I've worked a fair amount in Saudi Arabia, and yeah, even by (low) Gulf standards it's a deeply fucked-up place and definitely a ticking time bomb. A few things people don't realize until they've actually been there:
- Not all Saudis are rich. Quite the opposite, there are destitute beggars on the streets of Riyadh. The women were the saddest side, kneeling by the roadside begging for alms in their all-enveloping pitch-black abayas in the scorching 45-degree heat (110+ F).
- The extent of the sex segregation. If you're female, you're literally a prisoner of your own family, as you can't go anywhere in Saudi without a car, women aren't allowed to drive, and women also aren't allowed to enter the vast majority of shops, restaurants etc on their own.
- Riyadh's population is projected to hit 10 million by 2020. It was originally a dinky oasis in the middle of the desert, with enough resources to support maybe 500 people. If anything ever disrupts the constant stream of imports paid for by oil money, the results will be apocalyptic.
- The state is deeply corrupt. Want a business visa? You can wait forever for the Chamber of Commerce to rubber-stamp your invitation letter... or you can pay a "facilitator" several hundred bucks and have it the next day. This repeats at every level, only with the sums going up an order of magnitude every time.
- "Hypocritical" doesn't begin to describe the opulence of the Sauds (the ruling family; yup, Saudi Arabia is the world's only country named after its rulers). For example, the massively lucrative alcohol smuggling racket is generally acknowledged to be run by one of the princes (of whom there are hundreds; Ibn al-Saud was such a horny old goat that he had 45 sons who survived to adulthood and had children of their own).
- Unless you belong to the 0.01% with enough wastah (connections) to flaunt the rules, there is fuck all to do in Riyadh. No cinemas, no clubs, no bars, not even shisha shops (they're banished beyond city limits). Can't drink a coffee with an unrelated woman at Starbucks without risking arrest, can't even go to the shopping mall on the weekends if you're a "bachelor" (unamrried male). So people either play a lot of Playstation and drive dangerously, go to the mosque, or go nuts.
- The education system is completely useless. All companies in Saudi are operated almost entirely by imported labor. I was working to set up a new mobile phone operator, with a motley crew of American, Europeans, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Sudanese etc, all hard-working and competent. And then there were the token Saudi dudes, who generally both had no idea about technology and couldn't speak more than few words of English... but each company had to hire a few to fulfill their "Saudification" quota.
> - "Hypocritical" doesn't begin to describe the opulence of the Sauds (the ruling family; yup, Saudi Arabia is the world's only country named after its rulers). For example, the massively lucrative alcohol smuggling racket is generally acknowledged to be run by one of the princes (of whom there are hundreds; Ibn al-Saud was such a horny old goat that he had 45 sons who survived to adulthood and had children of their own).
IIRC, there was a "Locked Up Abroad" about this. The guy was quite candid about knowing that smuggling alcohol was illegal, but it was Princes and the like buying it from him. I think he ended up just getting deported.
Today I learned, thanks. But I don't think any of those are named after the current leaders. What we have in Saudi Arabia is a group of people, (the Saud family) who managed to take personal power over everyone else in a particular region, and then wrapped that power in the mechanisms and trappings of a modern state. It's an interesting and unique situation.
Liechtenstein barely qualifies as a town, much less a nation. It has less than 40k people, and it's economy mainly consists of international tax evasion.
All companies in Saudi are operated almost entirely by imported labor
Is this still true? I ask because when I was in grad school at the University of Arizona I taught technical writing to a fair number of Saudi (and Kuwaiti) engineering students. I don't know what happened to them after graduation, but I presume most went back to work in the oil companies. Maybe they ended up fulfilling the "Saudification" quota.
Medical professionals too are imported, mostly from Europe with English skills. Which means that as far as documenting things in Arabic, only the legal names of people and their relations would need such electronic support. Maybe a few others, but not much.
I am not sure what ramifications this has for patients.
The author worked as a paramedic in Riyadh for several years, dealing with auto accidents, revenge killings, and the cultural implications of "Inshallah" as it applied to telling a family that their loved one didn't have long to live.
Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf died around 510 AD, so King Hussein's connection is rather tenuous to say the least. The state called Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, was founded by Ibn Saud in 1926, give or take a few years depending on where you draw the line.
(The fact remains that the country has that name because the royal family has that name. The way the family obtained that name is irrelevant. Without that family on the throne the country would be called something (slightly) different.
But ...)
This is a tenuous nitpick of an otherwise very interesting comment, thanks.
It did until 1967. However, the point is that "Arabia" has a specific meaning as an area that is different from the area of Saudi-Arabia, whereas different meanings of Jordan the river, Jordan the country and Jordan the toothbrush are usually clearly distinguishable from context.
- Not all Saudis are rich. Quite the opposite, there are destitute beggars on the streets of Riyadh. The women were the saddest side, kneeling by the roadside begging for alms in their all-enveloping pitch-black abayas in the scorching 45-degree heat (110+ F).
- The extent of the sex segregation. If you're female, you're literally a prisoner of your own family, as you can't go anywhere in Saudi without a car, women aren't allowed to drive, and women also aren't allowed to enter the vast majority of shops, restaurants etc on their own.
- Riyadh's population is projected to hit 10 million by 2020. It was originally a dinky oasis in the middle of the desert, with enough resources to support maybe 500 people. If anything ever disrupts the constant stream of imports paid for by oil money, the results will be apocalyptic.
- The state is deeply corrupt. Want a business visa? You can wait forever for the Chamber of Commerce to rubber-stamp your invitation letter... or you can pay a "facilitator" several hundred bucks and have it the next day. This repeats at every level, only with the sums going up an order of magnitude every time.
- "Hypocritical" doesn't begin to describe the opulence of the Sauds (the ruling family; yup, Saudi Arabia is the world's only country named after its rulers). For example, the massively lucrative alcohol smuggling racket is generally acknowledged to be run by one of the princes (of whom there are hundreds; Ibn al-Saud was such a horny old goat that he had 45 sons who survived to adulthood and had children of their own).
- Unless you belong to the 0.01% with enough wastah (connections) to flaunt the rules, there is fuck all to do in Riyadh. No cinemas, no clubs, no bars, not even shisha shops (they're banished beyond city limits). Can't drink a coffee with an unrelated woman at Starbucks without risking arrest, can't even go to the shopping mall on the weekends if you're a "bachelor" (unamrried male). So people either play a lot of Playstation and drive dangerously, go to the mosque, or go nuts.
- The education system is completely useless. All companies in Saudi are operated almost entirely by imported labor. I was working to set up a new mobile phone operator, with a motley crew of American, Europeans, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Sudanese etc, all hard-working and competent. And then there were the token Saudi dudes, who generally both had no idea about technology and couldn't speak more than few words of English... but each company had to hire a few to fulfill their "Saudification" quota.
Random stories if you'd like to read more: http://driftingclouds.net/tag/saudi-arabia/