The Sun Still Sets In The West: You just can't put Saudi's in a box...

Read Me/Disclaimer

Read Me/Disclaimer: This is a non-political/socio-political blog. It's a running tale of my Saudi Arabian adventure, great, good, bad, and ugly. It is uncensored, and I don't really care what you think of it, read it or don't. I don't care. I did not decide to do this as a means to an end, but rather to document the means with which I occupied my time while waiting for my end... All that being said, I'm an American Expat in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The opportunity to help build this system and the salary that accompanied it were to good to pass up.-Geoff

**"The views presented here are just the views of some asshole named Geoff, they are not necessarily the views of my employer, my co-workers, my family or anybody else. First hand knowledge and second hand accounts were used to compile the information. These are not scientific facts and figures. These views are not necessarily supported, endorsed or even appreciated by the KSA the USA or any other country for that matter and the author makes absolutely no claim that they are."**

Sunday, January 27, 2013

You just can't put Saudi's in a box...

First of all this topic deserves an ongoing blog of its own and I might just do that. Second of all, of course you can't! They're too big and even if you get 'em to fit they can't breathe unless you poke a lot of holes!**

Seriously though, it seems every time I figure something out about the world, or people in the world, someone comes along and proves me wrong. This happens constantly here! For whatever reason, my brain is always trying to establish a baseline for things, including cultures I guess. It wants to be able to say that "the mean is this and with the exception of a few outliers, the rule holds true". Except that it doesn't. Almost never does it work out to be a "safe" and "general" description.

To prove that to me today, a writer in Arab News, who I generally don't like, in fact that I generally really don't like wrote an op-ed piece that I like. Not only do I like it, but I agree wholeheartedly with what she has to say. Sabria S. Jawhar writes this piece http://www.arabnews.com/don%E2%80%99t-get-too-excited-about-jeddah%E2%80%99s-new-aquarium and while it brings Jeddah's new aquarium to the attention of people who didn't know about it (such as myself!) it more directly pokes at the Haia for their ultra-conservatist views on morality and the ways in which they must enforce their world view. This is the type of behavior that gets bloggers arrested, expats kicked out, and my comments on the online article erased. And yet, she wrote it, published it and it made the final cut of a state or VERY close to state owned newspaper.

So, back to the box...barring the article disappearing tomorrow and the author suddenly getting fired for incompetence...these things happened. An author saw a possible problem in Saudi society that she wanted to address. She then wrote about it and submitted it, her editor let it run, the printer printed it and the distributor distributed it.

You just can't put Saudi's in a box, no matter how much that joke makes me giggle sometimes, it's true. Stereotyping and categorizing human beings with free will is impossible.

**Note to my newer ESL readers, that second part is a joke, it's sarcasm based on a "play on words" and concepts.

**Also, this was first brought to my attention from another bloggers post, http://www.nzpounamu.com/2013/01/dont-get-too-excited-about-jeddahs-new.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KiwiLivingInSaudiWhatToDo+%28Kiwi+Living+in+Saudi%3A+What+to+do%3F%29 She can be found at the link listed and writes a great blog from a totally different city, generation, gender, background and angle than I do. Check her out!