Major Acid's E-Rag
From the Kingdom
From
Saudi Arabia in Early 2000
Troubles
Life seems so peaceful here, in the
Kingdom; in Jeddah, the most western and open city in Saudi Arabia; in a
small and cramped Internet cafe where I listen to a large and pleasant
Saudi gentleman tell a few Canadian ex-pats with absolute confidence
that the Kingdom is the safest place in the world.
I would like to believe this smiling stranger, whose English is
impeccable, and whose politeness dulls the sharp and unpleasant
arrogance of some other Saudis I have met. I would like to, but I
cannot. The Middle East is on fire, and it is a fire which flames lick
at the very school I teach in – here in peaceful Jeddah.
Our school has a new piece of anti-Israeli propaganda on the wall. It is
both grotesque and compelling. Small tanks and toy soldiers roam a
blasted landscape by a ruined town surrounding the golden dome of the
Temple Mount Mosque, and from the broken ground sprout cracked and burnt
and bloody heads of plastic dolls, and here and there dismembered
plastic arms and legs are buried or stick up into the air, while in that
air fly toy jets and helicopters with the Star of David on them.
It is art and propaganda and a statement of the artist's belief and a
true reflection of what the students, these sons of the wealthy of
Jeddah, believe with total faith. The piece is not alone. On the walls
near it are pictures of the new Intifada's brightest star - the young
boy who was shot and died in his father's arms, conveniently caught on
film.
In class my students draw the Star of David on sheets of paper ripped
from their workbooks, turn those sheets into small aeroplanes and throw
them at garbage cans, cheering whenever one falls in. Or they simply
hold the sheets up and yell at them and drive their pens through them
like knives. They are not discouraged in this. They are, in fact,
encouraged.
My most senior students tell me a story of how the violence will surely
end one day. They tell me that in the end of days, when all the Jews of
the world have at last gathered in Israel, then will the faithful of
Islam fall upon them in fury. The very earth itself will rise up and
betray the Jewish people. Every rock and bush and tree will come to life
and cry out, "There is a Jew hiding here, come and kill him."
All the trees but one, that is. My students tell me there is one tree
that will not be party to this ultimate vengeance, which is why, they
insist, that if I went to Israel I would see that all the Jews are busy
planting these very trees by the tens of thousands. But it won't matter,
my students say matter-of-factly. "We will kill them all anyway."
Of course this won't happen yet. The time is not right. The Israeli army
is too strong just yet. So my students instead terrorize pieces of paper
and shout "Death to Israel" and collect money to send to the
Palestinians. They shout poems of hate at morning assemblies under the
watchful eyes of their religion teachers, and they cheer the bloody
piece of art that hangs in the entrance hall to my school.
I hear those cheers in my mind while I listen to the polite Saudi tell a
small group of Canadians in a small Internet cafe that the Kingdom is
the safest place on earth. I wonder – is this how my students will sound
when they have grown into men? Is his face a mask for the same hatred
that my students are learning daily? Or is his a different face and if
it is – which face is the true face?
On a monitor in the Internet cafe one of our fellows has brought up a
warning for all Canadians in the Middle East, including the Kingdom. No
specific threat to Canadians has been identified, but beware
nonetheless. Be watchful.
The Saudi takes a couple of our group off to a nearby restaurant where
he proposes to treat. I hear later that he is a poet and some sort of
minor celebrity at the restaurant, but it turns out he doesn't pay for
dinner. A sheikh is there and he pays for everyone. My friends have an
engaging evening at dinner and later at the poet's home watching a large
screen tv with several satellites hooked up to it and 600 channels to
choose from. None of the channels is Canadian.
I remained at the cafe chatting distractedly with a friend back in
Canada, thinking about that warning from the Canadian government, and
thinking about a chat I had with a Canadian diplomat last year. We had
met at a business function and he was, he said, nearing the end of his
tour in the Middle East. He would be back in Canada soon, and he was
happy about it. He advised me not to stay too long in the Kingdom. There
were two reasons, he said.
The Israeli's and the Palestinians were about to go at it - it was only
a matter of time - and there was no telling who might get dragged into
that mess, perhaps even Saudi Arabia. Although, and this was the second
thing, the Kingdom itself was shaky. Whispers of unrest were in the air.
Anyone, I suppose, could predict trouble in Palestine, even if this
latest bloody chaos seems so much worse. But trouble in the Kingdom? It
seemed unlikely then, and it does now, except ....
Except that two Saudi nationals hijacked a Saudi passenger jet recently
and said they wanted to highlight human rights abuses in the Kingdom,
and that may seem a small and isolated thing, but it's not. Not in a
country where the royal family is supposed to have absolute power and
dissent is not tolerated. Not ever.
I wished suddenly that I were having coffee face to face with my
Canadian friend, close enough to reach out and touch her hand perhaps,
and not thousands of miles away in an Internet cafe where, as I type at
her in the dark, I can hear echoes of a smiling Arab's politely
reassuring voice, of a diplomat's warning, of a hijacker's statement, of
a student's cheering for that image of bloody death that assaults my
senses every day in the entrance hall of my school.
My unease is not lessened a few days later when I hear that the Saudi
gentleman with the polite voice and the 600 tv channels has called one
of the Canadian teachers and has asked, completely without shame, if the
Canadian might have, say, 300 dollars to spare as he is a little short.
From the Kingdom,
