Are we ready? 8 cities, 8 days. Sweater weather in Switzerland followed by hot desert kingdoms in the Gulf, but with unmelted Swiss chocolates still in my bag by the time I reach Belgium. All in all, a very excellent adventure which was educational, revealing, a bit wacky and never boring.
Thurs/Fri 8 October: Swissair JFK to Geneva 6:35 flying time. Very full flight and cramped with 3/4/3 configuration on an MD-11. Not human to do this to people paying good money but 90% of that flight was people with laptops going to the Telecom World Congress in Geneva. Sit left on arrival for the lake and city but you will be glared in the morning. Sit right on departure and if you are flying on toward Zurich you will also see lots of pretty mountains to the right along the way. Geneva airport is 4km from city center and next to the Palexpo exhibition center where the congress was taking place. Flight arrived half an hour early and my host met me and we drove to Palexpo to pick up our VIP passes to the congress. I was to play the role of an African press photojournalist. Then home to nap. Tea-time walk around Geneva, which is not too large. The city has a shopping street running near the lake and a promenade “Mont Blanc” going up one side of the lake with very fine hotels (ie: Noga Hilton, Beau Rivage and Richemont), restaurants and pretty walking areas. A geyser-like fountain is in the middle of the lake and is a focal point. Hard to park cars but the lots in Geneva and Brussels are electronically linked to roadsigns that tell you as you approach city center how many parking spaces are available in each of the lots. Very cool. Prices in shopping malls seem high; hoping Arabs will come in and buy at these prices. Switzerland is in recession. Some shopping malls such as the “Confederation” right at city center are a bust. Geneva is clean but not as spit and polish as Zurich; ie: spider webs are attached to signs and posts and would normally be cleaned up by city workers. Busses take you all around; it is lovely transferring busses here since the transfer bus is always waiting for you when you arrive at the transfer point. Every bus stop has a schedule telling you what time which bus comes by so you can plan your rides. An all-day pass is $3.50. Supermarket has a nice innovation — little shopping carts for small kids. All doors have big high quality locks on them; even walking into a hotel lobby you hear a big click behind you. It seems to be a swiss/austrian thing to reinforce the privacy and fiduciary mood of the country. My host is of Moroccan descent and takes hospitality and music very seriously. Prepared trays of food for me; we listened to lots of the latest Moroccan hits and he has 8 shortwave radios in his house. A soulmate! We went to the Great Synagogue for services; the sermon was in French and the cantor Moroccan even though it is an Ashkenazi synagogue. The synagogue was very ornate and under guard. A fence surrounds the property. Majority of worshippers are not Orthodox. After Friday night services, they have a very nice kiddush with hors d’oeuvres. Home to supper and bed. No hotel rooms within 75 miles of Geneva due to the Congress. I didn’t even know about it until the day before I left; i was to be in Lausanne with a colleague who got called to Moscow to meet with the prime minister and figured I’d go to Geneva since my friend in Berlin was also traveling that weekend. The man who hosted me is the father of a girl who is a friend of a friend and who I hosted in Miami. She just happened to reach me by phone while I was looking for a place in Europe to spend the weekend and suggested the whole thing. Total serendipity in the final 48 hours! Also a good reason not to book air tickets too far in advance!
Saturday…Spent the second half of the day walking around the Telecom Exhibition. It is more like a world’s fair than a trade show. Lots of huge exhibits from almost every telecom company in the world. They all say the same thing so the way to distinguish Compaq from HP is to have the tallest exhibition with the most dancers and shiny lights. And of course lots of free food, champagne and gadgets. My host came with a doggy bag just to fill up with freebies. Our VIP pass gave us a free buffet lunch and admittance to the opening ceremonies which featured Kofi Annan and a dance show about the history of dance, the point being that all dance cultures have been influenced by other dance cultures throughout history so there is little sense of where one dance culture ends and the other begins (ie: Flamenco dancer hand movements reflect Indian culture brought to Spain by the gypsies). Today is a press preview; the public will not be admitted for another week. This show is held once every 4 years and it is staged for government ministers who award telecom contracts and the ITU (international telecom union). It took about 4 hours just to walk through the show. Israel had 60 companies there and quite a distinct country presence (a good number of Israeli companies simply appeared there as international companies without playing up the Israeli connection); the rest of the middle east: Egypt, UAE and Iran each had a small booth for their national telecom entities. Clearly, there is a cleavage in this region of the world in technological development. Early evening walk (no idea where i found the energy) in center city to old town part of Geneva; saw Hotel d’Ville which means Old Town Hall (here the word Hotel is used for all sorts of government buildings) and there are cannons there on outdoor display going back to the time of Julius Caesar. Passed by St. Pierre’s Cathedral and walked back to the Mont Blanc to enjoy the onset of evening, statues and parks. There is a statue of a young Hungarian countess who aspired to royalty but was killed; she had owned and died in the Hotel Beau Rivage. So there is some mystery to the area for you. Later dinner in a pizzeria with local Jewish singles who have come from Lausanne and cities in France such as Lyon to meet up. Very comfortable group who spoke French and English; ate fish and pasta (perch from the lake is popular). They went dancing afterward; I returned home and Isaac Tawil (cousin of Ralph Tawil, a family friend) drove me home. Small world.
Sunday…Taxi to the Saleve, a mountain on the French side overlooking the city. It is very high up and you could take a cable car but that takes more time than I had. In the morning, the view is of Geneva; in the afternoon, the view is of the French side which is rural. Night view also pretty. Not necessarily worthwhile to go to the mountain as it is almost too high up and far away for a good view and the light must be right or else you can’t photograph well. Taxi is wildly expensive; my 1 1/2 hour run that morning to the mountain for a 10 minute stop and then to the airport cost me $150. No doubt the most expensive ride of my life for that distance. Entering France no one checks you; entering Switzerland they check your passport. Villages run right up against each other at the border but the French building style is different. Geneva canton is French and the attitudes are more open and flexible than the Germanic swiss. I arrived at airport to check in 20 minutes before my domestic :30 noontime flight to Zurich. Nice plane with 2×2 business-class size seats for the whole plane. Gave out big chocolates on board. In zurich airport, there was an Internet DJ playing music, posting web pages and lots of children play areas and free PC’s for web browsing. All very user-friendly. Taxied to center city railroad station “Bahnhof” ($25 for a 15 minute ride, much of it in a tunnel that cuts right into the city — best to use the trains if you are not in a hurry). ATM system wasn’t working that day; fortunately it worked in Saudi that night! Luckily, I never had to acquire any swiss francs during my 48 hour stay as even the taxis take visa cards. Lunched at the Movenpick on the Bahnhoffstrassse with my friend Esra; we walked to the lake and got chocolates from Shpringley. Returned to the airport half hour before my 16:30 flight to Jeddah; flying time just under 5 hours. The Airbus 330 is like a Boeing 777; very pleasant. The A-330 is only 2 seats wide by the window and much roomier than what I flew over the Atlantic. Of course, air fares in this region are higher as well. It is now evening and I am passing Italy and listening to the Arabic music program which is excellent (I called up the company that prepares these programs and they sent me a complimentary copy of it on cassette the next day!). Vege meals are also wonderful. They check the saudi visas in Zurich to make sure no one is going to be sent back upon arrival (at Swissair’s expense). The Landing Card says in red: Death for Drug Trafficker. On Swissair, you ask for water and you get a bottle of Evian. Or have 2 if you like. Ask for an extra dessert, you get a whole additional meal tray — take what you like. Ask for a piece of paper, get a whole set of stationery. Pilot says “Landing in 3 minutes” that means 3 minutes — not 10.
JEDDAH: First impression of Jeddah from the air is that it is much bigger than I expected. A fountain, like in Geneva, is at the mouth of the city’s harbour and is a focal point from the airplane as you fly over the city on the way to the airport. The airport is all lit up with tons of lights. The airport bus crawls from the plane to the terminal and the planes are kept all the way out in the middle of nowhere away from the terminal; a hint of things to come or just the lackadaisical tempo of things here. Swissair shuts and seals its bars before landing in deference to Saudi customs because alcohol is prohibited in the country. Even at a US consulate party, if you order a beer they will open it in front of you because you can’t take it with you. Airport passport control was not that bad (10-15 minutes around here is considered OK) and customs did not ask any questions or peek at my bag. Airport personnel in Saudi were uniformly friendly actually. My visa says I am protestant (they even write it in Arabic on the visa in your passport) and I am under instructions to keep quiet about religion as long as I am visiting here. If you write “Jewish” on the religion question of your visa application, you are refused a visa. I am concerned because I am carrying personal religious prayer articles and I don’t want to have to explain this. (On the visa application, you sign a statement acknowledging that the importation of any personal religious articles, pornography, alcohol and drugs constitutes a criminal offense.) There is no tourist visa here; only business visas. ATM worked; I was accosted by an aspiring taxi driver since my friend was out at a dinner and he drove me to the hotel. I was advised not to worry here; that this is one of the world’s safest cities.
Car had no A/C and I was sweating buckets. About 200 cars were stuck in the airport lot because the cashier’s computer was broken and they weren’t letting anyone out. I got really tired of sitting and got out of the car to check out the situation. When I figured out what it was, I started giving the lot attendant hell in English knowing they understood nothing of it but I knew the sight of someone standing at the entrance in front of the line of cars would get other people out of their cars. Some did and one guy just got real pissed off and broke the parking lot gate whereupon we all drove out of the lot. Welcome to Saudi Arabia!!!! I was nonstop laughing halfway into town after that one! It’s a 20 minute ride to city center and my driver who spoke no English is now trying to get some ridiculous price for the taxi ride; all in all, I should have looked for the dispatcher but I went to the hotel concierge and after a bit of consultation got the driver to accept a fee of about 20% over the taxi rate — hey, the guy is working the midnight shift and has a family and I feel somewhat charitable. I am in the Hyatt at $100 a night on a corporate discount arranged by my host; for an extra $25 I can have the business floor but I don’t need it here as I will be well looked after. Glad to have a normal shower; I want to know how people with these old-fashioned hand-held showers in Europe shampoo themselves while holding the shower — if you put it down, the water sprays all over the place. I finally figured to put the shower head between my thighs. Any advice from anyone about this? This to me is one of the mysteries of the world. Also bidets are big here; Moslems don’t like toilet paper and I wonder how they use this stuff instead but it is certainly cheaper considering my annual toilet paper expense. Hotel has no alcohol in the mini-bar or Gideon Bible or Koran, for that matter. There is a sticker in the room showing the direction to Mecca for prayer.
Monday & Tuesday — Company driver takes me to the office, a few minutes away. The office is in a plaza with a dry cleaner and I save 2/3 of the laundry cost by having the dry cleaner rather than the hotel do my stuff. Here, the dry cleaner is open till 10:30 pm so it is very convenient; in NY City I don’t know of any cleaners open past 7. [Packing Note: If you are nuts enough to plan your outfits before you travel, you’ll carry less and know exactly what you’ll be sending to the laundry on which days. I had to travel light and for two different climates. I also needed to hold out for a day in which I was not flying so it really helped to plan this out in advance. I wound up traveling with roughly 4 days of clothes.] The office plaza also has a cake & coffee bar but no kiosk or sandwich shop. I was told that a kiosk/sandwich bar had existed but went bankrupt; people here will either drive or take delivery but will not go outside to get anything because it is hot. After a few hours in office, lunch with my host’s friend who is from Jerusalem at a pleasant Middle East restaurant in which all subjects were discussed but discreetly because there is a sense that security people are eavesdropping. Not so terribly hot or humid today; about 90 degrees or so; I was expecting over 100. My host and I drove around a bit; lots of traffic circles (very good to assist with U-turns and 4-way intersections) with big sculptures in the middle of the circles. The government says Jeddah has more of these sculptures than any other city in the world. Either you love it or hate it; I actually thought it made the city look interesting and broke up the monotony of what would otherwise be a spread out Texas-like city. A few long streets criss-cross the city; if there is an accident, it is a big tie-up. Not that many traffic lights. Not many tall buildings. Overall, the roads, traffic patterns and the scenery looks pretty much the same all over the Gulf and I am used to this by now so it doesn’t look that much different to me. Some people find Jeddah very confusing traffic-wise and refuse to drive there. People think the police are everywhere but there are beggars in the streets at intersections (religious pilgrims overstaying their visas). Also saw someone at a street corner selling little birds in cages to drivers in their cars. People like birds here (ie: falconry). No movie theaters or public performances such as symphony or art or any museums. In Riyadh there is a museum but it is about the king, islam and the country’s history. I am told that Saudis who visit Europe hate museums and don’t go much for theater or any of that type of arts and entertainment.
I drove around with 2 saudis who are nephews to people who were major government ministers. Both of them were educated in the UK or the US. We talked politics: Saddam (ie: we should get rid of him), US elections (Bush will win; Gore and Bradley are boring and unelectable), Israel (peace will be a good thing overall but don’t expect some kind of love-fest or blossoming of business to result). Normal conversation, no B.S. and there is really not much to argue about because at this point the issues are either boring to people or — more to the point — everyone knows the end game by now. Domestic politics: Saudi Arabia is bankrupt; everybody knows it. Change is inevitable but government will try and tinker with economics without any political change. Too much change would likely destabilize the monarchy which is also an economic monopoly. Clerics will not tolerate liberalism in society and would bring down the monarchy if it allowed liberalism. Majority of male Saudis like a society in which women don’t drive cars and do their banking at separate bank branches, teenage daughters can be kept at home and out of trouble, and where men basically rule everything and where women stay off the streets — you don’t see them at the airports either. It is a conservative society in which it is pleasant to raise a family and it is safe inside the country. There are tons of family recreational areas and there are more places around here to go with kids than there are in comparable cities in the US. If you are stifled by all this, at least knowing you have the freedom to jump on a plane and go away whenever you want is a big psychological cure to the hangover. Restaurants and airports have Family Sections where women and children sit. In the Hyatt hotel, I see children sitting with their moms but you can’t see any of the mom except for her eyes peeking out of her Darth Vader outfit. I am told that women are slowly making their way up around here both on the office job and professional levels (some are studying and working abroad; one Saudi woman owns a franchise of a Saudi company in Beirut, for instance) and are even poised to take certain things over but I really don’t know much about it and have a hard time believing it. However, I am told they are increasingly in industries such as investment banking doing deals and that someday soon you might even see some of them taking the spotlight.
The office: Tea man brings tea and coffee every few hours or whenever you ask for it. Someone brought a cake to celebrate the purchase of a new car. Most Saudis are not rich and salaries are not great. Work is not the number one priority here for Saudis. Office opens at 9; they come by 10. At 11:45, shops are closing for the noontime prayer which lasts half an hour. This is the second prayer of the day, the first being at dawn. There are 5 prayers a day and everything from the supermarket to the telephone reservation line for Saudi Airways shuts down during prayer time. By 1:30 or so, it is siesta time and everything is closed. (Most just go straight from prayers to siesta.) The law office is deserted until 5pm; my host (who is not a Saudi) is the only one who hangs around and works a bit during the afternoon. Then they come back but at 6 it is time for another 15 minutes of prayers. Then you stay till about 8. Then you go for more prayers and then go home. (You can pray at office or mosque or anywhere and you don’t have to pray at exactly that time. Of course, you don’t have to pray at all.) To be fair, foreigners in the kingdom spend more time working and do most of the work in most of these offices. Problem is, since there’s nothing to do some of the foreigners are just work-a-holics and drive the people around them nuts. It can be hard to attract secretaries and associates to work in some of these offices.
At about 9 or 10, the Saudis come out like bats and go out for the evening. Wednesday and Thursday evenings are the big nights out since the weekend is Thursday afternoon into Friday. The only people that could possibly enjoy such a regimen are very observant Orthodox Jews and I imagine that Israel would look this way if the rabbis were in charge. They could go for all this praying and interruption. To one degree, this is nuts. On the other hand, it is hot during the day and people want to have lunch with their families. At night, by the time you get home the kids are in bed but all the stores are open late into the night so to some extent this is all very pleasant and convenient — certainly I wouldn’t mind if New York stores were open at night when I am home to want to use them. Men like to go grocery shopping late at night and there are large supermarkets with tons of sweet things like in Europe and some big bakeries inside.
Downtown is historical with a choo-choo train in the central square and some modern shopping malls. The central square used to be known as chop-chop square — ie: where they cut off limbs of bad people, but they don’t do that anymore. However, drug pushers do get beheaded at a square near the water front. They say a prayer, chop off his head, everyone claps and then the police quickly take the executioner away from the scene. They once had a problem where the executioner went into a frenzy and started killing some of the spectators. Though there is always a willing crowd happy to watch, I am told it is quite gruesome and the trauma of witnessing it is lasting.
Very high society have large homes that are more like compounds. People build large walls to protect privacy and particularly their women from being seen by outsiders. Foreigners living in Saudi Arabia all live in compounds just outside the city reserved for foreigners where they can wear what they like and do as they wish (ie: walk around in shorts, visit in each other’s homes, pray discreetly, watch satellite TV and eat and drink what they want). Saudis can visit these compounds but are strongly discouraged from doing so and must not wear their Saudi robes while in the compound. (It is a bit amusing watching a Saudi put on his headdress and all his regalia just to go outside.) My Saudi colleague is dying to visit the compound but thinks he is not allowed to go there. The Saudis want the foreigners doing their thing away from Saudi society. The compound looks like a big motel with driveways, walls and at least a good amount of landscaping. Rent is much higher than in the city but there are amenities such as swimming pool. There is a restaurant but it is not too good and rather expensive. Or you can call for pizza delivery from outside. Cable TV costs at least $60 a month. Local telephone and electricity is cheap but long distance telephony is very expensive. The internal phone system is not very good and a good number of elites carry cellulars (but they don’t necessarily keep them on or return phone calls). Rent for a one bedroom villa with a little garden space is $900 a month. My host finds the compound essential for preserving his sanity in this country; that and Monday Night Football and weekly parties at the US Consulate make up the big picture of expat life here.
Expats have virtually no Saudi friends or anything to do with anything in this country. I don’t get the feeling that Saudis here feel very much toward the country either, except maybe for the football team. Basically, the monarchy runs the place; you live and work here and you don’t really care too much about anything. Petrol has gone up 50% this year and is now close to $1 per gallon. Similarly priced in Dubai except that it has been at that price for awhile. Evidently, the Saudis were subsidizing oil when they sold it at a cheaper price. Internet exists but is not practical since the service is so slow and spotty. A new investment law is being created supposedly to allow foreigners to do business without local partners but it remains to see how the law will actually work. Plenty of men are unemployed; women will probably have to wait their turn as long as so many men don’t work, even if the women are qualified. Armed Forces Radio is available on FM; so is MBC, an Arabic modern radio station with a correspondent in Jerusalem. Normally, this radio would not exist here but a prince owns the station so it is tolerated in Jeddah. Basically, if a prince owns a hotel or whatever, what is normally forbidden is allowed. There are somewhere between 7-10,000 princes and princesses. It is a hell of a payroll. On the surface, there is little missing and little to dislike if you are not into alcohol or nightclubs. I myself don’t drink so a lobby bar with a menu filled with non-alcoholic beverages is actually pleasantly accessible for me. I don’t mind seeing everyone walking around wearing white robes and sorta like the idea that no one needs to go shopping to figure out what to wear otherwise. (Except it is a bit impractical peeing with these full-length robes.) Best reason for a saudi to live in the West: Freedom of Expression and the chance to spread Islam. Best reason to live in Saudi: Family Lifestyle. Quick point: Sometimes, Western influence is so subtle that it is forgotten. One friend in Jeddah who has been abroad didn’t realize that KFC was an American chain.
On the second day I went with the company driver to see a bit of downtown and the local souk and later drove around to the condos along the seashore and the royal villas and the main shopping streets and malls. There are some big new gleaming commercial buildings but they are elephants — nothing occupied past the first floor. Lunch second day at an Italian restaurant which featured a prix fix 3 course lunch for $10 including a really nice date cake for dessert. I wound up wasting a bit of time in Jeddah but all in all it was a nice visit. [I had extended my visit to Jeddah for 5 hours to suit schedules of contacts.] I had expected Saudi Arabia to have more spit and polish and perhaps some landscaping but actually Amman, Jordan seems cleaner than Jeddah (although Jeddah is near the sea and that might cause dirtiness but Dubai is also on the water and spotless) and as I said, most Saudis are not really rich but are basically lower middle class (salaries are low, even for lawyers but of course you get what you pay for) and of course outside the cities there are just tons of poor Beduin. The Kuwaitis and Emirates have far fewer local mouths to subsidize and so there is just no comparison. 60% of Saudi’s population is Saudi — in the Emirates it is 90% foreign and in Kuwait 90% of the locals are employed by the government. This is also a geographically huge country and it is much easier to make a city-state look Dubai look pretty than it is to spread the money and infrastructure all over this desert kingdom which spans a good 1,000 miles across. Later on I will go on at length about how tidy and pretty is Dubai but at least here is the context.
Here are some things I like in Saudi Arabia (and the Emirates too): The rate of exchange is roughly 4 Riyals/Dirhams to the Dollar, meaning that since 1 of their dollars equals a quarter, everyone just rounds off to the next dollar and you can wind up never using coins. Much more pleasant on the wallet.
Meeting at the Hyatt with a consultant to 200 princes and princesses who has been in the country for 30 years. [Easier to reach him in Saudi by calling him in the UK on his cellular which roams. Europe and Middle East are more connected for roaming than is the USA. Cellular out here is quite expensive; my Swiss guy runs a bill of $1,000 a month but he talks a lot as he deals with Africa and other international business.] Quite enlightening to hear about this segment of life. This guy lives part-time here and part-time in several residences around Europe. In Saudi, he has an apartment in the compound of one of the princes in Jeddah and in Riyadh. Older princes need him as a sort of traveling concierge (ie: translate, arrange shopping and prostitutes; some need him to chaperone their wives and kids on trips abroad (notice that Saudi airlines all of a sudden has nonstops to Orlando); others need him to review potential business deals. Many of these princes spend their evenings at the polo grounds and not with their wives which leaves this man to take them out to dinner all the time. They don’t fear that he will take advantage of their wives. The younger princes are more sophisticated and tend to use him as a business consultant; they have lots of wealth and don’t know what to do with it. He tells me that 99.99% of the royals are as bad as everyone says they are; terribly corrupt and decadent with a capital D. There are rules here but many are broken in private and there are parties with drugs, prostitutes and all sorts of debauchery if you know where to find it. After all, you can’t have a society with a bunch of 25 year old deprived males without people getting irritable after a point. The majority of princes are homosexuals; might ask for a female prostitute if they want to impress their friends but essentially in private prefer men. They tend to become religious when they reach old age (and I guess fear death). They tend to be pretty clean and it is usually the foreigners who travel with them abroad that make the messes in the hotels that the Saudis are infamous for. Many princes are short on cash and wait for year-end payments from the king or from inheritances from those who die. Hopefully, one business deal succeeds and breeds others. It takes months to make the first transaction with a royal but once trust is established, loyalty goes a long way into the future. They might ultimately pay bills for personal services rendered but tend to put off paying them (they even pay the consultant 2 years late) and most Europeans have stopped dealing with cash-stripped Saudia. The Americans are also not being paid on time but they want to maintain their dominant influence here and have decided not to care too much about not being paid. The Brits are well-entrenched in the UAE and stay out of Saudia. This also reflects the fact that the Crown Prince (the second in command and the one really running the country) is cracking down on governmental expenditures, subsidies and freebies to all the princes and princesses. The Saudis at the top want US protection and give the US run of house. There is a good sense that although the top 5 brothers who would be king are old, they will keep things stable for the next few years and will get together and pick someone capable to take over when the last of them go.
My basic problem with the saudis I encountered was that they are just so damn iffy, non-committal and passive-prozaic. The only thing that got a rise out of one of them was when I complimented him on his “dishdasha” [the white robes they wear and by which they are called in the rest of the Gulf] which in Saudi-land is a “thobe.” “Not dishdasha — THOOOBE.” You don’t get the feeling with these people that they care about anything, or that they would ever take any kind of initiative. That may also be a fair reaction to a society in which 90% of the Saudis who are employed (25% are not) work for the government and are not expected to do much. It is also not a society that looks kindly on people who want to change things, so why should a person trouble his mind about it when there is not much to be gained from thinking too much. You could have an hour-long conversation which would all of a sudden stop and the guy might look and act like he’d never seen you before. Remember, it’s not as if these people haven’t encountered foreigners before. I’m talking to people who have studied and lived abroad. The Saudis I met were very religious and genuinely observant who liked some aspects of the West, were ambivalent about life in Arabia but on balance were happy with their situation. I did not get the impression while I was there that one could have any kind of friendship with these people or that this would be a useful place to do business. By and large the natives are not prompt; don’t return calls and correspondence without a good amount of prodding and to some extent are just useless to deal with (although I was pleasantly surprised by some people who did begin to take up correspondence after I left and had written the first drafts of this report). The law firm that hosted me is more of an American outpost for the Middle East than a firm doing lots of business inside the country. [Their work, beyond litigation and corporate representation, scopes project financing, sovereign representation and capital markets.] It is also odd doing business when by the end of our Wednesday the Saudis are beginning their weekend meaning there are only 3 days a week when both of us are working on the same day. It is not exaggeration to say that Saudis run on a different frequency. It is a fair estimate that the country currently is diverted by its own internal problems; has no real interest in anything beyond its borders (ie: the Israeli-Arab conflict) and certainly represents no threat to anyone (its army would obviously be filled with Filipinos and Pakistanis because no body there does anything and their own troops don’t exactly inspire fear in the region — OK so I am being a bit sarcastic but you get the point). Its primary concern is keeping control over its own empire and not losing it to a bunch of shiite clerics and poor people. It will presumably get the bomb via Pakistan (in the hope of no more Iraqi surprises and waiting for the Americans to come and save their butts) and I was watching the coup in Pakistan unfold on Pakistani TV while I was in the country (the hotels have satellite TV). Unfortunately, although much oil wealth was created, you don’t tend to see it when you look around although I understand that whatever roads and infrastructure I did see has all been built up over the past 20 years. The water is probably safe but I didn’t like it and even in the hotels I found it sporadic. In 20 years, it will still be a country with not much having changed except for its oil and the Saudis and Americans will continue to tolerate but not appreciate each other. The country knows it must build alternative industries to oil but I think it is still more lip service than true commitment to change, particularly when it comes to attitude.
It is dark by 6:30 pm and, after dinner at the Hyatt, at 8pm I am on my way to airport as I am taking the 9:30 flight that night to Riyadh. When you get to the airport, there is absolutely nothing to do except get on the plane. No shopping really. The women in the airport are sitting in separate areas in the back of the restaurant or in the departure lounge. Even foreign women residing in the kingdom as expats are expected to wear black robes in public areas. Saudi Arabian airlines lets you get your boarding pass during the day at any Saudi airlines office. The flights are often full but in my case they said they were overbooked and half the plane was empty. Many no-shows who buy multiple refundable tickets and cancel what they don’t use. They have flights to Riyadh every 2 hours, even at 11:30 pm. Like I said, it’s a night owl kinda place. The plane is a 777; flying time is 1:20. On board are some nurses to the crown prince; he is healthy they say and very well preserved for his advanced age. Royals have their own hospitals; the others suck. They made the mistake of taking a few photos at the Jeddah airport when they arrived that morning and they were intercepted when the departed that evening with all the pictures taken in town that day during their day trip to Jeddah (yup, it’s considered a getaway from Riyadh). “You have a camera with you and we want it,” the man at the x-ray said. The ladies threw a tantrum but still lost their camera and pictures. They were particularly angry since the first picture taken at the airport was taken of them by a Saudi-Air employee at their request as they came off the plane. If they weren’t allowed to take pictures, he should have warned them. Fortunately, I’ve been luckier although I have been driving my hosts and driver nuts as I take pictures everywhere albeit discreetly. (Photography here is highly restricted although I don’t quite know what they think someone’s tourist camera will see in public areas that the satellites above don’t.) About 4 rows in the back of the plane are roped off with a curtain and there are no seats; it is a prayer area. The one-way fare to Riyadh is $72. They say a prayer on board just before takeoff. They have separate magazines for domestic and international flights but they are both souvenir quality publications. Obviously, this is not an airline that expects to be profitable. They have 2 cameras on board; one showing what the cockpit sees and one showing the ground underneath the plane. I’ve never seen this before. They show this on the main screen and you can watch your personal entertainment center. This cockpit-cam is way cool! The Riyadh airport is much more modern with jetways and very American looking and a huge mosque with escalators to get in just outside the airport. It’s too bad you can’t take pictures at the airports because it is a real pretty airport with waterfalls, plants, marble and glass ceilings all over and moving sidewalks that get you between the domestic and international terminals. First thing I did was check in for my next afternoon’s flight to Dubai. I now have my boarding pass; it is a real pleasure flying here. There is a midnight line from hell checking in for the 2am flight to Bangladesh but I wave a supervisor, cut the line and get my boarding pass pronto. Hey, it’s midnight and I want to go to bed already. Remember there is a 50 riyal departure tax (about $13) so make sure you save some riyals for the airport. Drive from airport to town is again 20 minutes; taxis in both cities are about $13. There are dispatchers and you pay the dispatcher, not the driver. It is all very regulated and safe.
Wednesday — RIYADH. In a certain way, Syrian TV is actually the most entertaining of the regional stations. More music and entertainment than talking heads. The Syrians have a certain lively attitude and I understand Damascus is relatively lively. Tonight I am in the Al-Khozama hotel, a very nice hotel owned by a prince also at a rate of about $100. The room is very nice but the bed is more like a futon than a normal hotel bed but very comfortable. There are slippers and a linen towel on the floor by the bed. Here there is a Koran with English commentary and translation. Right next to a bunch of business periodicals. The pastry chef is excellent and the selection in the lobby is unbelievable; the Hyatt pastry was not fresh. Anyway, here I am following the Saudi routine going to bed late and getting up at 9. Here I have a driver at $20 an hour and we will spend about 3 hours driving around to see the city center with its mosque, clock tower, chop-chop square behind the mosque which is now a bazaar (be sure and leave the area around the mosque before prayer time in Riyadh or else men with sticks come around and force you inside the mosque for prayers even if you are not moslem). Riyadh is more strict than Jeddah and MBC or Armed Forces Radio is not to be found. Saudi TV has one channel in Arabic and one in English. Very little on the radio beyond someone reading Koran 24 hours a day and some old Arabic music. Makes Jeddah look like a pleasure paradise. Drove out of city to see prince compounds; palaces in Riyadh and Jeddah are hidden well out of public view; the one in Jeddah is on an island off the seaport and the big fountain is at the entrance to the palace grounds. The roads in Riyadh are a bit better. Visited the King Abdul Azziz museum to see history of the country, Islam and some of the king’s prized possessions such as his antique car collection. Sorta like a portion of the Elvis museum at Graceland. Also visited an old fort which is a site of antiquities. Not many signs and I was a bit nervous walking around this completely deserted site outside the city with my dwindling water bottle. A good way to end my visit to this desert kingdom. Back to town where they are beginning to build taller buildings and new commercial areas and homes. A nice pasta lunch at the hotel with fresh juice and chocolate truffle cake (yeah, like i was going to eat lunch in the desert) and off to the airport arriving just 30 minutes before my 3pm flight to Dubai of 1:20. Again, airport is modern but the flight displays don’t work. Par for the course; the money has been spent but the results are not obvious. So far, all my flights have departed and arrived on time as they will up until the time I leave Brussels. Dubai is an hour ahead of Saudia.
DUBAI: No sure thing here but I would recommend sitting left side on departure and right side on arrival for city views. If you arrive from the rear of the city, you won’t see the city no matter what. Dubai airport is being modernized with a new terminal so whatever I would say about the airport will not be valid within a year. Arrival around sunset at 6. Used a guy’s cellular to reach my friend and then headed out to the Meridian Hotel near the airport. The Al Bustan hotel is also near the airport and it is quite a glorious place. Anything in the center city of Dubai will not be more than 10 minutes drive to the airport as it is near the city. Taxi drivers work for the state and wear uniforms and it is cheap. Very regulated and safe and metered; no nonsense as I was finding with the Saudi drivers who, like the Israelis, didn’t want to turn on their meters. Dubai is a whole other place and doesn’t feel very Arab at all. This is tourist country. My host is still at work so I am on my own for 2 hours and take a taxi to Deira City Center — the biggest shopping center with a huge supermarket, an Ikea, a Woolworths (they do business here) and a huge food court with big TV screens and all kinds of indoor amusements for kids. All the brands and stores you know; just like in America. You don’t even notice the arabic signs next to the english ones. One big huge duty free shopping festival (ie: 4 AA alkaline Duracell batteries for $1 — $5 in Manhattan); after peace breaks out, this place will be invaded by Israeli shoppers. 90% of China’s exports pass thru Dubai. At the Disney Store I ask the manager what he thinks of the recent hype over a possible boycott by Arabs. First he says No Comment. After I press a bit, he says “Of course we didn’t want it. I would go bankrupt.” Met up with my host Emad and we went to ATM and to eat fish and chips and “mushy peas” at a British chain on one of the main streets. Drove around at night to see various neighborhoods and along the corniche (all these cities on the water basically call their riverwalk the corniche) where the princes and other wealthy people have their villas. Down the road another 15 minutes is Jumeira which is a resort area with a huge Las Vegas-style hotel and very elegant; only the casino is missing. It is all lit up in purple at night and the visage of the country’s ruler is lasered onto the side of the building. It is normal in this region for the picture of some prince and king to be prominently displayed at the entrance of any business or hotel. In Saudi Arabia, most streets are named for someone in royalty. The names can be quite long and fill up a whole road sign.
Afterward, we hunt for a discounted hotel room after prices turn out to be higher than my host expected. I have a travel agent card and it definitely produces 50% discounts quickly. I check into the Al-Khaleej Palace with an upgrade to the business floor for $100 a night. This hotel room has all the moslem accouterments but also features alcohol in the minibar (but not in the lobbies). In Dubai, the hotels have night clubs with entertainment you don’t see in U.S. nightclubs without age restrictions. Here, you can pretty much do as you wish as long as you don’t flaunt it. Much more spit and polish; it looks like a very pleasant resort area with good roads, lots of lights, greenery, and blue sea. Water is fine. The feeling is pleasant and touristy and hotels in particular are quite elegant. Lots of skyscrapers and interesting architecture. Lots of Russian tourists here and prostitution; radio is a mix of British pop with British DJ’s in English and some Arabic but the Western stuff is more popular here even among the residents. There are discos and even some movie theaters but no R-rated movies. (An underground movie theater just opened in Riyadh but it is in someone’s compound. ) All signs are in English in the tourist areas. Remember that in the Emirates a tourist will not see any locals; all services are performed by expats from the subcontinent or elsewhere in Asia or Europe and among the population of 2 million there are only 250,000 locals. Problem is that there is worry that the party is over and that harder economic times are coming. Prices go up; salaries are constant. Commitments made by governments or local companies are not kept. Locals have priorities over residents in everything — ie: only locals can own land; everyone else must rent. A local can rent a plane to go flying; a resident has strict access limits. Even if you live there for 30 years as a resident, you can be thrown out tomorrow no problem. So you never really get any rights but you enjoy the good life relatively speaking so you tend to stick around this rather pleasant place. Car insurance is cheap but traffic laws are enforced, here and in Saudi. In both countries, the fine for killing someone in an accident depends on who you kill; in Dubai, it’s expensive to kill a local and cheap to kill a foreigner or a resident. In Saudi, it costs $25,000 to kill a Moslem; $10,000 to kill Christian and $5,000 to kill anyone else.
Thursday — An 11 am start with a drive thru downtown and a little local blue-collar breakfast for a buck and a visit to the Dubai historical museum worth about 15 minutes. (The Saudi museum I did in 30 but it deserved a good hour.) The museums here close for siesta but if you get admitted before 12, they will not kick you out. So it is not a bad idea to go to museums here and time it for siesta. Prayer time does not stop the trains from running here in Dubai but there is a mosque on every corner (as in Saudia) and you can do what you like. There are even churches here. The two English newspapers (Khaleej Times and Gulf News) are not bad and emphasis on news here is of the Indian/Pakistan region because of its proximity and all these expats. Israel and all that is very far away. We then visited the Golf Club near Deira City Center and enjoyed the views. It is rather hot out, close to 100 degrees. If I would come a month later it would be more pleasant in the Gulf but Europe would be freezing so I timed it just right this early to mid-October visit. Then we went to the suburb of Sharjah, all built up in the last decade. Much of anything in the Emirates was built in the last decade; the Emirates only came into existence as a political entity in 1971. Emad’s family lives in 3 connected apartments in a building here and I am invited for lunch. His brothers and cousin sits with us; dad is on the phone in the hallway the whole time and his sisters and wife stay in the kitchen or on their side of the house and don’t come out at all. Living room has lots of little couches for people to sit on. Ladies have their own sitting room. So we sit and eat and talk for about 3 hours and the thrust of the conversation you have gathered from the political comments on Dubai you have just read. An example of promises unkept and a nutty system that doesn’t inspire confidence: Contractor hires workers to build a building. Government doesn’t pay the contractor. Contractor’s checks bounce. Workers go nuts. Contractor goes to jail for not paying. There is a feeling around here with Moslems that the US has screwed Saudi and the Emirates by keeping Saddam around so that he makes trouble every year and the US sticks the local countries with the tab for all these stupid flyovers and maneuvers every time he goes boo. Now the countries are bankrupt and even more dependant on the US. Also a feeling that the US wanted the Ayatollah in Iran because Shah was becoming too independent and allowing price of oil to go up beyond what we wanted at the time; they can’t understand how we allowed the Ayatollah to be flown in from France all of a sudden. Those are the leading conspiracy theories making the moslem rounds the last decade or so but they are still felt.
After 3 hour lunch it’s now 4pm. Emad and I got on his motorcycle for a different kind of tour of Dubai and we saw much of what we saw the previous night except now you could see it during the day. Hard to take pictures from a cycle moving at 80 miles an hour. We went back to the beach and the Jumeirah resort to see the sunset which was gorgeous. Despite signs saying hotel guests only, I find that if you walk around like you own the place nobody stops you. It’s now prayer time and Emad prays in the hotel parking lot. As we are cycling away from the hotel in the dusk at the edge of town at the end of the road, Emad’s cell phone rings. “It’s for you.” My brother is on the line: Where the hell are you? Are you OK? “I’m here with my friend; everything is fine. Speak to you soon.” My family still doesn’t know I am in Arabia but one of my brothers has a list of phone numbers to call in an emergency. I didn’t think they’d like to know till after I’d gotten home safely. Like I should say “I’m on a motorcycle going 80 miles an hour on the edge of town in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and give my family a collective heart attack?” [Of course I am concerned about the possibility of an accident the whole time but hey, you’ve got to live before you die.] This is all quite amazing; 5 years ago I had to call Emad’s friend Ahmed who lived 20 minutes away from him because he had no phone and was on a 3 year waiting list to get one. I had to drive 100 miles out of the way to enter the country via a different border to keep an appointment with him at 9pm on the mountain top at the edge of the city of Amman, Jordan because there was no way to call him to cancel it. Now, the world is cellularized and you can cycle to the edge of the road but you can’t hide.
Now we head off to the Waif Shopping Mall to see a motorcycle show (my fault, I noticed the sign and pointed it out to Emad — actually it was fun) and to walk the mall and have dinner at a French cafe that only has about 10 branches around the world. It was quite excellent. Near the shopping mall is a Planet Hollywood and a huge 6 story health club with big pyramids at the entrance. Membership is about the same as in a Manhattan health club. We return to my hotel and Emad prays Daily Prayer #5 in my hotel room. After he parts for the night, I take a walk along the hotel row and see the ships and their loads along the docks. The Intercontinental and Sheraton are in this area. My hands are still shaking from all the motorcycle riding. I don’t sleep well that night because I know I have to get up before 7 to take a 9am flight to Frankfurt. It’s virtually the only flight to Europe leaving at a decent hour. Most flights go out after midnight or early in the morning.
I arrive at the airport an hour early to find the flight was overbooked by 40 seats. I am offered a free ticket to fly next day but won’t go on Saturday and I show my travel agent’s card and demand they get me out that day. I got upgraded to business class and the guy even worked things out to get me a nice window seat. Emirates airlines is also very luxurious with beautiful uniforms, decor and an impressive wine list and menu. The cabin looks like desert a la pastel. More impressive than what Sabena was giving their business class passengers transatlantic from Belgium. Flight to Frankfurt is 6:45 as we are now heading west. My seat mate is Iranian living in Canada and is an immigration consultant. Has been to Tel Aviv 4x and says Tel Aviv more fun than Dubai; more entertainment and culture and the people who work there are Israelis so you get some kind of local flavor. The first hour features croissants and jam over Iranian air space and it is a big canyon-like mountainous region from what I get to see; I really don’t want anything to go wrong at this moment. We turn up toward Turkey and the Black Sea and then over to Eastern Europe and finally Austria and Germany.
FRANKFURT AIRPORT — Haven’t flown through here since 1992; I didn’t like the airport then and I still don’t now. It is massive but it works fairly decently. Lufthansa doesn’t move its check-ins fast enough and I don’t know why they don’t put more personnel at these kinds of counters since they are so dominant at the airport. I found it faster to go to the front of the airport than stand around at the transfer desk. I have 2 hours here and meet a friend for an ice cream and he advises that in Germany you only hire contract workers and never an employee and, ohmigoodness, I’ve just noticed that my plane is leaving in 20 minutes. X-ray is still very sensitive in Frankfurt and I have to run my suit jacket through it. I go to the gate and it is about 12 minutes before flight time for a short haul to Brussels but they have closed the gate. The plane is on the other side of the airport and you have to take a bus. I have experienced a very quick religious conversion. “Emergency. I must be on the 4:00 flight; 5:00 is too late because it will be too close to shabbat.” (I had actually changed my reservation from the 5 to the 4 earlier in the summer for that reason.) They call out a special bus and the plane waits a minute or so for me. We still arrive in Brussels 45 minutes later on time. Nice to be on an airline where the workers are actually from the country of the airline.
BRUSSELS — Brussels airport requires more walking than I thought and planes don’t exactly come in and go out on time here. All arriving passengers have to pass through a circular door that fits about 5 at a time and we all uniformly were saying out loud how stupid we thought it was. My friend meets me at customs and I have a bit of trouble changing my UAE money to Belgian francs. Drive to host’s house which is a 2-story 4 bedroom home in the forest just outside Brussels city center. Very pretty and quiet place to spend the weekend. He pays about $2,000 a month rent and that’s a better than average deal for such a place. A flat in the city would be much higher and tighter. There are some pretty castles near my friend’s house. Sent home some e-mail but there is a tropical disturbance in Miami which I don’t know about and phone lines are down so they won’t get it. Next morning we walk around the supermarket; lots of prepared-for-cooking produce such as peeled potatoes. Women here work so they appreciate convenience shopping. After lunch, we walked through the city square and shopping streets. I am happy with all the stuff I bought in Hong Kong and don’t feel like the new season of Europe shopping is anything more that I want. Marks and Spencer gives back most of the VAT in cash but you have to stamp your paper at the airport within 20 days or they debit your charge account. This is a major improvement. The VAT in Belgium is 20.5%. The refund is 14%. Prices here are high but more reasonable than when I was last here 7 years ago and the dollar is also higher against the franc. My host complains about the $400 road tax but there are no tolls in the country and I remind him that a New Yorker pays $3.50 each time he crosses a bridge or tunnel. Prices here include tax and tip so it is not bad compared to the US. Of course, I spent $40 the whole time I was there so what do I know. The Gallerie Shubert is less impressive than what I remembered; the Galleria in Milan is more beautiful (both are enclosed shopping areas with pretty glass roofs and domes). Had my obligatory waffle with cream and Neuhaus chocolates. We compared them favorably to the Swiss Shpringleys. The Mannekin Pis is a famous statue but is quite underwhelming when you see it; I saw its evil twin sister the Jeannette Pis which is a girl sitting on a potty along with a tongue in cheek written testimonial to the virtue of Loyalty. There is a good network of tunnels under city center to try and keep cars moving but I am told the traffic doesn’t move during rush hour. Saturday night I join with a Spanish antitrust attorney at the EEC and his friends to see Carlos Nunez, a Spanish singer and musician. It turns out to be quite a variety show with about 20 performers. Everyone is standing; no seats but the tickets are less than $20 apiece. We took dinner at an Indian restaurant where the waiter would not make anything not on the menu and cook up some potatoes and veges for me. Everything was hot and spicy even though they say it’s mild. After the show we go for drinks and dancing at the Havana Club but I am still starving. Discussion partners included a Bulgarian working on the EEC policy directorate for EEC enlargement issues. She is a bit emotional and she almost walks out because we appear to disagree on Socialist Environmental Policy and the Yugoslav Intervention but we make up and continue to enjoy the evening. Roland is a German consultant who helps CEO’s learn how to train staffs. He feels that Schroeder will ultimately get Germans to change even though they don’t want to but he needs some momentum to keep his government afloat.
Sunday — Croissants, bread and eclairs to start. Not so much radio and TV here so we watch videos. Elmo instantly hypnotizes my host’s daughter. “We’re a Super Duper Pooper” is the catchy song of the Duke University potty-training video. Anyway, we’re heading out on the beautiful highways of Belgium (really lit up at night) to enjoy the greenery of the country and to visit the town of Ghent just a half hour drive away for a few hours. It is a bit chilly but still nice and sunny. Highlights are the Count’s Castle and St. Bavo’s cathedral which has a famous 15th century fresco called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Bought some lace collars for baby dresses for my nieces (easy to carry home) and passed up the horse and buggy ride or boat ride along the canal to just walk around. Ghent is a more compact and less kitchy Amsterdam and is also close to Bruges which I am told is a bit more touristy. A quick visit back to Brussels to view the EEC building, the Atomia (world’s fair outdoor art that looks like an atom), the big arch that is a signature of the city and we are now rushing along a 10 minute ride to the airport as my flight is 45 minutes from now (the usual). Price Alert: Good idea to buy chocolates in the airport. Cost of a pound of luxury-brand chocolates in New York is double the price. Flying time to JFK is 8 hours and we leave half an hour late. I like these 7:30 flights which arrive in New York at 9:30 and then you go home and go to bed. This flight is fairly full and there are about 50 kosher meals on board; it is the diamond dealer’s commuter flight to Monday morning work in New York. Airbus 340 is a nice plane with 2/4/2 and certainly more pleasant than was Swissair to Geneva. Food so-so. They are checking passports at the gate and one person is there with a false US passport. Guess you gotta keep checking. Basically, Belgium is not a terribly nationalistic place (after all, it is a mix of French and Dutch who don’t really like each other or speak the same language) with good eating, good chocolate, clean public areas, nice highways and easy access to the rest of Europe. My friend’s take on Exxon (Esso): A company that sees itself more as international than American; moves fast once it decides on a course; plays in the top leagues with the 800 pound gorillas where most competitors don’t dare to compete; and going into China big-time. A stock to hold for the long term.
My air ticket cost $2,800 and ground expenses came to $1,100 plus the baby gifts, including 5 nights in hotels at $100 apiece. Lots of flying but flights at convenient hours, no check-in luggage, short hops combined with stopovers featuring lunch with a friend made the long hauls bearable. The upgrade from Dubai to Frankfurt also helped.
CUSTOMS HINTS: Finally, I arrive in New York. Let’s talk a minute about getting thru customs. I tend to walk briskly toward the passport or customs officer carrying my bag and, if there is more than one lane, wave and see which person motions toward me to come. They usually see I don’t want to be hanging around and push me right through. It’s a good idea to smile and to talk about something that has nothing to do with passport control or customs. “Ciao” at the end of the transaction is always appreciated. I find this method works universally. Now, I am in the taxi line. It is raining and there are no taxis because livery cabs can’t enter the airport and the regular taxis do not want to drive all the way to JFK for a $30 fare to Manhattan. Finally, there are some cabs and I have been standing around for half an hour in this line. The taxi stands at Newark and JFK just don’t work. After all these other airports where everything moves so neatly, it’s a pain in the ass to be back in a big modern city that doesn’t work. The cold dark winter lies ahead. Not happy to be back.
Some Additional Thoughts
Finally, a few thoughts on why someone would and should take such a crazy trip. A week before leaving, I was invited by the analyst Daniel Pipes to a lunch in New York City featuring Norman Podhoretz as guest speaker. Podhoretz was editor of Commentary Magazine for 35 years (a highly respected publication), is considered a heavyweight in the political analyst community and is widely quoted. He spoke for close to an hour: Oslo is a farce, Barak is a failure, the Arabs want to throw Israel into the sea, nothing has changed or will change and the Israelis should do nothing. His central proof: East Jerusalem textbooks prove that the Arabs hate Jews….As he droned on and tolerated a few puff questions planted in the audience, I saw the wooden walls behind him and couldn’t help but feel like I was in a Moscow university hearing a marxist professor lecture during the mid 80’s utterly oblivious to glasnost and changes to come. I just felt like Podhoretz was on a completely different planet.
Never mind that the textbooks he quoted have been taken out of circulation and that it is as much the Israelis’ fault as the Arabs’ that they have been using the same text books and curricula for 30 years, a situation nobody liked or had money to change. More important: I asked him 2 questions afterward privately: 1. Have you been anywhere in the Arab world within the past 5 years, besides Cairo and Amman (and if you were there traveling with the Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations it doesn’t count)? Answer: I have never been anywhere in the Arab World. Question 2. Do you have any contacts in the Arab world with people under the age of 40 who are not diplomats or journalists but just regular or professional people? Answer: I have no contacts at all with the Arab world. Followup question: So how do you know what you know about the Arab World? Answer: I know what I read. For me, this is a moronic answer and it drives me up the wall to think that a guy like this was trusted for 35 years to be a major international figure editing a top magazine. Sure, I read a lot too. About 4 newspapers a day and about 6 periodicals that are either weekly, bimonthly or monthly. I read more of what I don’t agree with than what I already figure I (agree with and therefore) know. Even if much of my travel tends to confirm my intuitive expectations, I still find no substitute for using e-mail, telephone and personal visits to actually take the temperature on the ground with people observing various situations and to see things for myself.
Saudi Arabia is an important country because it is an ally of the US in a love-hate relationship in a critical place on the planet. It is a mysterious place because nobody goes there without a good reason and because it is possible to go there and see nothing. It’s their business to close the country to tourists and maintain their privacy and to guard against the excesses of the West that would ruin a lot of what is nice about an Islamic society for those out there that want to maintain it, and it is fair to say that there is popular support among Moslems for a true and benevolent Islamic society just like there is support for true communism or socialism among various strains of people. The ideal is a blessing; the problem is that it has never been implemented. Saudi is at its root corrupt; the Iranian experiment is at its root fanatical to the point of perverse and one that ate its young (ie: in a long war with Iraq) and everyone realizes that it will soon end. The point is not whether or not to like Saudi Arabia but that one should know what it is, in a realistic and non-exaggerated way. If we are going to assess threats in the region, decide what kind of policies to carry out based on what kinds of nation-states exist, and to figure what kind of economic and political developments we are to be involved with, we need to be realistic about what really exists so that we might have some idea as to why things happen and as to what might happen in the future . Dubai is a good contrast because it shows what kinds of good things can happen with a bit of freedom to experiment and create. Dubai also shows a sense of the limits of how far society might or might not tolerate these liberal ideas and the tensions that exist in a society of expatriates without rights within a country that is becoming less rich and has a sense that the party is almost over.
You might want to revisit my files including notes of visits to Kuwait (1998), Jordan (1997 and 1998) and Beirut (1997). My most recent visit to Cairo was in 1992 before I started creating notes for circulation and I have no plans to return there unless I have a good reason since I feel I have seen what is to be seen and the mood has not materially changed there since I visited. Cairo of course is the ultimate focal point for most Arabs in terms of where they draw cultural and political inspiration in the sense that they might somehow constitute an Arab brotherhood. Absent Cairo, the rest of this collection represents most of what are the main “happening” areas in the strategic hot points of the Gulf region. Hopefully, the climate will improve over the coming year so that it will be possible to take the temperature in Damascus and Teheran, particularly since Iran is a wildly dynamic country which really must be observed personally. As yet, it is premature for me to visit these places. I would also like to drop in on Turkey; this is more probable in the next year.
Over lunch it occurred to me that I didn’t mention Baghdad. Out of sight, out of mind. The Dubai-Frankfurt flight probably took an extra hour bypassing Iraq for Iran. Saddam and sanctions have succeeded in taking Iraq off the map, at least for now. This is the real legacy of Saddam and it is a pity because Baghdad is just as much as Cairo a historical center for cultural and regional aspirations. Tell that to the 55 year old Iraqi Ph.D. selling his textbooks at 5 cents on the dollar on the street to buy food, having already sold most or all of his furniture. It wasn’t that long ago that the quiet Saudi capital of Riyadh had Iraqi scuds rain down upon it. This much you can expect for the remainder of Saddam’s reign: The Saudis won’t forget, the Kuwaitis won’t forgive and the Iraqis won’t eat.
The greatest of appreciation to my good friends who agree to host me and put up with my nuttiness including the desire to see everything quickly in a very limited time, ask everyone a zillion questions and to photograph things I shouldn’t, and who know in advance that these reports and photos will be posted for your consideration on Global Thoughts. I do this because the knowledge is too important to keep to myself and because the exchange of information provides a window toward things we have to know in order to calculate risk and policy in a more realistic manner. And also because maybe we’re just curious about understanding other people and their societies better. There is the hope, here as well as in Arabia and everywhere else I have visited, that the next generation will do a better job of avoiding the nonsense and misinterpretation (caused mainly by the lack of communication and information exchange) that has existed up to now. Insh’allah (if it be God’s will), as they say in this region.
