the word and start assuming responsibility for our actions.
