The Lives of Saudi Women: A Sketch

I work at the male branch of a university in Saudi Arabia. Some of us on occasion go over to the women's branch after hours when the women are gone to do various kinds of work: set up computers, deliver exams etc. A couple of months ago, one of the male teachers was at the female campus after hours one day and was setting up a computer in the computer lab. He looked down and noticed that one of the girls had left her art pad/sketch pad under one of the computers. Her name was written on the front of the pad in Roman letters. The male teacher started looking through the sketch pad and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the sketches and at how talented the girl was.

The teacher was even more surprised when in the middle of the sketch pad he saw a sketch of a man and a woman in the middle of a very engaging coital bout: in formus caninus to be precise, and drawn expertly in minute and exquisite detail. Bulging veins, sweat covered limbs, entwined torsos and faces showing bodies mired deep in the raptures of pleasure were all captured in the finest and most skilled detail.In Saudi Arabian universities for women, women are allowed to uncover their faces and take off their black cloak, known as an abayya, as long as they are indoors. The female teachers who work there tell me "it's a fashion show." And that the students are nearly always better dressed and are more fashionable than their teachers.

Are Saudi women are more normal than we think they are, and as they appear (or don't appear) in public? It seems their fantasy lives and aesthetic sense are about as well honed and active as they rest of ours are.The particular male teacher who saw this sketch was an American. There was a very pious Muslim, who happened to be Somali, standing next to him who was horrified at the picuture and immediately started ripping it out of the sketch pad and ripping it to shreds. The American asked why, and was told, wisely, that the girl's name was on the outside of the pad and that if the picuture was found by the wrong people she might find herself in a lot of trouble. So, the strictures on pleasure that exist in a conservative country like this come from all directions, and are both opposed and supported from all directions as well. While there is a lot about this place that is black and white, and very annoyingly so. But there is much that is gray as well. Salam Alaykum

Tariki and Jiriki

In discussions of Japanese Buddhism you occassionally run across the notion of "tariki" and "jiriki." The Japanese character "ta," which is straight from Chinese actually, means "other, outiside." "Riki" means "power." "Ji," or "si" in modern Chinese, means "self." The notions tariki and jiriki have been part of Japanese Buddhist discourse since Buddhism arrived in Japan from China since the sixth century. Pure Land Buddhism, for example, is often compared to Lutheranism because of its emphasis on grace and the idea that the individual cannot save themselves and must rely upon the Buddha Amitaba to do so. Pure Land Buddhism was and is often distinguished from Zen where the emphasis was placed on individual initiative and the need for working out one's own salvation---a jiriki religion in other words.

Many of us who come to work in Saudi Arabia often see a similar distintion at work between "us" (as if we are all the same) and the Saudis. Saudis, for example, constantly utter the phrase "in sha Allah" meaning "God willing." This phrase is heard especially coming from those who might or might not do what you are asking of them. It is thus heard from bureaucrats when you want them to fix something in your government issued apartment, people in the personnel department where you work when you are waiting for them to process your immigration pepers, and from students when ask them to do some form of homework.

So are Saudis really less used to doing things for themselves than are people in the west? Judging from the Saudi students to whom I teach English and from other Saudis I encounter at my job and in the community, the answer seems to be yes. These students drive like complete maniacs on the highway and in residential areas. One of the leading causes of death in Saud Arabia is car accidents. I have not yet been here six months and have heard of three deaths among the friends or family members of my studednts. And this is only in my classes. There are other teachers I know who can vouch for similar numbers. So the reigning mindset on Saudi highways certainly seems to be a tariki one rather than a jiriki one.

The students I teach also seem to have a similar view when studying for exams or when doing homework. These students are in an institution where the entire second year is taught in English and where students will take courses in business and science and have to listen to lectures in English taught by speactialists in these disciplines. Some of the first year courses too are mathematics and computer science which are also taught completely in English. At least 60% of the students I teach (who are in the first year, or "prep year" of the program) are at a level of English that prevents them from carrying on a simple conversation in the language; yet they will not do the homework that I give them to help them improve in their handling of basic grammar structures and to acquire the needed vocabulary to communicate on basic topics in English.

So, the "tariki' mentality seems to be widespread here. But does it come from Islam (the word itself means "submission") , which stresses submission, obedience and the denial of the self and putting the family and uluma (the world of Islam) first? Or does it come from living under a welfare state run off of petro-dollars and where self-initiative is not needed? Here, much of the real work is done either by foreigners or by a small band of elite Saudis who actually posses the real skill and knowhow and run the country.

The answer, as usual, lies somewhere in between. The real contradiction however, and the saddest and most confusing thing, is that the few Saudis who do seem to realize that their instututions are set up to engender passivity are the ones who become the new elite. This elite, as far as I can tell, is the only patrioitc group of individuals here. The rest of them, however proud they are of at least thingking of themselves as Saudi, do not seem to realize how they constantly undercut the building and improving of their nation. It is for this reason that I feel like I, who have not even been here six months, am often a better Saudi than those self-understood real Saudis that I encounter everyday living out their bewildering, unconcered and "tariki" lives.