There are not many occasions that I can remember where I have been left speechless. There are also not many occasions I can remember where something that has no proximity or immediacy to me moves me to tears. The bombings in Jordan on Wednesday of this week were one such time.
Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for this sickening crime which will be added to their long list of travesties and tragedies.
Today there are 56 families who are missing one of their members and many hundreds more who have lost friends or have someone who was severely injured in the blasts. I have staff in my offices across the Middle East who knew people who were killed.
I spoke to three clients yesterday about the bombings. One lost a cousin, one his old friend from his university days and the other lost two of her closest friends in the bombings. Everyone in the Middle East has been touched by this appalling and cowardly attack.
Two of my staff were in Amman to run a major press conference for a large international American client in the Grand Hyatt. The event was a great success and fortunately was concluded a few hours before the bombs went off. If they had exploded earlier we would have lost many people from our firm and our client’s company, as well as journalists.
Later that evening, one of my team – a Jordanian who now works for my firm in Dubai - met up with one her best friends in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt hotel. After she said goodbye to him, they walked off in separate directions in the lobby. He towards the bar, she towards the entrance. 15 seconds later the bomb exploded and he was dead. My colleague was miraculously unhurt and lived – only to turn around and see the death and destruction just feet away including the remains of her friend.
Instead of breaking down, she started to find clients and journalists and assist them in their evacuation of the hotel. She then spent the next 10 hours arranging for new hotels, flights and cars to the airport. A group of Egyptian journalists refused to co-operate and told her that they were not going to go anywhere until she – the PR person – went back into the hotel and got their bags and personal belongings. They even started to abuse her when she explained that the police would not allow anyone back into the hotel. Idiots.
When I heard of the bombs back in Dubai – just 30 minutes after they had gone off – I spent the next three hours on the phone co-ordinating with my people across the Middle East to check on staff, clients and others. The girl who lost her friend in the blast was the last person I managed to reach and I was very concerned.
She was in tears and in a state of shock – She told me about her friend who was killed and I gave her my condolences. I had imagined that she was at home with her family by now so I rang off as I did not want to intrude into her privacy at such a terrible time. I didn’t know that actually this was just the beginning of her night and that she would spend the next eight hours or so ensuring the safety of others including the ignorant and intolerable Egyptian journalists.
Another member of my staff was at the Days Inn hotel, which was also blown up. She too was miraculously unhurt, although her car - which was parked outside the hotel - is now a windowless convertible as a result of the blast.
When I learnt of the bravery of my colleague in the Grand Hyatt I was simply astonished and totally humbled. I cannot imagine the feelings one has when one sees one’s best friend blown up and killed, seconds after saying goodbye to them. To see one’s home city brought to its knees with death and chaos all around. And then to spend the night taking care of others and making sure they are safe. Her bravery has been recognized within the company at a global level and indeed by the CEO of the WPP group - which owns our firm -who wrote her a personal letter. At my request we will also be making a donation to the appropriate fund that will help the victims of the blasts in Amman.
There were of course other tragedies in Amman. Ashraf Mohammed and his bride Nadia Al-Alami were celebrating their marriage with 250 guests in the ballroom of the Radisson hotel – scene of the worst blast which went off when the wedding party was taking place. Both bride and groom were injured and each lost their fathers. To begin your married life in this way is truly awful – and for the bomb to claim the lives of their respective father-in-laws was also tragic – (particularly as the mother-in-laws were unhurt!).
Jordan was targeted for three main reasons. Its close relationship with the US – politically and economically is perhaps the first reason. The second that it has maintained much closer relationships with Israel than the other Arab nations and this is seen as a betrayal. Finally, it is a hub now for mainly American and other foreign forces who use Amman and Jordan as a “pied a terre” for their activities in Iraq which the country borders. The attack in this sense was no surprise as it has been widely anticipated that the country would be targeted, and only the hitherto tireless work of the efficient intelligence service in Jordan has protected the Hashemite Kingdom from Al Qaeda until this week.
The Jordanian Royal family are Hashemites. This means they are blood descendants of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and yet evidently Al Qaeda do not feel they are “Islamic enough”. This goes to show that actually Al Qaeda is nothing to do with Islam. These attacks and others around the world have nothing to do with Islam or the Muslim people. These are acts of pure terror without rhyme or reason and there are no excuses or ways of defending them.
This is the world we live in. New York, Madrid, London, Bali, Jordan, Egypt and so on. Nowhere is safe from this scourge and no-one can predict where next. Death and mourning in this part of the world are sadly so commonplace in the last hundred years or more, that society and communities have developed their own mechanisms for dealing with it. The Westerners are beginning to learn how to do this too. Not lessons that we would hope for in the 21st century.
It is God’s will say some, perhaps to remove the need to question the mindlessness and brutal unfairness of such early deaths in such tragic circumstances. Maybe this makes it easier.
The bravery, courage, commitment and strength demonstrated by my colleague in Amman on Wednesday and indeed many other Jordanians, made me realize how pathetic most of the problems we all worry about on a daily basis are. I was and am humbled by her and her actions.
I hope you will be too.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Sunday, October 2, 2005
Ships of the Desert . . .
There was a joke when I was teenager which went something like this:
Q: Why are camels called the ships of the desert?
A: Because they are full of Arab semen . . .
Geddit?
Today’s Gulf News, one of the leading English language daily newspapers, carried the following story on its website about a court case from the northern Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah:
Driver jailed for bestiality
By Nasouh Nazzal, Staff Reporter
Ras Al Khaimah: A man has been sentenced to three months in jail after pleading guilty to charges of bestiality.
The camel involved in the case is to be put down in accordance with Islamic law.
A court official said the Bangladeshi, who worked as a driver, had been spotted going into his employer's barn on a regular basis.
His employer became suspicious as his duties did not involve him dealing with animals.
The official said the employer, a UAE national, followed his driver into the barn one day and saw him starting to have sex with a female camel.
The owner lost his temper and started beating him. He then took him to the police station to press charges.
The official said the driver confessed to police that he used to have sex with one particular camel.
The police arrested him and the case was referred to the Public Prosecution.
The official added the man told the prosecution that he had fallen in love with the camel and had sex with the animal.
The emirate's Criminal Court sentenced him on Wednesday to three months in jail, to be followed by deportation.
It also stated that the camel be put down as its meat would now be tainted.
The animal will be put down at the emirate's slaughterhouse, a representative from the Public Prosecution will be in attendance.
In case you think I am making this up, click on the following link to see the original story on the Gulf News website:
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/NationNF.asp?ArticleID=184720
So, going back to the joke of my childhood, it would appear that Bangladeshi is a more appropriate adjective than Arab!
Of course this story is rather unpleasant all round. Back in the UK we are used to hearing of tall tales about Welsh sheep farmers (although I cannot ever recall a newspaper story or a criminal prosecution confirming what was bandied about as part of a rather puerile national stereotype). And indeed, there were the legends of Greek mountain shepherds and their goats which were in a similar vein . . .
The story does raise some interesting questions – some of which I won’t go into here as they relate to biology and gymnastics – but one that has been bothering me since reading this article is the fate of the camel . . .
This poor animal, which one must assume was at the very least an unwitting (and I suspect unwilling) partner in this bestial act, is immediately sentenced to death, while the Bangladeshi offender is given a rather pathetic 3 month sentence in jail, followed by deportation.
Another question which has been giving me trouble is the confession of the offender that he “had fallen in love with the animal”. Without wanting to get into the deep philosophical discussion of “what is love” – it strikes me as somewhat farfetched to claim to have fallen in love with a camel (or any animal for that matter) and more to the point, how did this happen on the basis that communicating with camels is not a qualification that even the best linguist can claim, let alone a Bangladeshi driver . . .
I wonder what The Sun newspaper in the UK would make of this story in terms of a headline?
(I apologize in advance! )
Camel Hump-ing!
Or perhaps . . .
Dromedary Desire Derails Desperate Driver
Or perhaps . . .
Barnstorming Bangladeshi Banged Up For Bestiality
Or finally
The Camel Sutra
Q: Why are camels called the ships of the desert?
A: Because they are full of Arab semen . . .
Geddit?
Today’s Gulf News, one of the leading English language daily newspapers, carried the following story on its website about a court case from the northern Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah:
Driver jailed for bestiality
By Nasouh Nazzal, Staff Reporter
Ras Al Khaimah: A man has been sentenced to three months in jail after pleading guilty to charges of bestiality.
The camel involved in the case is to be put down in accordance with Islamic law.
A court official said the Bangladeshi, who worked as a driver, had been spotted going into his employer's barn on a regular basis.
His employer became suspicious as his duties did not involve him dealing with animals.
The official said the employer, a UAE national, followed his driver into the barn one day and saw him starting to have sex with a female camel.
The owner lost his temper and started beating him. He then took him to the police station to press charges.
The official said the driver confessed to police that he used to have sex with one particular camel.
The police arrested him and the case was referred to the Public Prosecution.
The official added the man told the prosecution that he had fallen in love with the camel and had sex with the animal.
The emirate's Criminal Court sentenced him on Wednesday to three months in jail, to be followed by deportation.
It also stated that the camel be put down as its meat would now be tainted.
The animal will be put down at the emirate's slaughterhouse, a representative from the Public Prosecution will be in attendance.
In case you think I am making this up, click on the following link to see the original story on the Gulf News website:
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/NationNF.asp?ArticleID=184720
So, going back to the joke of my childhood, it would appear that Bangladeshi is a more appropriate adjective than Arab!
Of course this story is rather unpleasant all round. Back in the UK we are used to hearing of tall tales about Welsh sheep farmers (although I cannot ever recall a newspaper story or a criminal prosecution confirming what was bandied about as part of a rather puerile national stereotype). And indeed, there were the legends of Greek mountain shepherds and their goats which were in a similar vein . . .
The story does raise some interesting questions – some of which I won’t go into here as they relate to biology and gymnastics – but one that has been bothering me since reading this article is the fate of the camel . . .
This poor animal, which one must assume was at the very least an unwitting (and I suspect unwilling) partner in this bestial act, is immediately sentenced to death, while the Bangladeshi offender is given a rather pathetic 3 month sentence in jail, followed by deportation.
Another question which has been giving me trouble is the confession of the offender that he “had fallen in love with the animal”. Without wanting to get into the deep philosophical discussion of “what is love” – it strikes me as somewhat farfetched to claim to have fallen in love with a camel (or any animal for that matter) and more to the point, how did this happen on the basis that communicating with camels is not a qualification that even the best linguist can claim, let alone a Bangladeshi driver . . .
I wonder what The Sun newspaper in the UK would make of this story in terms of a headline?
(I apologize in advance! )
Camel Hump-ing!
Or perhaps . . .
Dromedary Desire Derails Desperate Driver
Or perhaps . . .
Barnstorming Bangladeshi Banged Up For Bestiality
Or finally
The Camel Sutra
Friday, September 30, 2005
Food, Glorious Food!
Arab television kind of leaves me cold - and it isn’t just that I don’t understand the language. It’s really about why most TV internationally fails to hit the mark when compared to the BBC - it just isn't very good.
Naturally, I have subscribed to a cable TV package here in the UAE which provides me with news, movies and documentaries to while away those boiling summer evenings, when it is just too damn hot to go outside. After largely ignoring the ubiquitous CNN and MTV offerings, my cable box seems to be stuck on one channel for about 90% of the time - the wonderful, indulgent, decadent BBC Food Channel. . .
This is cable TV at its best - a 24 hour TV channel devoted to just one thing. Food. Yup, BBC Food Channel does just exactly what it says on the can. It brings food, gastronomy and culinary chaos to my screen every hour of the day and every day of the week. I like to think of it as gastro-pornography.
You know that watching it now and again probably isn’t too bad. But, you can’t help watching it all of the time - and I mean all of the time! It becomes an addiction, a craving which, until you have had your fill of Lancashire Hotpot, Bouillabaisse, Dim Sum, Thai Green Curry, Asparagus Risotto and Shrimp Tempura, you cannot resist.
Does the Food Channel inspire me to cook? Well. . . no. Does it inspire me to go to new restaurants? No again. In the same way pornography does not inspire you to become a better lover or seek out new sexual partners, the Food Channel is about living vicariously, about voyeurism and about acts of unashamed gastronomic indulgence. A spectator sport par excellence and without any shopping, chopping or washing up.
Like pornography it is, of course, artificial, fake, unreal. You, the viewer, cannot smell the food, taste the flavours, or feel the textures. Just like pornography, where one has to rely on the grunts and groans of the “actors” to communicate stimulation and satisfaction, on the Food Channel the viewer is reliant on the expressive gestures and gasps of the presenter or Chef to be convinced that everything tastes good.
Suspension of disbelief is also a major feature - just as some of the more bizarre positions and contortions featured in blue movies look like they might be rather painful, some of the stranger recipes on the Food Channel programmes (chicken entrails in vegetable broth springs to mind) look and sound disgusting. However, just as the smiles of pleasure in porn flicks convince one otherwise, so does the cheesy grin of the TV chef as he puts the entrails in his mouth - and yes, the TV chef does swallow . . .
TV chefs are the new celebrities of the modern generation - with the same or similar levels of recognition as singers, actors, politicians and the business elite. They influence fashions, opinions, purchasing behaviour and the way we view the world.
In the microcosm that is the world of TV cuisine, we meet food liberals, food communists and food fascists. We meet modernists, traditionalists, futurists and the avant garde. We meet the old, the young, the middle aged. Some are rigorously scientific, some are slapdash improvisers. Some are pioneering, open minded experimenters - others are treading the well worn paths of gastronomy, but simply wearing new shoes. To coin a phrase and risk a pun - food TV is the melting pot with something for everyone.
Jamie, Delia, Antony, Nigella et al are our friends, our guides, our leaders. Follow their instructions and the world will be a better place. We will be happy, we will be satisfied and of course we will be the envy of our friends. Their books sell more copies than the Bible in any given week and are probably read and consulted more religiously.
In the MTV world, food has replaced sex - easier to plan, often more satisfying and there are no taboos or restrictions. And if you don’t have time to cook, then you can always get your jollies by watching someone else do it better than you ever could on TV.
What has this to do with Arabia I hear you ask? Well perhaps not much, other than the fact that I haven’t seen any TV Cooking programmes on any of the Arabic channels and the vast array of restaurants here in the UAE are packed with people merrily enjoying the real thing, with doubtless many more people practicing “safe food” in the privacy of their homes and behind closed doors.
Having said that, His Highness Gordon Ramsay (Chef Extraordinaire and full blown gastro-celebrity) has recently arrived in Dubai, grabbing the front cover of Time Out magazine talking about guess what - food!
I suppose now it is only a matter of time before I start tuning in to the Al-Jazeera Food Channel to get my pleasure of an evening . . .
Naturally, I have subscribed to a cable TV package here in the UAE which provides me with news, movies and documentaries to while away those boiling summer evenings, when it is just too damn hot to go outside. After largely ignoring the ubiquitous CNN and MTV offerings, my cable box seems to be stuck on one channel for about 90% of the time - the wonderful, indulgent, decadent BBC Food Channel. . .
This is cable TV at its best - a 24 hour TV channel devoted to just one thing. Food. Yup, BBC Food Channel does just exactly what it says on the can. It brings food, gastronomy and culinary chaos to my screen every hour of the day and every day of the week. I like to think of it as gastro-pornography.
You know that watching it now and again probably isn’t too bad. But, you can’t help watching it all of the time - and I mean all of the time! It becomes an addiction, a craving which, until you have had your fill of Lancashire Hotpot, Bouillabaisse, Dim Sum, Thai Green Curry, Asparagus Risotto and Shrimp Tempura, you cannot resist.
Does the Food Channel inspire me to cook? Well. . . no. Does it inspire me to go to new restaurants? No again. In the same way pornography does not inspire you to become a better lover or seek out new sexual partners, the Food Channel is about living vicariously, about voyeurism and about acts of unashamed gastronomic indulgence. A spectator sport par excellence and without any shopping, chopping or washing up.
Like pornography it is, of course, artificial, fake, unreal. You, the viewer, cannot smell the food, taste the flavours, or feel the textures. Just like pornography, where one has to rely on the grunts and groans of the “actors” to communicate stimulation and satisfaction, on the Food Channel the viewer is reliant on the expressive gestures and gasps of the presenter or Chef to be convinced that everything tastes good.
Suspension of disbelief is also a major feature - just as some of the more bizarre positions and contortions featured in blue movies look like they might be rather painful, some of the stranger recipes on the Food Channel programmes (chicken entrails in vegetable broth springs to mind) look and sound disgusting. However, just as the smiles of pleasure in porn flicks convince one otherwise, so does the cheesy grin of the TV chef as he puts the entrails in his mouth - and yes, the TV chef does swallow . . .
TV chefs are the new celebrities of the modern generation - with the same or similar levels of recognition as singers, actors, politicians and the business elite. They influence fashions, opinions, purchasing behaviour and the way we view the world.
In the microcosm that is the world of TV cuisine, we meet food liberals, food communists and food fascists. We meet modernists, traditionalists, futurists and the avant garde. We meet the old, the young, the middle aged. Some are rigorously scientific, some are slapdash improvisers. Some are pioneering, open minded experimenters - others are treading the well worn paths of gastronomy, but simply wearing new shoes. To coin a phrase and risk a pun - food TV is the melting pot with something for everyone.
Jamie, Delia, Antony, Nigella et al are our friends, our guides, our leaders. Follow their instructions and the world will be a better place. We will be happy, we will be satisfied and of course we will be the envy of our friends. Their books sell more copies than the Bible in any given week and are probably read and consulted more religiously.
In the MTV world, food has replaced sex - easier to plan, often more satisfying and there are no taboos or restrictions. And if you don’t have time to cook, then you can always get your jollies by watching someone else do it better than you ever could on TV.
What has this to do with Arabia I hear you ask? Well perhaps not much, other than the fact that I haven’t seen any TV Cooking programmes on any of the Arabic channels and the vast array of restaurants here in the UAE are packed with people merrily enjoying the real thing, with doubtless many more people practicing “safe food” in the privacy of their homes and behind closed doors.
Having said that, His Highness Gordon Ramsay (Chef Extraordinaire and full blown gastro-celebrity) has recently arrived in Dubai, grabbing the front cover of Time Out magazine talking about guess what - food!
I suppose now it is only a matter of time before I start tuning in to the Al-Jazeera Food Channel to get my pleasure of an evening . . .
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
The World’s Largest Cigar & Other Assorted Superlatives . . .
The first trip I made to Qatar was courtesy of the national airline Qatar Airways – another “Emirates in the making” backed by the desires of a small state to gain global recognition and with the helpful deep pockets of an oil rich governing family. The airline’s new slogan is particularly noteworthy – “Qatar Airways - Taking you more personally”. This is announced by a soft and seductive male voice on the airline intro video as you buckle up for the quick hop up to Doha from Dubai.
To be honest, I think “Taking you more personally” would be more naturally suited as a subtitle to a European soft porn movie, rather than an airline . . . “Valerie in Vienna – Taking you more personally” . . . “Doreen in Dortmund – Taking you more personally”. . . kind of works better that way, doesn’t it?
Anyway, the flight was but a brief 40 minutes old when we began our descent into Doha, the capital of Qatar. The terrain leading to Doha is the typical fare of the region . . . sand. Lots of it. Indeed Qatar is a peninsular outgrowth from the cost of Saudi Arabia which is home to between 50-150,000 actual Qataris depending on who you ask (although the official figures say the population is between 750 and 800,000 people – mostly expats and pumped up to make the minimum population figures to accede to the WTO . . .). There is a lot of empty space in this country which will take them a long time to fill – although they are already building islands in the sea in the same manner as Dubai with The Palm islands.
Incidentally, the word “peninsula” is often used in Qatar, as it not only describes the shape of the country, but also the name of its #1 global export after oil and gas . . . Al Jazeera TV.
Al Jazeera is the Arabic word for “peninsula” and is headquartered in sleepy Doha with the blessing of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Al Thani. The channel is the pride of the Middle East, despite its controversial profile internationally. Staffed by ex BBC trained journalists, it is the most popular Arab news channel, providing quality news reporting of the region, by the region, for the region, combined with a plethora of live debate shows which the Arabs seem to adore. Later this year Al Jazeera International (an English language TV channel) will be launched as well as Al Jazeera Children’s Channel which is aimed at providing infotainment to the Arab youth of the region and will be broadcast from 5 cities as far apart as Doha in Qatar and Rabat in Morocco. It will also re-launch its web site (aljazeera.net) as part of its expansion internationally. Watch out CNN!
Doha is not only the capital of Qatar; it is practically speaking the only place that is inhabited in this desert kingdom. The Al Thani ruling family has palaces spread across this pleasant town which is now seeing some of the development that Dubai has become famous for over the last few years. The rather charming corniche that frames the bay area around the town is the site of an explosion of luxury hotels springing up cheek to cheek next to luxury office blocks as the old monoliths of the 1970’s are now being upstaged by the latest in glass, steel and concrete some 30 years later. A bit nouveau riche perhaps, but then Qatar is rather “nouveau” anyway, having really only just hit the big time. . .
With the world’s second largest proven reserves of liquid natural gas and a very respectable supply of oil, Qatar’s small population now enjoys the highest GDP per capita in the region and is in the top 10 worldwide. This new wealth has come after a long period where the Qatar reserves of gas and oil were managed by Japanese corporations who had negotiated exclusive extraction rights for some 20 odd years with a very large percentage of the revenues ending up in Japanese rather than Qatari pockets, thus keeping the Qatari income comparatively low until the contracts ended a couple of years ago. Then suddenly, and literally overnight, all that came out of the ground went into the Dish Dash pockets of the local chieftains and their respective clans and spending began in earnest.
The level of conspicuous wealth in Qatar is quite extraordinary, and they appear to be desperate to spend / invest it as quickly as possible in a bid to catch up with Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi and Bahrain. Everything from financial exchanges to luxury hotels, banks to boats, educational institutions, hospitals, research centres and of course the energy business and media have all seen enormous investment commitments in the last few years and the boom looks set to continue with the hosting of the Doha Asian Games in 2006 (the Eastern Olympics)
A prime example of their conspicuous consumption of money occurred shortly before this, my first visit, when the Emir’s son, the Heir Apparent, was married to the daughter of Sheikh Hammad Bin Suhaim Al Thani (whose wife is the Emir’s sister). The wedding was of course big news in Doha with the reception being held in a castle especially constructed for the wedding in the desert (the local mega hotels being simply too pedestrian for an occasion of such magnitude).
The city was dressed in a series of lavish flower arrangements and other decorations in celebration of the great occasion. One of the most incredible achievements of the wedding was its entry into the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s most expensive flower arrangement which was commissioned by Sheikh Hammad and cost US$1 million. Not a bad day for Interflora then . . .
Part of my trip was to meet with various members of the Royal Family with regard to the possibility of entering into a business arrangement together. (Like many Gulf countries whose laws for foreign firms require some kind of local partner or sponsor, Qatar requires a local shareholding in any registered business).
Our morning began with a meeting with a quite young Sheikh whose office is to be found at the Family Planning Centre in Doha. This, I discovered, is not a place where couples go to get advice on their sex lives and how to procreate, but rather a government institution set up to manage the Royal Family’s activities and development.
Our meeting with the Sheikh lasted some time, although his personal attention was not long held, as is common with Gulf Arabs. He was very polite in greeting me and my colleagues, then let the meeting be run by one of his employees while he sat quietly in the corner playing with his mobile phone.
After this meeting and a lunch, we returned to the office fighting our way through the extraordinary traffic of Doha. I should explain that Doha doesn’t have a great deal of traffic per se, just several hundred roundabouts and plenty of drivers whose relationship with a driving license is probably best described as a passing acquaintance.
As a result, the Doha Grand Prix, which is probably the best way to describe rush hour (which, incidentally, is every hour), is a rather terrifying combination of enormous 4x4s which do their best to attain supersonic speeds on the “straights” between roundabouts, and then go around the roundabouts without even touching the brakes, and certainly not going to the massive trouble of actually stopping to let other traffic through.
When one is unaccustomed to this phenomenon, as I was, the smell of fear pervades the air conditioned interior of your vehicle rather quickly. I found myself reaching for a second seatbelt and offering up small prayers to whichever Gods were tuned into my frequency. And I thought that Cairo taxis were bad!
Anyway, having risked life and limb to return to the office just a few miles across town, I settled down to the challenge of preparing for my evening meeting with Sheikh Hammad himself – he of the $1 million flower arrangements.
I was due to meet him at his Majlis at his palace at about 6.30pm. I was keen to arrive early (how naïve of me – thinking that my punctuality would be in anyway useful in Arabia!), and prepare mentally for the meeting.
A Majlis is a very common phenomenon in the Gulf countries (it is called Diwaniya in Kuwait). It literally means Council and it is a tradition which goes back many centuries from the first settlements in this part of the world.
The leader of a tribe, or Sheikh, would have a Majlis room or hall within the fort of the settlement and would sit in council there to advise and adjudicate disputes that may arise within the tribe. Today, many Gulf Arab houses feature a Majlis room which has a separate door from the main entrance of the house and is the exclusive domain of men who will gather at each other’s houses to discuss topics ranging from business to politics and social issues.
The Majlis is usually held at a certain time each day and anyone who wants to can attend (as long as you are male of course . . .). One simply enters the room which is a rectangular shape with a large seat or desk at one end where the leader sits and then seats or sofas along the length of the walls for the visitors to sit. People come to just listen as well as to ask the advice, guidance or permission of the leader on a variety of matters. The decision of the Sheikh is final and totally respected.
I arrived at Sheikh Hammad’s palace and went into the main part of the building. His personal collection of Porsches was neatly lined up in the central courtyard along with the Mercedes being quietly watched by some servants. I entered the Majlis reception area and announced my name. I was ushered into the hall where everyone stopped to look at a stranger dressed in a highly inappropriate suit and tie (instead of the local Dish Dash). It was quickly indicated that the Sheikh would receive me instead in his ante room office where I was promptly guided. Time 6.25pm.
In the office we were offered tea, dates, cigars, food and all sorts of things to while away the time – which was good as there ended up being a lot of it to while away! Chatting with the Sheikh’s Lebanese legal adviser we managed to cover world religions, international commerce, the delights of the highly complex Lebanese political scene (of which he had once been a part), the meaning of life and why English people are obsessed with the weather.
At one point the call of nature became so loud that I had to ask to use the “conveniences”. I was quickly escorted to the Sheikh’s own private office which adjoins his own private toilet.
I have never been in a more opulent office in my life, and of course the toilet was no disappointment either with a visual assault from all of the gold and silver plastered liberally over everything. Even more importantly, the Sheikh must do a lot of thinking in this room as it was exceptionally comfortable. Were it not for the fact that he was due to break off his Majlis any moment to grace me with his presence, I would have quite happily spent an hour or two enjoying these particular surroundings in peace. As it was I hurried about my business and returned to the other side of the palace to the ante-room to await His Highness.
After a short while upon my return, I noticed the end of a cigar enter the ante-room. Not just any cigar but a twelve bore cigar the likes of which I had never seen before. The cigar kept on entering the room inches at a time, and I was fully expecting to see a support team running underneath it to keep it steady.
After what seemed like three minutes, the owner of the cigar also managed to enter the room at the end of this monster from Havana. Sheikh Hammad had arrived and my speech went out the window as I stood admiring this Cuban Missile from the other side of the room.
Introductions were effected and I managed to stumble through my well rehearsed line about “how he must be delighted with the wedding to the Heir Apparent but saddened at the loss of his daughter” etc etc (not to mention the loss of $1 million on a bunch of flowers which were now sitting rotting in some dustbin in downtown Doha!) and we sat down to our earnest discussions about business with me honing my negotiation skills and showing him exactly who was boss here!
Sheikh Hammad: “So you want to do business with me?”
Me: “Er, yes please, that is to say, if it is not too much trouble . . .”
SH: “We make company?”
Me: : “Um, yes, that is more or less our plan , if you don’t have any objections sir, I mean Your Highness Excellency sir . . “
SH: “Ok. Speak with lawyer. Make the papers and I sign. Goodbye.”
And with that I concluded the deal with a dynamic and highly convincing performance. Bring me Donald Trump!
Sheikh Hammad stood up, lifted the mammoth cigar to his lips, took a puff, blew smoke in my face (clearly a gesture of great friendship and respect) and then turned and left the room to return to his Majlis.
We left by the tradesman’s entrance and went off to dinner to celebrate my enormous powers of persuasion and the huge coup of getting a deal with one of the top Sheikhs in Qatar.
While driving to dinner, my local manager who is very experienced in Arab ways and particularly those of Qatar, informed me that if this deal were to go through, I would have to present a gift to the Sheikh at the launch of the our new company. This seemed entirely reasonable to me until I enquired as to what kind of gift is usual in these situations.
Apparently, I was to get my people to start researching the purchase of a good camel for me to give to Sheikh H who already has more money than God and probably has a stable of camels. I was envisioning the press conference featuring me standing behind a podium giving my launch speech with a toothy camel tethered to the microphone, grinning to the cameras. . . . nice . . .
Later that night I heard a wonderful story (probably apocryphal) about Sheikh Hammad who had apparently been to Switzerland recently on a shopping trip. Sheikh Hammad is a young man and traveled casually wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a baseball cap and carried a small rucksack with his shopping money – in this particular case $1 million in cash.
Although his trip was to buy jewellery, gold and diamonds, it was not a total success, with him managing to only spend $600,000 on jewels, leaving the other $400,000 in cash in his rucksack.
On his return to Qatar he left his rucksack on one of the security scanners while he went to chat with some friends he had bumped into at the airport. After several minutes had gone by, he walked over to the scanner where various bags were piling up and wandered off.
After a few hundred yards, a voice started shouting for him to stop. Under ordinary circumstances, one doesn’t shout at Sheikhs, but this didn’t stop the aggrieved student who came running up to an astonished Sheikh H and then accused him of taking his bag.
Sheikh H glanced at the student who was carrying the same rucksack and saying that Sheikh H has taken his, and that he should check the luggage tag.
Still astounded, the Sheikh looked inside the rucksack he was carrying to find a laptop, some sports shoes etc. Thankfully for him, the student hadn’t looked in the bag he was carrying.
With some relief, Sheikh Hammad exchanged bags with the student and they both went on their merry way - the student never to know just how close he came to becoming a millionaire in Qatar.
So Qatar is a land of many superlatives, everything being the latest, the biggest or the best – and often the most expensive. But the Qataris retain their traditions – so far at least – while they acquire new habits and customs from the West.
Sheikh Hammad never, of course, signed any deal with me. After some backing and forthing with his legal representatives, more for face than anything else, he politely removed himself from negotiations. He had probably been mistakenly informed that we were a multi billion company for which his involvement would earn him several million a year in change. When he learnt that we were unlikely to financially change his life (in fact not even his living room) he played difficult just so we could exit the deal with face intact. Making sure no-one loses face is a very important part of Gulf Arab culture, and while frustrating on occasion, it is a rather endearing quality and should always be respected.
We ended up partnering with the shy young Sheikh of the morning meeting who will be happy to give us his time and his name, and who is still too young to be smoking half of the GDP of Cuba in one evening.
To be honest, I think “Taking you more personally” would be more naturally suited as a subtitle to a European soft porn movie, rather than an airline . . . “Valerie in Vienna – Taking you more personally” . . . “Doreen in Dortmund – Taking you more personally”. . . kind of works better that way, doesn’t it?
Anyway, the flight was but a brief 40 minutes old when we began our descent into Doha, the capital of Qatar. The terrain leading to Doha is the typical fare of the region . . . sand. Lots of it. Indeed Qatar is a peninsular outgrowth from the cost of Saudi Arabia which is home to between 50-150,000 actual Qataris depending on who you ask (although the official figures say the population is between 750 and 800,000 people – mostly expats and pumped up to make the minimum population figures to accede to the WTO . . .). There is a lot of empty space in this country which will take them a long time to fill – although they are already building islands in the sea in the same manner as Dubai with The Palm islands.
Incidentally, the word “peninsula” is often used in Qatar, as it not only describes the shape of the country, but also the name of its #1 global export after oil and gas . . . Al Jazeera TV.
Al Jazeera is the Arabic word for “peninsula” and is headquartered in sleepy Doha with the blessing of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Al Thani. The channel is the pride of the Middle East, despite its controversial profile internationally. Staffed by ex BBC trained journalists, it is the most popular Arab news channel, providing quality news reporting of the region, by the region, for the region, combined with a plethora of live debate shows which the Arabs seem to adore. Later this year Al Jazeera International (an English language TV channel) will be launched as well as Al Jazeera Children’s Channel which is aimed at providing infotainment to the Arab youth of the region and will be broadcast from 5 cities as far apart as Doha in Qatar and Rabat in Morocco. It will also re-launch its web site (aljazeera.net) as part of its expansion internationally. Watch out CNN!
Doha is not only the capital of Qatar; it is practically speaking the only place that is inhabited in this desert kingdom. The Al Thani ruling family has palaces spread across this pleasant town which is now seeing some of the development that Dubai has become famous for over the last few years. The rather charming corniche that frames the bay area around the town is the site of an explosion of luxury hotels springing up cheek to cheek next to luxury office blocks as the old monoliths of the 1970’s are now being upstaged by the latest in glass, steel and concrete some 30 years later. A bit nouveau riche perhaps, but then Qatar is rather “nouveau” anyway, having really only just hit the big time. . .
With the world’s second largest proven reserves of liquid natural gas and a very respectable supply of oil, Qatar’s small population now enjoys the highest GDP per capita in the region and is in the top 10 worldwide. This new wealth has come after a long period where the Qatar reserves of gas and oil were managed by Japanese corporations who had negotiated exclusive extraction rights for some 20 odd years with a very large percentage of the revenues ending up in Japanese rather than Qatari pockets, thus keeping the Qatari income comparatively low until the contracts ended a couple of years ago. Then suddenly, and literally overnight, all that came out of the ground went into the Dish Dash pockets of the local chieftains and their respective clans and spending began in earnest.
The level of conspicuous wealth in Qatar is quite extraordinary, and they appear to be desperate to spend / invest it as quickly as possible in a bid to catch up with Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi and Bahrain. Everything from financial exchanges to luxury hotels, banks to boats, educational institutions, hospitals, research centres and of course the energy business and media have all seen enormous investment commitments in the last few years and the boom looks set to continue with the hosting of the Doha Asian Games in 2006 (the Eastern Olympics)
A prime example of their conspicuous consumption of money occurred shortly before this, my first visit, when the Emir’s son, the Heir Apparent, was married to the daughter of Sheikh Hammad Bin Suhaim Al Thani (whose wife is the Emir’s sister). The wedding was of course big news in Doha with the reception being held in a castle especially constructed for the wedding in the desert (the local mega hotels being simply too pedestrian for an occasion of such magnitude).
The city was dressed in a series of lavish flower arrangements and other decorations in celebration of the great occasion. One of the most incredible achievements of the wedding was its entry into the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s most expensive flower arrangement which was commissioned by Sheikh Hammad and cost US$1 million. Not a bad day for Interflora then . . .
Part of my trip was to meet with various members of the Royal Family with regard to the possibility of entering into a business arrangement together. (Like many Gulf countries whose laws for foreign firms require some kind of local partner or sponsor, Qatar requires a local shareholding in any registered business).
Our morning began with a meeting with a quite young Sheikh whose office is to be found at the Family Planning Centre in Doha. This, I discovered, is not a place where couples go to get advice on their sex lives and how to procreate, but rather a government institution set up to manage the Royal Family’s activities and development.
Our meeting with the Sheikh lasted some time, although his personal attention was not long held, as is common with Gulf Arabs. He was very polite in greeting me and my colleagues, then let the meeting be run by one of his employees while he sat quietly in the corner playing with his mobile phone.
After this meeting and a lunch, we returned to the office fighting our way through the extraordinary traffic of Doha. I should explain that Doha doesn’t have a great deal of traffic per se, just several hundred roundabouts and plenty of drivers whose relationship with a driving license is probably best described as a passing acquaintance.
As a result, the Doha Grand Prix, which is probably the best way to describe rush hour (which, incidentally, is every hour), is a rather terrifying combination of enormous 4x4s which do their best to attain supersonic speeds on the “straights” between roundabouts, and then go around the roundabouts without even touching the brakes, and certainly not going to the massive trouble of actually stopping to let other traffic through.
When one is unaccustomed to this phenomenon, as I was, the smell of fear pervades the air conditioned interior of your vehicle rather quickly. I found myself reaching for a second seatbelt and offering up small prayers to whichever Gods were tuned into my frequency. And I thought that Cairo taxis were bad!
Anyway, having risked life and limb to return to the office just a few miles across town, I settled down to the challenge of preparing for my evening meeting with Sheikh Hammad himself – he of the $1 million flower arrangements.
I was due to meet him at his Majlis at his palace at about 6.30pm. I was keen to arrive early (how naïve of me – thinking that my punctuality would be in anyway useful in Arabia!), and prepare mentally for the meeting.
A Majlis is a very common phenomenon in the Gulf countries (it is called Diwaniya in Kuwait). It literally means Council and it is a tradition which goes back many centuries from the first settlements in this part of the world.
The leader of a tribe, or Sheikh, would have a Majlis room or hall within the fort of the settlement and would sit in council there to advise and adjudicate disputes that may arise within the tribe. Today, many Gulf Arab houses feature a Majlis room which has a separate door from the main entrance of the house and is the exclusive domain of men who will gather at each other’s houses to discuss topics ranging from business to politics and social issues.
The Majlis is usually held at a certain time each day and anyone who wants to can attend (as long as you are male of course . . .). One simply enters the room which is a rectangular shape with a large seat or desk at one end where the leader sits and then seats or sofas along the length of the walls for the visitors to sit. People come to just listen as well as to ask the advice, guidance or permission of the leader on a variety of matters. The decision of the Sheikh is final and totally respected.
I arrived at Sheikh Hammad’s palace and went into the main part of the building. His personal collection of Porsches was neatly lined up in the central courtyard along with the Mercedes being quietly watched by some servants. I entered the Majlis reception area and announced my name. I was ushered into the hall where everyone stopped to look at a stranger dressed in a highly inappropriate suit and tie (instead of the local Dish Dash). It was quickly indicated that the Sheikh would receive me instead in his ante room office where I was promptly guided. Time 6.25pm.
In the office we were offered tea, dates, cigars, food and all sorts of things to while away the time – which was good as there ended up being a lot of it to while away! Chatting with the Sheikh’s Lebanese legal adviser we managed to cover world religions, international commerce, the delights of the highly complex Lebanese political scene (of which he had once been a part), the meaning of life and why English people are obsessed with the weather.
At one point the call of nature became so loud that I had to ask to use the “conveniences”. I was quickly escorted to the Sheikh’s own private office which adjoins his own private toilet.
I have never been in a more opulent office in my life, and of course the toilet was no disappointment either with a visual assault from all of the gold and silver plastered liberally over everything. Even more importantly, the Sheikh must do a lot of thinking in this room as it was exceptionally comfortable. Were it not for the fact that he was due to break off his Majlis any moment to grace me with his presence, I would have quite happily spent an hour or two enjoying these particular surroundings in peace. As it was I hurried about my business and returned to the other side of the palace to the ante-room to await His Highness.
After a short while upon my return, I noticed the end of a cigar enter the ante-room. Not just any cigar but a twelve bore cigar the likes of which I had never seen before. The cigar kept on entering the room inches at a time, and I was fully expecting to see a support team running underneath it to keep it steady.
After what seemed like three minutes, the owner of the cigar also managed to enter the room at the end of this monster from Havana. Sheikh Hammad had arrived and my speech went out the window as I stood admiring this Cuban Missile from the other side of the room.
Introductions were effected and I managed to stumble through my well rehearsed line about “how he must be delighted with the wedding to the Heir Apparent but saddened at the loss of his daughter” etc etc (not to mention the loss of $1 million on a bunch of flowers which were now sitting rotting in some dustbin in downtown Doha!) and we sat down to our earnest discussions about business with me honing my negotiation skills and showing him exactly who was boss here!
Sheikh Hammad: “So you want to do business with me?”
Me: “Er, yes please, that is to say, if it is not too much trouble . . .”
SH: “We make company?”
Me: : “Um, yes, that is more or less our plan , if you don’t have any objections sir, I mean Your Highness Excellency sir . . “
SH: “Ok. Speak with lawyer. Make the papers and I sign. Goodbye.”
And with that I concluded the deal with a dynamic and highly convincing performance. Bring me Donald Trump!
Sheikh Hammad stood up, lifted the mammoth cigar to his lips, took a puff, blew smoke in my face (clearly a gesture of great friendship and respect) and then turned and left the room to return to his Majlis.
We left by the tradesman’s entrance and went off to dinner to celebrate my enormous powers of persuasion and the huge coup of getting a deal with one of the top Sheikhs in Qatar.
While driving to dinner, my local manager who is very experienced in Arab ways and particularly those of Qatar, informed me that if this deal were to go through, I would have to present a gift to the Sheikh at the launch of the our new company. This seemed entirely reasonable to me until I enquired as to what kind of gift is usual in these situations.
Apparently, I was to get my people to start researching the purchase of a good camel for me to give to Sheikh H who already has more money than God and probably has a stable of camels. I was envisioning the press conference featuring me standing behind a podium giving my launch speech with a toothy camel tethered to the microphone, grinning to the cameras. . . . nice . . .
Later that night I heard a wonderful story (probably apocryphal) about Sheikh Hammad who had apparently been to Switzerland recently on a shopping trip. Sheikh Hammad is a young man and traveled casually wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a baseball cap and carried a small rucksack with his shopping money – in this particular case $1 million in cash.
Although his trip was to buy jewellery, gold and diamonds, it was not a total success, with him managing to only spend $600,000 on jewels, leaving the other $400,000 in cash in his rucksack.
On his return to Qatar he left his rucksack on one of the security scanners while he went to chat with some friends he had bumped into at the airport. After several minutes had gone by, he walked over to the scanner where various bags were piling up and wandered off.
After a few hundred yards, a voice started shouting for him to stop. Under ordinary circumstances, one doesn’t shout at Sheikhs, but this didn’t stop the aggrieved student who came running up to an astonished Sheikh H and then accused him of taking his bag.
Sheikh H glanced at the student who was carrying the same rucksack and saying that Sheikh H has taken his, and that he should check the luggage tag.
Still astounded, the Sheikh looked inside the rucksack he was carrying to find a laptop, some sports shoes etc. Thankfully for him, the student hadn’t looked in the bag he was carrying.
With some relief, Sheikh Hammad exchanged bags with the student and they both went on their merry way - the student never to know just how close he came to becoming a millionaire in Qatar.
So Qatar is a land of many superlatives, everything being the latest, the biggest or the best – and often the most expensive. But the Qataris retain their traditions – so far at least – while they acquire new habits and customs from the West.
Sheikh Hammad never, of course, signed any deal with me. After some backing and forthing with his legal representatives, more for face than anything else, he politely removed himself from negotiations. He had probably been mistakenly informed that we were a multi billion company for which his involvement would earn him several million a year in change. When he learnt that we were unlikely to financially change his life (in fact not even his living room) he played difficult just so we could exit the deal with face intact. Making sure no-one loses face is a very important part of Gulf Arab culture, and while frustrating on occasion, it is a rather endearing quality and should always be respected.
We ended up partnering with the shy young Sheikh of the morning meeting who will be happy to give us his time and his name, and who is still too young to be smoking half of the GDP of Cuba in one evening.
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Friday in the Mountains of Oman
For photos from the journey described below, please right click on the link below to open in a separate window: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xenosdbx/my_photos
On Friday I decided to set off with my camera and go in search of some “real Arabia”. The road towards Hatta and Oman from Dubai is uninteresting in that it is straight most of the way, but what does capture your attention is the changing scenery around you.
Beginning with the almost white sand around Dubai, the desert is speckled with small green plants and, every so often, date farms and expanses of brilliant green. We are now in July, but in January, the colours are even more luscious – especially the greens, but they fade during the course of the year thanks to the harshness of the sun and wind.
As the tarmac unrolls in front of you, the scenery subtly begins to change with the desert taking on new hues and gradually transforming from white to yellow to a light orange and then into burnt orange, finally ending in a rich reddish tone about 70 kilometres from Dubai. The vegetation has also significantly decreased by this stage in the journey and there are just dunes which have been carved and shaped by the wind, forming peaks and ridges which, when the light falls on them, create impressive shadows and contrasts which keep attracting the eye.
As the road intersects Oman, after the village of Al Madam, the landscape changes once again. Now flat for miles around, the only features are small trees, their branches fanned out above them like some kind of amateur parasol. Camels wander with their front feet tethered, looking for food to graze on or the shelter of the tree for a lie down and a conference with their fellow camels. The ground is a burnt brown combination of dirt and sand, with rocky formations hinting at what lies ahead….
After another 10 kilometres or so, the horizon changes. A few peaks can be made out in the distance, although the first time visitor will fail to pay attention. After a brief moment longer the gaze is automatically focused on a sea of mountains that fill the distance like the crests of waves on an ocean shore. Suddenly the vast expanse of the desert has been framed, defined and bordered and you are simultaneously filled with curiosity and a sense of foreboding from their dark shadows and menacing edges.
The visual impact of the mountain ranges is so impressive after the flatness of the desert. On this trip I decided to try and find a way into the mountains to investigate further. This meant crossing into Oman, but I did not have my passport with me. However, I took a chance and found a track off the main asphalt highway and just aimed towards the mountains. No check points, no border control, I journeyed into Oman in much the same way as the traders and nomads of past times would have crossed the land and before the idea of borders had even been thought of – albeit in a 6 litre V8 SUV, rather than on horse or camel back. . .
After a short while, I spotted a man who was hailing me from the side of the road – hitchhiking Arab style. I was in two minds about whether to stop – on the one hand wanting to avoid any hassles or delays on my journey, on the other keen to meet and talk with a local.
It was 48 degrees outside in the desert sun and so pouring from the milk jug of human kindness, I decided to stop and pick him up. He told me he was heading to a garden and jumped into the back of the car. Looking around at the barren land and the scar-faced rocky mountains, the idea of garden seemed rather unlikely, and I began to wonder if he had been in the sun just a little too long.
I offered him a bottle of water which he accepted with good grace and profuse thanks in at least two languages, one of which resembled English.
His broken English was enough to let me know his name – Sultan Yousef – that he was an Omani, married with a wife and a small three year old son.
He was fascinated by an Englishman driving in the desert – obviously not used to being given a lift in such a vehicle by a strange white fellow with a pile of camera equipment. He became even more confused when he asked me where I was going and I replied that I didn’t know – I was just driving around.
Once he got the hang of my name, which I had to translate into Arabic (Da’oud) he asked lots of questions about London, my family and of course my children. He was quite puzzled when I told him that I have no children – this is a strange notion for the Arabs.
We then exchanged manly conversation about the world including his observation that while many children is a good thing, they do cost rather a lot of money to feed and so on.
After 20 minutes or so together, we arrived at his destination. It really was a garden – in fact an oasis with a swathe of green across both sides of the road, provided in the main by the mass of date palms, their enormous leaves floating gently in the breeze.
When we stopped he invited me to join him and his family to drink some water, but I was keen to get on and declined. He wished me a long and peaceful life and went to join the others.
I continued driving through mountains listening to the country /rock / blues sounds of Mark Knopfler’s latest album Shangri La – which features outstanding musicianship from Knopfler and his band. Using vintage guitars and organs the whole album was recorded in an old Shangri La studio in Malibu (a historic recording studio from the Sixties) and the sound of the album reflects that time in music – including the ensemble recording of the whole band and the use of original instruments. Nearly all of the songs were recorded in one take – a testimony to the musicians and their approach to making music – quite different from the over produced, 27 take songs of modern music today.
Knopfler’s sometimes haunting, sometimes soothing guitar sound is not at all out of place with the barren rocky mountains that punctuate the desert in this part of Oman. They stand like spikes rising out of the ground, hard and aggressive, and yet driving through you soon discover that they harbor and protect valleys of date farms where locals still harvest one of the most traditional crops of the region.
In one particular valley, driving down dust and stone tracks and praying not to have an accident of any form – no mobile phone coverage, no help and no proper roads for at least 20 kilometres! – I discovered a quite remarkable herd of goats living between a date farm and the dry Wadi. Mainly black in colour (with a black & tan and black & white variant), there must have been between 100 and 200 hundred of these animals roaming around, sprinkled with a few sheep for good measure.
It was quite tricky negotiating my way around them - and you must try or the owner will suddenly appear and charge blood money for killing any of his animals. Indeed I have heard people have had to pay 10’s of thousands of dollars for camels which have been fatally injured in car accidents - and that is on top of the cost of completely fixing your car. Camels are pretty large animals and most accidents involving vehicles and camels usually see the vehicle in just as bad a state as the camel or sometimes worse!
In total contrast with Dubai, which is only about 120 kilometres away, this part of the world seems to have changed very little in the last 100 or even 1,000 years. Yes, there is electricity and there are some asphalt roads running through, but the rest of life seems to have been left alone with traditional farming of the brilliant green date oases and the tending to a herd of livestock which provide milk, cheese, meat and other basic materials. You can’t help wondering how long this will last and also weighing up the pros and cons of each way of life.
The return trip back to Dubai was uneventful with the exception of two camel traffic incidents which are commonplace here, but which are somewhat bizarre for the first timer. One was in the village of Al Madam again where a herd of camels trotted straight on to the two lane blacktop and nearly caused a truck pile up with several 16+ wheelers slamming on the brakes and swerving to avoid the beasts. The camels, much like their shepherd, seemed completely unperturbed and simply carried on marching down the high street next to the cafes, truck stops and shops, as though it were their natural born right to browse shop windows on a Friday afternoon . . .
The second incident was somewhat more predictable as I drove past the Nad Al Sheba camel race course in Dubai. Approaching a roundabout, I slowed to see a convoy of camels go around the roundabout being lead by a traditionally dressed Arab rider and a dozen or so camels following behind. This was made all the more amusing by the fact that they were all going around the roundabout the wrong way causing even more disruption. When I pulled out my camera for a photo, the lead rider stopped and smiled a huge white toothed smile and gestured to the other riders to stop and pose for the photo – much to the delight of the waiting traffic!
The contrast of the camels on the roundabout just a mile away from the bustling centre of one of the world’s most sophisticated and luxurious cities, is what modern Arabia is all about.
Neither image fails to take your breath away, but for very different reasons. The important thing for visitors like me is to see both sides, and indeed all sides. To try and penetrate a little further than the surface and get a feeling for the people who came from their tents in the desert and built the most modern city in the world.
For photos from the journey described above, please click on:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xenosdbx/my_photos
On Friday I decided to set off with my camera and go in search of some “real Arabia”. The road towards Hatta and Oman from Dubai is uninteresting in that it is straight most of the way, but what does capture your attention is the changing scenery around you.
Beginning with the almost white sand around Dubai, the desert is speckled with small green plants and, every so often, date farms and expanses of brilliant green. We are now in July, but in January, the colours are even more luscious – especially the greens, but they fade during the course of the year thanks to the harshness of the sun and wind.
As the tarmac unrolls in front of you, the scenery subtly begins to change with the desert taking on new hues and gradually transforming from white to yellow to a light orange and then into burnt orange, finally ending in a rich reddish tone about 70 kilometres from Dubai. The vegetation has also significantly decreased by this stage in the journey and there are just dunes which have been carved and shaped by the wind, forming peaks and ridges which, when the light falls on them, create impressive shadows and contrasts which keep attracting the eye.
As the road intersects Oman, after the village of Al Madam, the landscape changes once again. Now flat for miles around, the only features are small trees, their branches fanned out above them like some kind of amateur parasol. Camels wander with their front feet tethered, looking for food to graze on or the shelter of the tree for a lie down and a conference with their fellow camels. The ground is a burnt brown combination of dirt and sand, with rocky formations hinting at what lies ahead….
After another 10 kilometres or so, the horizon changes. A few peaks can be made out in the distance, although the first time visitor will fail to pay attention. After a brief moment longer the gaze is automatically focused on a sea of mountains that fill the distance like the crests of waves on an ocean shore. Suddenly the vast expanse of the desert has been framed, defined and bordered and you are simultaneously filled with curiosity and a sense of foreboding from their dark shadows and menacing edges.
The visual impact of the mountain ranges is so impressive after the flatness of the desert. On this trip I decided to try and find a way into the mountains to investigate further. This meant crossing into Oman, but I did not have my passport with me. However, I took a chance and found a track off the main asphalt highway and just aimed towards the mountains. No check points, no border control, I journeyed into Oman in much the same way as the traders and nomads of past times would have crossed the land and before the idea of borders had even been thought of – albeit in a 6 litre V8 SUV, rather than on horse or camel back. . .
After a short while, I spotted a man who was hailing me from the side of the road – hitchhiking Arab style. I was in two minds about whether to stop – on the one hand wanting to avoid any hassles or delays on my journey, on the other keen to meet and talk with a local.
It was 48 degrees outside in the desert sun and so pouring from the milk jug of human kindness, I decided to stop and pick him up. He told me he was heading to a garden and jumped into the back of the car. Looking around at the barren land and the scar-faced rocky mountains, the idea of garden seemed rather unlikely, and I began to wonder if he had been in the sun just a little too long.
I offered him a bottle of water which he accepted with good grace and profuse thanks in at least two languages, one of which resembled English.
His broken English was enough to let me know his name – Sultan Yousef – that he was an Omani, married with a wife and a small three year old son.
He was fascinated by an Englishman driving in the desert – obviously not used to being given a lift in such a vehicle by a strange white fellow with a pile of camera equipment. He became even more confused when he asked me where I was going and I replied that I didn’t know – I was just driving around.
Once he got the hang of my name, which I had to translate into Arabic (Da’oud) he asked lots of questions about London, my family and of course my children. He was quite puzzled when I told him that I have no children – this is a strange notion for the Arabs.
We then exchanged manly conversation about the world including his observation that while many children is a good thing, they do cost rather a lot of money to feed and so on.
After 20 minutes or so together, we arrived at his destination. It really was a garden – in fact an oasis with a swathe of green across both sides of the road, provided in the main by the mass of date palms, their enormous leaves floating gently in the breeze.
When we stopped he invited me to join him and his family to drink some water, but I was keen to get on and declined. He wished me a long and peaceful life and went to join the others.
I continued driving through mountains listening to the country /rock / blues sounds of Mark Knopfler’s latest album Shangri La – which features outstanding musicianship from Knopfler and his band. Using vintage guitars and organs the whole album was recorded in an old Shangri La studio in Malibu (a historic recording studio from the Sixties) and the sound of the album reflects that time in music – including the ensemble recording of the whole band and the use of original instruments. Nearly all of the songs were recorded in one take – a testimony to the musicians and their approach to making music – quite different from the over produced, 27 take songs of modern music today.
Knopfler’s sometimes haunting, sometimes soothing guitar sound is not at all out of place with the barren rocky mountains that punctuate the desert in this part of Oman. They stand like spikes rising out of the ground, hard and aggressive, and yet driving through you soon discover that they harbor and protect valleys of date farms where locals still harvest one of the most traditional crops of the region.
In one particular valley, driving down dust and stone tracks and praying not to have an accident of any form – no mobile phone coverage, no help and no proper roads for at least 20 kilometres! – I discovered a quite remarkable herd of goats living between a date farm and the dry Wadi. Mainly black in colour (with a black & tan and black & white variant), there must have been between 100 and 200 hundred of these animals roaming around, sprinkled with a few sheep for good measure.
It was quite tricky negotiating my way around them - and you must try or the owner will suddenly appear and charge blood money for killing any of his animals. Indeed I have heard people have had to pay 10’s of thousands of dollars for camels which have been fatally injured in car accidents - and that is on top of the cost of completely fixing your car. Camels are pretty large animals and most accidents involving vehicles and camels usually see the vehicle in just as bad a state as the camel or sometimes worse!
In total contrast with Dubai, which is only about 120 kilometres away, this part of the world seems to have changed very little in the last 100 or even 1,000 years. Yes, there is electricity and there are some asphalt roads running through, but the rest of life seems to have been left alone with traditional farming of the brilliant green date oases and the tending to a herd of livestock which provide milk, cheese, meat and other basic materials. You can’t help wondering how long this will last and also weighing up the pros and cons of each way of life.
The return trip back to Dubai was uneventful with the exception of two camel traffic incidents which are commonplace here, but which are somewhat bizarre for the first timer. One was in the village of Al Madam again where a herd of camels trotted straight on to the two lane blacktop and nearly caused a truck pile up with several 16+ wheelers slamming on the brakes and swerving to avoid the beasts. The camels, much like their shepherd, seemed completely unperturbed and simply carried on marching down the high street next to the cafes, truck stops and shops, as though it were their natural born right to browse shop windows on a Friday afternoon . . .
The second incident was somewhat more predictable as I drove past the Nad Al Sheba camel race course in Dubai. Approaching a roundabout, I slowed to see a convoy of camels go around the roundabout being lead by a traditionally dressed Arab rider and a dozen or so camels following behind. This was made all the more amusing by the fact that they were all going around the roundabout the wrong way causing even more disruption. When I pulled out my camera for a photo, the lead rider stopped and smiled a huge white toothed smile and gestured to the other riders to stop and pose for the photo – much to the delight of the waiting traffic!
The contrast of the camels on the roundabout just a mile away from the bustling centre of one of the world’s most sophisticated and luxurious cities, is what modern Arabia is all about.
Neither image fails to take your breath away, but for very different reasons. The important thing for visitors like me is to see both sides, and indeed all sides. To try and penetrate a little further than the surface and get a feeling for the people who came from their tents in the desert and built the most modern city in the world.
For photos from the journey described above, please click on:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/xenosdbx/my_photos
Saturday, June 25, 2005
The Reindeer of Riyadh
About a month ago I made my first visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, visiting the capital Riyadh and then on to the seaside port of Jeddah in the Western province.
I have to say that my first visit to the Kingdom had long been put off for a variety of reasons and so this trip had taken on rather large dimensions in my mind.
I had been issued with a three month multiple visit visa and set off from Dubai on the comfort of Emirates airlines. No drinks on the journey over as Saudi is officially very dry indeed…
Approaching Riyadh we were issued with landing cards which apart from all of the bureaucratic details also contained in large bold capitals the message that “the importation or possession of any narcotic substances will be punished by the death sentence”. This kind of sets the tone for the Kingdom – direct, hard-line and rather unnerving. . .
Landing was also fun. Apparently the insurgents like to hang around the Riyadh airport area with shoulder rocket launchers and take pot shots at passenger aircraft. (I suppose you have to amuse yourself somehow in Riyadh, and there sure is a shortage of bars!). As a consequence, commercial passenger aircraft have slightly different landing procedure which follows the following broad approach:
a) Stay nice and high until very near the airport.
b) Go into what feels like a nosedive and descend at an extremely rapid rate causing most passengers to envisage their dinner reappearing on the headrest of the seat in front.
c) Pull up just before you plow into the tarmac and put the bird down at high speed, followed by slamming on the brakes in mad fashion while your passengers pray to their gods for forgiveness of their sins and go through the last rites.
d) Nonchalantly announce on the PA system that we have now landed at Riyadh airport, thank you for flying with (and nearly dying on!) XXXX airlines. . .
Riyadh airport is brown. Not a nice rich comforting brown, not even a nice light beige / cream colour, just brown. Nice. This again kind of sets the tone for Saudi Arabia overall.
I was met, thankfully, from the plane by a government relations executive sent by my client to escort me to the outside of the airport. This essentially means the ultra fast-track as I was whisked through a special door and taken to a VIP lounge to munch on juicy fat dates and wait for my colleagues flying in from Europe to attend the client meetings in Riyadh. My passport was cleared and my suitcase located and we were escorted outside into the delightful 37 degree evening heat of Riyadh.
My driver was wearing full Arab national dress but actually turned out to be Pakistani. We enjoyed one of those magical “I speak some English, but not enough to form a coherent sentence” conversations as we drove in towards the centre of Riyadh, covering his work, religion, family and thoughts regarding world peace, famine and American automobiles.
The environs seemed to be a sea of sand punctuated by rather large concrete constructions, some of which were quite impressive in a cold war communist kind of way, and some of which were just plain ugly – and don’t forget this was still in darkness. Things did not improve aesthetically in daytime I can assure you.
After about 30 minutes we arrived at what appeared to be a dead end road with a large checkpoint featuring two small armored cars, five machine gun nests and about half a dozen soldiers armed with automatic rifles, plus two Indian gate attendants armed with clipboards. The windows were lowered and guns pointed towards us in the car. Questions were asked. Answers were given. Notes were made. Our examiners totted up the scores from the entry test and having passed the gate exam we were allowed through to drive to the second checkpoint at the entrance to the “Arizona compound” – more on the name and history later!
The second checkpoint was really quite grand – featuring two proper full size tanks, at least a dozen soldiers with large guns, some bomb proof barriers, spikes in the road and all kinds of cameras and other gadgetry. Our passports were duly exchanged for compound i.d. cards and a key to our villa where my colleagues and I would be staying for the next couple of days.
The Arizona Compound is one of the many compounds which were built to house ex Pats – mainly US – during the boom years in Saudi and before the trouble of the last few years. It is owned by a Saudi national, and who is the only Saudi allowed on the compound. All the other staff and management are Indians and Asians including one who had a very interesting name on his badge – “Bonk” – classy. The compound’s name (and indeed design) were inspired by the Saudi gentleman’s wife (or mistress – no-one knows for sure) who hails originally from the state of Arizona in the US.
On entering the compound proper, two things immediately strike you:
1. This could be anywhere in the world – but probably somewhere in the US – with its lush green grass lawns, flowers, neat and tidy roads leading to neat and tidy condominiums and of course the 9 hole golf course.
2. The covered wagon in the centre of a roundabout with the “Wild West” style signage above it indicating the main roads of the compound “El Paso Street” and the “Santa Fe Trail” . . . (so much for Arizona then!).
The golf course, in particular, intrigued me. Here we are in one of the hottest, driest countries in the world and they have built a golf course! The irrigation alone must be one of the most wasteful and indulgent activities ever, not to mention the idea of wandering around the 9 holes in check trousers and stripy shirts in 50 degrees of heat on a summer’s day.
It got me to imagining the full implications of golf in Arabia. I conjured up images of Gulf Arabs wearing a golfing version of their national dress . . . orange and green tartan dish dash robes, with a purple lining, coupled with bright yellow golfing shoes with long leather tassels, and crowned by a Titleist branded headdress . . . nice image.
We entered our villa on the Santa Fe Trail. This place was designed by Americans, for Americans even down to the electricity sockets in the wall and the huge “I am never gonna move unless it is to grab the remote for the TV or dive into another bowl of cheese covered potato chips” kind of a sofa which extended around three walls and sat at least 10 people comfortably.
All in all, the villa was very well appointed and comfortable right down to the secure hiding place under the stairs and the emergency alarm system in case of attack by terrorists. There were very detailed instructions also supplied about what to do in the event of gunfire being heard in the street outside. However, it failed to advise keeping spare underpants under the stairs in the hiding place, which I thought was at the very least short sighted under the circumstances.
After playing with the panic alarm for a while (yes - we all remain children at heart!) we turned on the TV and flicked through the channels. Channel 1 was rather special, featuring as it did, live TV feed from the CCTV cameras surrounding the compound showing all the tanks, razor wire, machine gun nests and soldiers on the outside. This chilling sight was accompanied by the light pop sounds of Natalie Imbruglia warbling in a spirited fashion to a modern beat . . . the perfect match for Saudi soldiers and desert camouflaged tanks!
After unpacking we set off for dinner around the main compound pool area (which was actually a swimming lake rather than a pool) with a restaurant, bar, and lots of poolside tables etc. The compound also featured a hair salon, gymnasium, beauty parlor, supermarket, bowling alley, pool tables and a gentleman’s tailors . . .
The bar was unusually busy for a dry country and we went over to get a nice refreshing 7-UP, only to find beer being served by the pint. Real beer. Well, real in the sense of containing alcohol, but brewed on compound by a team of chemical engineers. After quaffing as much of this as we could before last orders (some rules on drinking on the compound exist!) we started on our enormous steak dinners and my colleague who resides full time on the compound revealed his collection of wine and sangria – also home brewed.
I have to say that I have drunk many different wines around the world, but nothing prepared me for the delights of Chateau Arizona (based on the Riyadh grape variety). My colleague informed me that at the large supermarkets there are whole aisles which contain cartons of grape juice from floor to ceiling, right next to the sugar section which is adjacent to the yeast section. Indeed some compounds actually have delivery trucks come in with sugar and grape juice by the ton!
Chateau Arizona is not a delicate wine. Indeed “robust” would be an understatement. Its “nose” is like a shotgun to the olfactory system, only matched by its aggressive assault on the taste buds which, I should add, immediately surrender for fear of death. The first few sips for unaccustomed drinkers cause some interesting reflex reactions such as sharp twisting of the head, a screwing up of the eyes and a strong body shudder. However, careful training over the course of a glass of the stuff results in rapid acclimatization and one adjusts quickly – especially faced with the alternative of alcohol free beverages.
After dinner and drinks we made our way back to the villa wandering through the streets of Arizona, when we suddenly encountered the most bizarre sight yet for me in the Middle East . . . three tame reindeer eating rubbish from the bins near the restaurant. I checked with my colleagues that this was not a result of excessive consumption of Chateau Arizona and they confirmed that we were actually stroking the heads of Riyadh Reindeer.
My resident colleague informed me that these were the Arizona reindeer and that many of the residents treated them as communal pets, feeding them scraps and walking around the compound with them in the way we might expect people to take their dogs for a walk. . . (You can see what a lengthy stay in the Kingdom will do to ordinarily sane people!)
Off to work the next day at our client’s headquarters in Riyadh we were driven by bullet proof cars through the delights of Riyadh. This is not a pretty city . . . in any way. It is very dry, barren, full of concrete and with a miserable atmosphere. It is still advised that foreigners do not venture out into the city after the evening prayer as there are many insurgents in Riyadh who seek out such people out with extremely unpleasant consequences, although all the Saudis I met in Riyadh were extremely kind and pleasant and certainly distanced themselves from the radical section of society which they described as ill-educated and easily manipulated by the extremist leaders.
At the HQ, one of our party, a female colleague from London (dressed from head to toe in a black dress to avoid offending the locals) enquired as to the whereabouts of the ladies toilet. In a thirty storey monolith that is my client’s HQ, there is only one ladies toilet, as of course, women do not generally work in Saudi. The toilet in question had a special key which had to be located and I and my colleagues took turns during the course of the day to escort our female colleague to the ladies.
During the afternoon she wanted to go again (we had advised her at one point to stop drinking so many fluids, but we were ignored!) and I escorted her down to the floor with the ladies loo. The door was locked.
The call of nature was too immediate to seek out the key holder, so after checking the corridors, I escorted her into the Gents toilet on the same floor. I ushered her into the disabled cubicle and stood loitering at the basins, whistling. It was only then I saw the shadow under cubicle 2 of the large Arab gentlemen who was occupying it and going about his business in a rather earnest fashion (as I surmised from the grunts!).
Clearly this was looking like turning into a very embarrassing incident, but luckily my colleague was swift in her ablutions and I smuggled her out of the gents in a deft move which saw her rushed down the corridor in front of me with my back to the CCTV cameras on that particular corridor. I think the gentleman in cubicle 2 must have been quite surprised to hear a ladies voice in his toilet on a Sunday at the office . . .
My last evening in Riyadh was seen off sitting in the restaurant near the Reindeer drinking Chateau Arizona and a real bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label which had mysteriously found its way onto the compound. A very drunken but amusing evening was had by all.
On to Jeddah and a quite different experience. A much nicer atmosphere with green open spaces, parks, trees and the usual seaside atmosphere that most port cities have. I generally felt much safer in Jeddah and even took local taxis during the night without fear. Visiting my colleague from Jeddah in his home was also interesting, involving by now the standard checkpoints and machine guns in the face before entry.
At his apartment on the compound he has built an entire pub in his sitting room with a proper beer pump imported in pieces and stages from the UK over the years. He is a member of the Jeddah Ex Pat Rugby club and they collectively brew several thousand gallons of beer each year and it is extremely good. They also distill the famous Sadiki (nicknamed SID) which is moonshine made from potato peelings and various other substances and patented by British and American Chemical Engineers. It does actually make you go blind in large quantities and there are a multitude of flavors which have been concocted to make it taste like Gin, Malibu and various other spirits including a not wildly successful attempt at Scotch.
When in Rome . . . when in Saudi drink SID!
On returning to Dubai I did the now customary impression of the late Pope John Paul II and kissed the tarmac, rushing through to Duty Free to pick up my usual allowance of evil liquor. I had drunk more alcohol in Saudi in one week than I had in Dubai in 5 months! Extraordinary!
Incidentally, the following weekend after my return to Dubai from the Kingdom, my resident colleague, together with several other ex pats, was arrested by the Riyadh police outside the British Embassy and detained throughout the night for allegedly loitering.
I spent most of my Saturday on the phone to various contacts in Saudi and elsewhere trying to have him sprung from jail. The Embassy staff later confirmed that they believed this to be a reaction from the police to “too many embassy parties on Fridays recently” and that this kind of fun had to be stopped.
This was clearly a harrowing experience for my colleague who managed to get through it with his sense of humor intact. It was one of the worst and strangest calls that I have received though . . .
“Hi! How are you?” (Me)
“Fine. Well not fine actually. I am in Riyadh Jail.” (My Colleague)
“Oh!”
“Went to a party last night, got arrested by the Riyadh Police, been in jail since just after midnight, can’t seem to get out.”
“Jesus! Have you been treated properly?”
“Not too bad. No fluids, and nowhere to sit down, and I haven’t slept. I don’t know what we have been charged with or even if we have been charged, nor do I know what to do to get out and my papers are apparently not complete. I am the last one left as everyone else has been sprung. The police are quite polite. Any chance of helping out at all?”
And so on. . .
He was released unharmed, but exhausted. We now have ensured that a dedicated Saudi “fixer” is available to him I the future to negotiate him out of these kinds of scrapes.
I will be back and forth to the Kingdom several times during the course of the rest of the year, but I don’t expect to encounter anything as strange as the reindeer of Riyadh or drink so much home brewed alcohol as I did on the first trip. I am also hoping not to be invited to the British Embassy on a Friday . . . !
I have to say that my first visit to the Kingdom had long been put off for a variety of reasons and so this trip had taken on rather large dimensions in my mind.
I had been issued with a three month multiple visit visa and set off from Dubai on the comfort of Emirates airlines. No drinks on the journey over as Saudi is officially very dry indeed…
Approaching Riyadh we were issued with landing cards which apart from all of the bureaucratic details also contained in large bold capitals the message that “the importation or possession of any narcotic substances will be punished by the death sentence”. This kind of sets the tone for the Kingdom – direct, hard-line and rather unnerving. . .
Landing was also fun. Apparently the insurgents like to hang around the Riyadh airport area with shoulder rocket launchers and take pot shots at passenger aircraft. (I suppose you have to amuse yourself somehow in Riyadh, and there sure is a shortage of bars!). As a consequence, commercial passenger aircraft have slightly different landing procedure which follows the following broad approach:
a) Stay nice and high until very near the airport.
b) Go into what feels like a nosedive and descend at an extremely rapid rate causing most passengers to envisage their dinner reappearing on the headrest of the seat in front.
c) Pull up just before you plow into the tarmac and put the bird down at high speed, followed by slamming on the brakes in mad fashion while your passengers pray to their gods for forgiveness of their sins and go through the last rites.
d) Nonchalantly announce on the PA system that we have now landed at Riyadh airport, thank you for flying with (and nearly dying on!) XXXX airlines. . .
Riyadh airport is brown. Not a nice rich comforting brown, not even a nice light beige / cream colour, just brown. Nice. This again kind of sets the tone for Saudi Arabia overall.
I was met, thankfully, from the plane by a government relations executive sent by my client to escort me to the outside of the airport. This essentially means the ultra fast-track as I was whisked through a special door and taken to a VIP lounge to munch on juicy fat dates and wait for my colleagues flying in from Europe to attend the client meetings in Riyadh. My passport was cleared and my suitcase located and we were escorted outside into the delightful 37 degree evening heat of Riyadh.
My driver was wearing full Arab national dress but actually turned out to be Pakistani. We enjoyed one of those magical “I speak some English, but not enough to form a coherent sentence” conversations as we drove in towards the centre of Riyadh, covering his work, religion, family and thoughts regarding world peace, famine and American automobiles.
The environs seemed to be a sea of sand punctuated by rather large concrete constructions, some of which were quite impressive in a cold war communist kind of way, and some of which were just plain ugly – and don’t forget this was still in darkness. Things did not improve aesthetically in daytime I can assure you.
After about 30 minutes we arrived at what appeared to be a dead end road with a large checkpoint featuring two small armored cars, five machine gun nests and about half a dozen soldiers armed with automatic rifles, plus two Indian gate attendants armed with clipboards. The windows were lowered and guns pointed towards us in the car. Questions were asked. Answers were given. Notes were made. Our examiners totted up the scores from the entry test and having passed the gate exam we were allowed through to drive to the second checkpoint at the entrance to the “Arizona compound” – more on the name and history later!
The second checkpoint was really quite grand – featuring two proper full size tanks, at least a dozen soldiers with large guns, some bomb proof barriers, spikes in the road and all kinds of cameras and other gadgetry. Our passports were duly exchanged for compound i.d. cards and a key to our villa where my colleagues and I would be staying for the next couple of days.
The Arizona Compound is one of the many compounds which were built to house ex Pats – mainly US – during the boom years in Saudi and before the trouble of the last few years. It is owned by a Saudi national, and who is the only Saudi allowed on the compound. All the other staff and management are Indians and Asians including one who had a very interesting name on his badge – “Bonk” – classy. The compound’s name (and indeed design) were inspired by the Saudi gentleman’s wife (or mistress – no-one knows for sure) who hails originally from the state of Arizona in the US.
On entering the compound proper, two things immediately strike you:
1. This could be anywhere in the world – but probably somewhere in the US – with its lush green grass lawns, flowers, neat and tidy roads leading to neat and tidy condominiums and of course the 9 hole golf course.
2. The covered wagon in the centre of a roundabout with the “Wild West” style signage above it indicating the main roads of the compound “El Paso Street” and the “Santa Fe Trail” . . . (so much for Arizona then!).
The golf course, in particular, intrigued me. Here we are in one of the hottest, driest countries in the world and they have built a golf course! The irrigation alone must be one of the most wasteful and indulgent activities ever, not to mention the idea of wandering around the 9 holes in check trousers and stripy shirts in 50 degrees of heat on a summer’s day.
It got me to imagining the full implications of golf in Arabia. I conjured up images of Gulf Arabs wearing a golfing version of their national dress . . . orange and green tartan dish dash robes, with a purple lining, coupled with bright yellow golfing shoes with long leather tassels, and crowned by a Titleist branded headdress . . . nice image.
We entered our villa on the Santa Fe Trail. This place was designed by Americans, for Americans even down to the electricity sockets in the wall and the huge “I am never gonna move unless it is to grab the remote for the TV or dive into another bowl of cheese covered potato chips” kind of a sofa which extended around three walls and sat at least 10 people comfortably.
All in all, the villa was very well appointed and comfortable right down to the secure hiding place under the stairs and the emergency alarm system in case of attack by terrorists. There were very detailed instructions also supplied about what to do in the event of gunfire being heard in the street outside. However, it failed to advise keeping spare underpants under the stairs in the hiding place, which I thought was at the very least short sighted under the circumstances.
After playing with the panic alarm for a while (yes - we all remain children at heart!) we turned on the TV and flicked through the channels. Channel 1 was rather special, featuring as it did, live TV feed from the CCTV cameras surrounding the compound showing all the tanks, razor wire, machine gun nests and soldiers on the outside. This chilling sight was accompanied by the light pop sounds of Natalie Imbruglia warbling in a spirited fashion to a modern beat . . . the perfect match for Saudi soldiers and desert camouflaged tanks!
After unpacking we set off for dinner around the main compound pool area (which was actually a swimming lake rather than a pool) with a restaurant, bar, and lots of poolside tables etc. The compound also featured a hair salon, gymnasium, beauty parlor, supermarket, bowling alley, pool tables and a gentleman’s tailors . . .
The bar was unusually busy for a dry country and we went over to get a nice refreshing 7-UP, only to find beer being served by the pint. Real beer. Well, real in the sense of containing alcohol, but brewed on compound by a team of chemical engineers. After quaffing as much of this as we could before last orders (some rules on drinking on the compound exist!) we started on our enormous steak dinners and my colleague who resides full time on the compound revealed his collection of wine and sangria – also home brewed.
I have to say that I have drunk many different wines around the world, but nothing prepared me for the delights of Chateau Arizona (based on the Riyadh grape variety). My colleague informed me that at the large supermarkets there are whole aisles which contain cartons of grape juice from floor to ceiling, right next to the sugar section which is adjacent to the yeast section. Indeed some compounds actually have delivery trucks come in with sugar and grape juice by the ton!
Chateau Arizona is not a delicate wine. Indeed “robust” would be an understatement. Its “nose” is like a shotgun to the olfactory system, only matched by its aggressive assault on the taste buds which, I should add, immediately surrender for fear of death. The first few sips for unaccustomed drinkers cause some interesting reflex reactions such as sharp twisting of the head, a screwing up of the eyes and a strong body shudder. However, careful training over the course of a glass of the stuff results in rapid acclimatization and one adjusts quickly – especially faced with the alternative of alcohol free beverages.
After dinner and drinks we made our way back to the villa wandering through the streets of Arizona, when we suddenly encountered the most bizarre sight yet for me in the Middle East . . . three tame reindeer eating rubbish from the bins near the restaurant. I checked with my colleagues that this was not a result of excessive consumption of Chateau Arizona and they confirmed that we were actually stroking the heads of Riyadh Reindeer.
My resident colleague informed me that these were the Arizona reindeer and that many of the residents treated them as communal pets, feeding them scraps and walking around the compound with them in the way we might expect people to take their dogs for a walk. . . (You can see what a lengthy stay in the Kingdom will do to ordinarily sane people!)
Off to work the next day at our client’s headquarters in Riyadh we were driven by bullet proof cars through the delights of Riyadh. This is not a pretty city . . . in any way. It is very dry, barren, full of concrete and with a miserable atmosphere. It is still advised that foreigners do not venture out into the city after the evening prayer as there are many insurgents in Riyadh who seek out such people out with extremely unpleasant consequences, although all the Saudis I met in Riyadh were extremely kind and pleasant and certainly distanced themselves from the radical section of society which they described as ill-educated and easily manipulated by the extremist leaders.
At the HQ, one of our party, a female colleague from London (dressed from head to toe in a black dress to avoid offending the locals) enquired as to the whereabouts of the ladies toilet. In a thirty storey monolith that is my client’s HQ, there is only one ladies toilet, as of course, women do not generally work in Saudi. The toilet in question had a special key which had to be located and I and my colleagues took turns during the course of the day to escort our female colleague to the ladies.
During the afternoon she wanted to go again (we had advised her at one point to stop drinking so many fluids, but we were ignored!) and I escorted her down to the floor with the ladies loo. The door was locked.
The call of nature was too immediate to seek out the key holder, so after checking the corridors, I escorted her into the Gents toilet on the same floor. I ushered her into the disabled cubicle and stood loitering at the basins, whistling. It was only then I saw the shadow under cubicle 2 of the large Arab gentlemen who was occupying it and going about his business in a rather earnest fashion (as I surmised from the grunts!).
Clearly this was looking like turning into a very embarrassing incident, but luckily my colleague was swift in her ablutions and I smuggled her out of the gents in a deft move which saw her rushed down the corridor in front of me with my back to the CCTV cameras on that particular corridor. I think the gentleman in cubicle 2 must have been quite surprised to hear a ladies voice in his toilet on a Sunday at the office . . .
My last evening in Riyadh was seen off sitting in the restaurant near the Reindeer drinking Chateau Arizona and a real bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label which had mysteriously found its way onto the compound. A very drunken but amusing evening was had by all.
On to Jeddah and a quite different experience. A much nicer atmosphere with green open spaces, parks, trees and the usual seaside atmosphere that most port cities have. I generally felt much safer in Jeddah and even took local taxis during the night without fear. Visiting my colleague from Jeddah in his home was also interesting, involving by now the standard checkpoints and machine guns in the face before entry.
At his apartment on the compound he has built an entire pub in his sitting room with a proper beer pump imported in pieces and stages from the UK over the years. He is a member of the Jeddah Ex Pat Rugby club and they collectively brew several thousand gallons of beer each year and it is extremely good. They also distill the famous Sadiki (nicknamed SID) which is moonshine made from potato peelings and various other substances and patented by British and American Chemical Engineers. It does actually make you go blind in large quantities and there are a multitude of flavors which have been concocted to make it taste like Gin, Malibu and various other spirits including a not wildly successful attempt at Scotch.
When in Rome . . . when in Saudi drink SID!
On returning to Dubai I did the now customary impression of the late Pope John Paul II and kissed the tarmac, rushing through to Duty Free to pick up my usual allowance of evil liquor. I had drunk more alcohol in Saudi in one week than I had in Dubai in 5 months! Extraordinary!
Incidentally, the following weekend after my return to Dubai from the Kingdom, my resident colleague, together with several other ex pats, was arrested by the Riyadh police outside the British Embassy and detained throughout the night for allegedly loitering.
I spent most of my Saturday on the phone to various contacts in Saudi and elsewhere trying to have him sprung from jail. The Embassy staff later confirmed that they believed this to be a reaction from the police to “too many embassy parties on Fridays recently” and that this kind of fun had to be stopped.
This was clearly a harrowing experience for my colleague who managed to get through it with his sense of humor intact. It was one of the worst and strangest calls that I have received though . . .
“Hi! How are you?” (Me)
“Fine. Well not fine actually. I am in Riyadh Jail.” (My Colleague)
“Oh!”
“Went to a party last night, got arrested by the Riyadh Police, been in jail since just after midnight, can’t seem to get out.”
“Jesus! Have you been treated properly?”
“Not too bad. No fluids, and nowhere to sit down, and I haven’t slept. I don’t know what we have been charged with or even if we have been charged, nor do I know what to do to get out and my papers are apparently not complete. I am the last one left as everyone else has been sprung. The police are quite polite. Any chance of helping out at all?”
And so on. . .
He was released unharmed, but exhausted. We now have ensured that a dedicated Saudi “fixer” is available to him I the future to negotiate him out of these kinds of scrapes.
I will be back and forth to the Kingdom several times during the course of the rest of the year, but I don’t expect to encounter anything as strange as the reindeer of Riyadh or drink so much home brewed alcohol as I did on the first trip. I am also hoping not to be invited to the British Embassy on a Friday . . . !
Sunday, June 12, 2005
US Death Penalty Stats
Following on from the "Hanging Around in Kuwait" story below, and for those interested in the Death Penalty in the US, these sources were forwarded by my cousin from Alabama. Right click on blue sections to open respective web site in a new window.
Capital Punishment 2002 Department of JusticeBureau of Justice Statistics
Death Row U.S.A., Spring 2004 NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund97 Hudson Street, 16th FloorNew York, N.Y. 10013(212) 219-1900Death Row, U.S.A.
Death Penalty Information Center 1320 18th Street NW, 5th FloorWashington, D.C. 20036(202) 293-6970
Capital Punishment 2002 Department of JusticeBureau of Justice Statistics
Death Row U.S.A., Spring 2004 NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund97 Hudson Street, 16th FloorNew York, N.Y. 10013(212) 219-1900Death Row, U.S.A.
Death Penalty Information Center 1320 18th Street NW, 5th FloorWashington, D.C. 20036(202) 293-6970
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Hanging Around In Kuwait
My first trip to Kuwait came in January of this year when I visited Kuwait City (the capital) on business. (The region is not well known for the originality of thought that goes into the naming of some of its cities . . .).
We had been warned on arrival at the airport that a black sedan filled with insurgents had been driving around the centre of town shooting westerners indiscriminately (and with some small success) . . . which was obviously what I was dying to hear on the occasion of my first visit to the country.
On enquiring of my local colleague where we were to stay, he informed me that our hotel was in the centre of the city, precisely where the insurgents and their little black car had been all day long. Great news.
I was then advised not to worry as there were two large tanks and an armoured vehicle with a large machine gun outside the hotel. (So no sea view for us then!)
This was all on top of the really rather more important issue of Kuwait being dry with nothing more fortifying than a Diet 7 Up to get us through the evening. . . what joy!
The night passed without incident (or alcohol) and the insurgents were apparently rounded up by the police and taken to jail. There was a gunfight with police during their arrest where some of them were killed - the others were not so lucky and are due to stand trial later this year. The death penalty was recently called for in this instance by the Kuwaiti authorities. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
(On this subject, Hosni Mubarek's Egyptian Government (this last word is commonly replaced with the old fashioned word "D^ct@torsh%p" for people of a more politically astute nature) recently announced that the leader of one of the "opposition" parties who had been imprisoned for sedition, had committed suicide in jail. Apparently, according to the official police report, he had gone quite mad and repeatedly ran at the wall of his cell with his head bowed until his injuries resulted in fatality. Hmmm!)
Anyway!
At breakfast in the hotel lobby, I decided, as is my habit while traveling, to peruse the local newspaper to discover a little more about Kuwaiti life.
The headline of the front page of the English language edition was "Two Pakistanis Swing". This was not referring to a popular dance music culture of the 20th century, but rather to a public hanging which had been held the previous day.
I quickly turned to page two and was staggered to see some 7-8 photographs of the dead torsos in glorious technicolor - courtesy of the "Hanging Photocall" that had kindly been arranged by the authorities. Nice touch.
I started to read the accompanying article. The two men had been executed early in the morning in front of a select band of onlookers and Kuwait officials. The first had died instantly as his head had detached itself immediately when the trap door was released, the other dying after six minutes. Photographers had been asked not to take pictures of the detached head. (Have to draw a line somewhere I suppose).
Great concern was voiced regarding the nature of the detached head and authorities apparently were worried that some would see this as suspicious. Consequently an investigation was immediately launched into why the head had come off prisoner number one so quickly. In a sidebar to the main article the reader was treated to the truth . . .
The fault obviously lay in the hanging rope that was used. Apparently Kuwait had for many years imported its hanging rope from the Great Britain, a country which I learnt had a worldwide reputation as a supplier of fine hanging rope.
British hanging rope offers superior quality, strength and storage characteristics which make it the preferred choice when it comes to old fashioned execution. The problem lay in the fact that the UK supplies of quality hanging rope have recently dried up, forcing the poor executioners to turn to the far inferior, but cheaper and more widely available Egyptian hanging rope (demand for which is no doubt driven by the democratic government of Egypt!). Egyptian rope apparently does not store well, causing it to dry and become brittle. In some cases, as in this particular instance, this can cause decapitation.
I was glad to learn that there was yet another thing that Britain used to excel at and which now it no longer did, and fascinated to learn something of the history of hanging rope. But what was more interesting than all of this was the impression I was left with after reading the article and enjoying the nice pictures over a cappucino and croissant.
I was initially horrified at the apparent barbarity of this act of capital punishment and indeed the article which covered it. Lots of nice prejudices began entering my brain regarding the Middle East and the stereotypical associations many in the West have about the region. However, after some moment's reflection, I began to see things slightly differently.
Kuwait has had legislation for capital punishment since 1995. Since the laws were passed, only six people (prior to these two individuals) have been executed. All for drugs offences.
The two men executed the previous day had been found smuggling large quantities of heroin and hashish into Kuwait and were convicted by a court of law and sentenced to death. While questioning once more the merits or otherwise of capital punishment, it struck me that the smuggling and subsequent peddling of drugs causes large amounts of pain and indeed death and therefore the punishment seemed somewhat fair. I was still left with the impression that this was a somewhat brutal approach, until I recalled something else . . .
The USA, that global beacon of democracy and civility which all other countries and states try to model themselves, is lead by a President who, when governor of Texas, signed more death warrants than any of his predecessors. (Texas, of course, being the state which executes more people annually than all of the rest of the world put together.)
This would be the same President who brutalised a nation in the name of freedom (Iraq), and felt nothing when thousands of innocents were killed by his overzealous, young and inexperienced soldiers. (I had a member of my staff whose uncle was blown up and killed in Baghdad by American soldiers who "got the wrong house". His crime was eating lunch with his family.)
The same President who gained re-election on a campaign fuelled by right wing Christian fundamentalism and fear, but who denounces some other religions and their supporters as evil and talks about "crusades".
So brutality has many different faces. Us Westerners will all too easily jump to stereotype based on media pronunciations, prejudice and ignorance. It is a shame that many do not take the trouble to see the other side of the picture and indeed learn a little more about other people's opinions.
Did you know that 80% of the staff at Al Jazeera are ex BBC and were trained by the Corporation to exactly the same standards as the journalists you watch on television every night on the 9 o'clock news. They formed Al Jazeera when the BBC, in its wisdom, decided to shut down the BBC Middle Eastern department -presumably to fund more shows of Noel's House Party or documentaries on the rights of crack addicted, unemployed single mothers with criminal records.
Back to the story!
The article concluded with the dying wishes of the two prisoners. The first requested that his body be returned to Pakistan for burial. The second requested a water cooler to be installed at the prison where he had come from. Bizarre!
An altruistic act which he could surely never benefit from. Each to their own!
I left Kuwait later that day to fly to Qatar where I encountered the world's largest cigar, the most expensive flower arrangement ever and a host of other interesting things which will be relayed in a future entry, together with the tales from Tehran and the encounter with the Reindeer of Riyadh . . .
Until then, and in the words of late, great Dave Allen, may your God be with you . . .
We had been warned on arrival at the airport that a black sedan filled with insurgents had been driving around the centre of town shooting westerners indiscriminately (and with some small success) . . . which was obviously what I was dying to hear on the occasion of my first visit to the country.
On enquiring of my local colleague where we were to stay, he informed me that our hotel was in the centre of the city, precisely where the insurgents and their little black car had been all day long. Great news.
I was then advised not to worry as there were two large tanks and an armoured vehicle with a large machine gun outside the hotel. (So no sea view for us then!)
This was all on top of the really rather more important issue of Kuwait being dry with nothing more fortifying than a Diet 7 Up to get us through the evening. . . what joy!
The night passed without incident (or alcohol) and the insurgents were apparently rounded up by the police and taken to jail. There was a gunfight with police during their arrest where some of them were killed - the others were not so lucky and are due to stand trial later this year. The death penalty was recently called for in this instance by the Kuwaiti authorities. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
(On this subject, Hosni Mubarek's Egyptian Government (this last word is commonly replaced with the old fashioned word "D^ct@torsh%p" for people of a more politically astute nature) recently announced that the leader of one of the "opposition" parties who had been imprisoned for sedition, had committed suicide in jail. Apparently, according to the official police report, he had gone quite mad and repeatedly ran at the wall of his cell with his head bowed until his injuries resulted in fatality. Hmmm!)
Anyway!
At breakfast in the hotel lobby, I decided, as is my habit while traveling, to peruse the local newspaper to discover a little more about Kuwaiti life.
The headline of the front page of the English language edition was "Two Pakistanis Swing". This was not referring to a popular dance music culture of the 20th century, but rather to a public hanging which had been held the previous day.
I quickly turned to page two and was staggered to see some 7-8 photographs of the dead torsos in glorious technicolor - courtesy of the "Hanging Photocall" that had kindly been arranged by the authorities. Nice touch.
I started to read the accompanying article. The two men had been executed early in the morning in front of a select band of onlookers and Kuwait officials. The first had died instantly as his head had detached itself immediately when the trap door was released, the other dying after six minutes. Photographers had been asked not to take pictures of the detached head. (Have to draw a line somewhere I suppose).
Great concern was voiced regarding the nature of the detached head and authorities apparently were worried that some would see this as suspicious. Consequently an investigation was immediately launched into why the head had come off prisoner number one so quickly. In a sidebar to the main article the reader was treated to the truth . . .
The fault obviously lay in the hanging rope that was used. Apparently Kuwait had for many years imported its hanging rope from the Great Britain, a country which I learnt had a worldwide reputation as a supplier of fine hanging rope.
British hanging rope offers superior quality, strength and storage characteristics which make it the preferred choice when it comes to old fashioned execution. The problem lay in the fact that the UK supplies of quality hanging rope have recently dried up, forcing the poor executioners to turn to the far inferior, but cheaper and more widely available Egyptian hanging rope (demand for which is no doubt driven by the democratic government of Egypt!). Egyptian rope apparently does not store well, causing it to dry and become brittle. In some cases, as in this particular instance, this can cause decapitation.
I was glad to learn that there was yet another thing that Britain used to excel at and which now it no longer did, and fascinated to learn something of the history of hanging rope. But what was more interesting than all of this was the impression I was left with after reading the article and enjoying the nice pictures over a cappucino and croissant.
I was initially horrified at the apparent barbarity of this act of capital punishment and indeed the article which covered it. Lots of nice prejudices began entering my brain regarding the Middle East and the stereotypical associations many in the West have about the region. However, after some moment's reflection, I began to see things slightly differently.
Kuwait has had legislation for capital punishment since 1995. Since the laws were passed, only six people (prior to these two individuals) have been executed. All for drugs offences.
The two men executed the previous day had been found smuggling large quantities of heroin and hashish into Kuwait and were convicted by a court of law and sentenced to death. While questioning once more the merits or otherwise of capital punishment, it struck me that the smuggling and subsequent peddling of drugs causes large amounts of pain and indeed death and therefore the punishment seemed somewhat fair. I was still left with the impression that this was a somewhat brutal approach, until I recalled something else . . .
The USA, that global beacon of democracy and civility which all other countries and states try to model themselves, is lead by a President who, when governor of Texas, signed more death warrants than any of his predecessors. (Texas, of course, being the state which executes more people annually than all of the rest of the world put together.)
This would be the same President who brutalised a nation in the name of freedom (Iraq), and felt nothing when thousands of innocents were killed by his overzealous, young and inexperienced soldiers. (I had a member of my staff whose uncle was blown up and killed in Baghdad by American soldiers who "got the wrong house". His crime was eating lunch with his family.)
The same President who gained re-election on a campaign fuelled by right wing Christian fundamentalism and fear, but who denounces some other religions and their supporters as evil and talks about "crusades".
So brutality has many different faces. Us Westerners will all too easily jump to stereotype based on media pronunciations, prejudice and ignorance. It is a shame that many do not take the trouble to see the other side of the picture and indeed learn a little more about other people's opinions.
Did you know that 80% of the staff at Al Jazeera are ex BBC and were trained by the Corporation to exactly the same standards as the journalists you watch on television every night on the 9 o'clock news. They formed Al Jazeera when the BBC, in its wisdom, decided to shut down the BBC Middle Eastern department -presumably to fund more shows of Noel's House Party or documentaries on the rights of crack addicted, unemployed single mothers with criminal records.
Back to the story!
The article concluded with the dying wishes of the two prisoners. The first requested that his body be returned to Pakistan for burial. The second requested a water cooler to be installed at the prison where he had come from. Bizarre!
An altruistic act which he could surely never benefit from. Each to their own!
I left Kuwait later that day to fly to Qatar where I encountered the world's largest cigar, the most expensive flower arrangement ever and a host of other interesting things which will be relayed in a future entry, together with the tales from Tehran and the encounter with the Reindeer of Riyadh . . .
Until then, and in the words of late, great Dave Allen, may your God be with you . . .
Friday, June 10, 2005
First thoughts
My very first thoughts about web logging or blogging are that this will be a convenient and easy way to share updates with friends and family around the world.
I live in Dubai in the UAE, my family are in the UK, US, Greece and elsewhere, and my friends are spread all over the world.
I will use this web log to share some of my thoughts and experiences (and maybe a few photos!) as I get settled into a new country, region, culture and language (Yup! Arabic is the next language to be attempted).
Selfishly (although highly practically!) I will be able to keep whomever is interested updated with my goings on without having to stop and contact everyone individually. Time shortage is a significant problem for me in my job and this will help me economise on time and still keep in touch.
So here goes!
XENOS DXB
I live in Dubai in the UAE, my family are in the UK, US, Greece and elsewhere, and my friends are spread all over the world.
I will use this web log to share some of my thoughts and experiences (and maybe a few photos!) as I get settled into a new country, region, culture and language (Yup! Arabic is the next language to be attempted).
Selfishly (although highly practically!) I will be able to keep whomever is interested updated with my goings on without having to stop and contact everyone individually. Time shortage is a significant problem for me in my job and this will help me economise on time and still keep in touch.
So here goes!
XENOS DXB
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