A Closer Look
(Don’t Blame Saudi
Arabia)
By Pit Menousek Pinegar
I am an American. I’m glad I was born and raised in a small,
safe New England town. And I’m equally
glad that my children were raised for five years of their lives, in Saudi Arabia. I love the United States. I also love Saudi Arabia. It, too, has been my
home. If you ask me to think of something I
didn’t like about being there, I won’t be able to think of a thing.
I loved the landscape—barren and
dramatic—where every flowering was a triumph, the waxy gold and purple dessert
candle—dhanun—a miracle, springing, as if by holy decree, from nothing
but coarse sand.
I loved the air—hot and dry by day, damp and
redolent of oleander and plumeria at night; I loved the long stretches of virgin coastline
and the thousands of flamingos that wintered in the Gulf just south of Dhahran. I loved the parakeets that clustered on the
telephone lines outside my kitchen window.
I loved the fact that children were
safe--and valued--that my children were safe and valued, that I didn’t have to
teach them not to speak to strangers, not to accept the sweets and pencils, notepads and
erasers routinely offered with affection and no dangerous agenda. I loved the fact that my
younger daughter, with severe ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), was
successful in school, was working three years ahead of her grade in most subjects, was a
championship swimmer, was happy.
I
loved the fact that I could leave my house unlocked, leave my pocketbook in the grocery
cart and go two aisles over to get the milk I’d forgotten.
I loved the calls to prayer five times a
day, and all business stopped. Television stations stopped broadcasting, and a Prayer
Intermission announcement filled the screen. I loved sitting on the marble steps of an
empty—Closed for Prayer—shop, eyes closed, taking in the scents of shawarma and fresh pita, coffee from Yemen
or an impossible blend of fragrances from a nearby perfumery. I especially loved the last
call at night coming from the minaret at the University of Petroleum and Minerals as I
walked in the thick, heavy air; both call and air seemed to hold so much.
I loved the Gulf, water so salty that
anyone could float; our skin white with salt. I
loved the sun sinking enormous and fiery into Half Moon Bay.
I
loved that my children had friends from many places in the world whose skin and politics
and religions were different from their own.
I loved the kind of national generosity
that prevailed, the Saudi commitment to “sharing the wealth,” medical and dental
care and education available to everyone. When business was booming, the King declared
bonuses—an extra months pay for every worker in the Kingdom, two for Saudis.
I loved the rich smells of the spice
markets and fish so fresh their eyes had not yet clouded. I loved the sensuous curves of
Ali Baba’s cave, the fine rust-red sand of the Rub’ al Khali, the uninterrupted
blue of the sky. I loved the dusty glow of old
brass ghawah pots, the potter who sat at his wheel in the same cave where his
forebears had turned a wheel for generations.
I loved night in the desert, our campfire a tiny
flicker in the vastness.
I loved
shamaals—winds from the north—the ghostly scritch of
dry bougainvillea blossoms in backyard whirlwinds, the soft moan of Namaqua doves, the
lethal beauty of jimson weed, and sand roses immerging in huge clusters or tiny formations
from beneath the sand.
I
loved the shy smiles—visible only in their eyes—of the women in veils and
abayas, the curiosity of their children, the curiosity of mine. I loved the woman at the clinic who laughed
heartily and embraced my three-year-old when she invited herself up under her veil.
I could go on and on the way anyone can
about a place they love, a place that is woven into fabric of soul and psyche.
I think of the way Muslims in general and
Saudi Arabs in particular have been treated in America during these last 12 months, and I
am ashamed. It is dangerous, in the extreme,
for a world leader to declare, “Either you are with us or you are against us,”
as if those are really the only two choices, as if dissention and disagreement with a
political position is suddenly heretical.
We live in a global, interdependent world
in which the potential for mass destruction is virtually limitless. In our effort to feel a little safer, to establish
a they to oppose our we—we have taken refuge in prejudice and bigotry. Holding Saudi Arabia or Islam accountable for
acts of terrorism is a dangerous, and desperate posture that is about trying to give the
enemy a name and a face. Terrorism has no
face, it has no name, it has no country. It
derives its power from its anonymity. We cannot afford to nurture an illusion of safety
that is born of naming false enemies.
Imagine this: using the same flawed measures, the rest of the
world would have to see us as a nation of morally bankrupt pedophile priests, Enron and
Worldcom executives and Timothy McVeighs. Ludicrous,
you say? No more so than putting the
responsibility for terrorism on Islam or Saudi Arabia: both are condemning the whole for
the actions of a corrupt few.
I
would call us, instead, to solemn self-reflection. We must not be lured into national
narcissism masquerading as patriotism. Being
frightened is not reason enough to abandon our basic human values. We need to hold
ourselves accountable for attitudes and behaviors that fly in the face of everything we
believe.
Saudi men and women and children have been
my neighbors. The world these days is a small
place—10,000 miles isn’t far—so Saudi Arabs are still my valued and
respected neighbors. I’d like them to know that.
I’d like my American neighbors to know that, too.
Courtesy of and © 2002 by Pit Menousek Pinegar. The writer lived in Saudi
Arabia from 1982 to 1986. She is the author of two books of poetry, both published by
Andrews Mountain Press, "Nine Years Between Two Poems" (1996) and "The
Possibilities of Empty Space" (1997). |