(no subject)
Nov. 12th, 2002 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taerowynMy dad clued me in on this. Very iinteresting. It seems Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the NY Times wrote some rather disparaging comments about Saudi Arabia so they gave her a tourist visa and invited her to come visit. A tourist visa to Saudi Arabia is fairly unheard of. A visa for a reporter who is also a woman? LIke I said, interesting.
She's been there for a few weeks now and has, thus far, written three columns here, here, and here. The last is actually about a run-in she had with the mutawwa, the enforcers for the Commission for the Promotion or Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Frederick's of Riyadh By MAUREEN DOWD
IYADH, Saudi Arabia — I had been wanting to catch a glimpse of the mutawwa, the bully boys from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who go around harassing and arresting Saudis in the name of Islam. But since I grew up with "I Dream of Jeannie" and tales of Aladdin's lamp, I should have known that Arabia is not the place to make wishes lightly.
The religious police were reputed to look angry and have long, scraggly beards, and to clean their teeth with a tree root called miswak. They had been so out of control lately that Prince Naif, the interior minister, cautioned them last week to show tolerance, respect the sanctity of private homes and stop spying on people.
This kingdom is a thicket of unfathomable extremes. Frederick's of Hollywood-style lingerie shops abound, even though female sexuality is considered so threatening that the mere sight of a woman's ankle will cause civilization to crumble. As one cleric put it, women can become "the most dangerous weapon of destruction" for Islamic nations.
Saudi Arabia has some remarkable women, but you won't find them helping to run the country; the toilet seats at the Foreign Ministry are routinely left up.
On Wednesday at 11:30 p.m., I walked to the mall connected to my hotel to verify that there is a "women only" lingerie section in Harvey Nichols. (The first wife of Muhammad, who did not seem to mind high-achieving women, was a merchant; during Ramadan, trade is encouraged and stores stay open past midnight.)
My dinner companion, Adel al-Jubeir, went with me. The smooth Georgetown-educated spokesman for the Saudis has been the kingdom's point man on the Sunday talk shows, trying to repair its friendship with America after 9/11. The three-story mall was so chockablock with designer stilettos, bondage boots, transparent blouses and glittering gowns with plunging necklines that it would have made Las Vegas blush.
I felt drab, dressed in black to suit Saudi standards with a scarf over my hair, a long skirt, a sweater over a T-shirt and flats. An earlier outing with a pink skirt had caused my Ministry of Information minder to bark: "Get your abaya! They'll kill you!"
I made some notes on Harvey Nichols's lingerie apartheid — racks of sheer zebra and leopard Dolce & Gabbana nighties and lacy Donna Karan items — and Mr. Jubeir and I headed back to the hotel. Suddenly, four men bore down on us, two in white robes, one in a brown policeman's uniform and one in a floor-length brown A-line skirt (not a good look). They pointed to my neck and hips, and the embarrassed diplomat explained that I had been busted by the vice squad.
"They say they can see the outline of your body," he translated. "They say they welcome you to the mall, which is a sign of our modernity, but that we are also proud of our tradition and faith, and you must respect that." The police took my passport and began making notes about the crime, oblivious to the irony of detaining me in front of the window of another lingerie shop displaying a short lacy red slip.
I figured they'd shrink away upon learning that Mr. Jubeir's boss was Crown Prince Abdullah. But they didn't. I thought I'd catch a break because I'm an American Catholic, not a Muslim. I didn't. Apparently, the mutawwa are not on board with the Saudis' multimillion-dollar charm offensive to persuade America that the kingdom is not a hotbed of hostile religious zealots.
Mr. Jubeir asked whether I'd "placate" the mutawwa by putting on an abaya from a nearby shop. I'd had to wear one of the macabre, hot black shrouds that day to see the crown prince, and I was loath to get shrouded up again to walk a few yards.
After the men argued for 15 minutes, I fretted that I was in one of those movies where an American makes one mistake in a repressive country and ends up rotting in a dungeon. I missed John Ashcroft desperately. The Saudis, after all, have been fighting with the U.N. Committee Against Torture so they can keep using flogging and amputation of limbs as disciplinary measures.
Finally, the mutawwa agreed to let me go, appeased by the promise that I would soon be leaving Saudi Arabia. A relieved scofflaw, I was left to ponder a country at a turning point, a society engaged in a momentous struggle for its future, torn between secret police and secret undergarments.
I'm not sure where I stand on this. I know they're opinion pieces, but some of her preconceived notions are a bit too much for me. She does have a few points, but I have trouble getting through the cloud of prejudice that she brought with her.
She's been there for a few weeks now and has, thus far, written three columns here, here, and here. The last is actually about a run-in she had with the mutawwa, the enforcers for the Commission for the Promotion or Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Frederick's of Riyadh By MAUREEN DOWD
IYADH, Saudi Arabia — I had been wanting to catch a glimpse of the mutawwa, the bully boys from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who go around harassing and arresting Saudis in the name of Islam. But since I grew up with "I Dream of Jeannie" and tales of Aladdin's lamp, I should have known that Arabia is not the place to make wishes lightly.
The religious police were reputed to look angry and have long, scraggly beards, and to clean their teeth with a tree root called miswak. They had been so out of control lately that Prince Naif, the interior minister, cautioned them last week to show tolerance, respect the sanctity of private homes and stop spying on people.
This kingdom is a thicket of unfathomable extremes. Frederick's of Hollywood-style lingerie shops abound, even though female sexuality is considered so threatening that the mere sight of a woman's ankle will cause civilization to crumble. As one cleric put it, women can become "the most dangerous weapon of destruction" for Islamic nations.
Saudi Arabia has some remarkable women, but you won't find them helping to run the country; the toilet seats at the Foreign Ministry are routinely left up.
On Wednesday at 11:30 p.m., I walked to the mall connected to my hotel to verify that there is a "women only" lingerie section in Harvey Nichols. (The first wife of Muhammad, who did not seem to mind high-achieving women, was a merchant; during Ramadan, trade is encouraged and stores stay open past midnight.)
My dinner companion, Adel al-Jubeir, went with me. The smooth Georgetown-educated spokesman for the Saudis has been the kingdom's point man on the Sunday talk shows, trying to repair its friendship with America after 9/11. The three-story mall was so chockablock with designer stilettos, bondage boots, transparent blouses and glittering gowns with plunging necklines that it would have made Las Vegas blush.
I felt drab, dressed in black to suit Saudi standards with a scarf over my hair, a long skirt, a sweater over a T-shirt and flats. An earlier outing with a pink skirt had caused my Ministry of Information minder to bark: "Get your abaya! They'll kill you!"
I made some notes on Harvey Nichols's lingerie apartheid — racks of sheer zebra and leopard Dolce & Gabbana nighties and lacy Donna Karan items — and Mr. Jubeir and I headed back to the hotel. Suddenly, four men bore down on us, two in white robes, one in a brown policeman's uniform and one in a floor-length brown A-line skirt (not a good look). They pointed to my neck and hips, and the embarrassed diplomat explained that I had been busted by the vice squad.
"They say they can see the outline of your body," he translated. "They say they welcome you to the mall, which is a sign of our modernity, but that we are also proud of our tradition and faith, and you must respect that." The police took my passport and began making notes about the crime, oblivious to the irony of detaining me in front of the window of another lingerie shop displaying a short lacy red slip.
I figured they'd shrink away upon learning that Mr. Jubeir's boss was Crown Prince Abdullah. But they didn't. I thought I'd catch a break because I'm an American Catholic, not a Muslim. I didn't. Apparently, the mutawwa are not on board with the Saudis' multimillion-dollar charm offensive to persuade America that the kingdom is not a hotbed of hostile religious zealots.
Mr. Jubeir asked whether I'd "placate" the mutawwa by putting on an abaya from a nearby shop. I'd had to wear one of the macabre, hot black shrouds that day to see the crown prince, and I was loath to get shrouded up again to walk a few yards.
After the men argued for 15 minutes, I fretted that I was in one of those movies where an American makes one mistake in a repressive country and ends up rotting in a dungeon. I missed John Ashcroft desperately. The Saudis, after all, have been fighting with the U.N. Committee Against Torture so they can keep using flogging and amputation of limbs as disciplinary measures.
Finally, the mutawwa agreed to let me go, appeased by the promise that I would soon be leaving Saudi Arabia. A relieved scofflaw, I was left to ponder a country at a turning point, a society engaged in a momentous struggle for its future, torn between secret police and secret undergarments.
I'm not sure where I stand on this. I know they're opinion pieces, but some of her preconceived notions are a bit too much for me. She does have a few points, but I have trouble getting through the cloud of prejudice that she brought with her.