CULTURE
Saudi Arabia: The Blog
By Stump Connolly and Maps Apley
PART FOUR: Mecca and Medinah
Stump
Friday, October 11, 2002
1:13:36 PM
The Muttawah
These guys are really starting to piss me off. I went down to breakfast this morning and found Greg slumped over his coffee with a grim face. He had gone out in the pre-dawn to shoot sunrise over Jeddah shots and not once, but twice, was hassled by Muttawah, otherwise known as the religious police.
The first time he was focused in on a mosque when three men in beards and white thobes started walking toward him. Just as they reached the other side of the street, a taxi pulled up and shouted for Greg to jump in. He grabbed the tripod and threw himself into the backseat. As they sped away, the driver said "Muttawah" and twirled his finger at the side of his head to show they were crazy.
Less than 30 minutes later, in a new location, with the sun just peaking over the horizon, Greg was set up again when the police pulled up. First one car, then another, and finally six of them. He showed them his passport, his press card and even his Ministry of Information permission papers, which seemed to do the trick until someone noticed they were issued a week ago for Riyadh.
None of his captors spoke English (and Greg's Arabic is two words short of yes, no and maybe) so he sat in the back of the squad for almost an hour, watching his shot come and go as the sun crossed the surface of a high rise.
At one point, a policeman pointed at his camera and made a chopping gesture at his arm. The implication? Shooting video without a permit is punishable by one limb removal. Maybe the guy thought it was funny. Greg didn't. Eventually, after many calls to HQ, the police decided Greg just wasn't worth the effort and let him go.
Greg's experience this morning was only the latest
in a string. Last night in the souk, I was standing in the doorway of a mosque
shooting prayers when I was stopped. My camera was confiscated and I too waited
in the squad until our driver from the Ministry of Information came to save
me.
The Muttawah are a major presence in Saudi Arabia -- even when they are not around. Their name is spoken in the same tones Russians used to speak of the KGB. Devout Muslims have explained to us that, in their religion, all members of the faith are muttawah, sworn by their religion to watch their cohorts for violations of the Muslim code (like taking pictures of women) and advise people when they are breaking the rules.
In truth, The Muttawah are paid agents of the Ulema, the religious arm of the government, who operate under the auspices of something called The Committee for The Preservation of Virtue and The Prevention of Vice. They patrol the souks, the shopping malls and public squares looking for people who violate the Muslim law. They are identified by their long beards, short thobes and a walking stick they use to swat miscreants.
Their job is to insure that all shops close during prayer hour (five times a day), that foul language and bad behavior are punished, and that women are not harmed by rapacious men.
Saudi Arabia's intellectuals and more liberal citizens laugh at their antics. Almost everyone has a story of being thwacked on the heels by a Muttawah for some alleged public sin.
But the more common shopkeepers take the Muttawah a bit more seriously. The manager of an amusement park in the posh Kingdom Center in Riyadh stopped our shooting for fear the Muttawah might show up. We protested, but he said, "They won't do anything to you, but I will go to jail. I know because I let someone take a picture last year, and they put me in jail for three days."
Although the government pays the salaries of the Muttawah, and sometimes provides them with their own SUV, you can't get the job through civil service. I've tried with two different Ministry of Information managers to get an interview with the guy who hires the Muttawah. Both times, they laughed. This is not a job you apply for. It is a job that falls to you through some secret process that nobody much wants to talk about.
And that's all well and good. It's the same way with the Chicago department of plumbing inspectors. But at least in Chicago, if you get busted for bad pipes, you can buy your way out. Try that with the Muttawah and you're looking at an appointment with the chopping block.
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Maps
Friday, October 11, 2002
5:59:34 PM
More complaining
Being
raised in Nebraska, and now residing in Chicago, you would think that my physiology
would be incredibly adaptable from a ‘weather’ perspective. Having
lived through countless searing summers followed by a corresponding number
of intolerable winters, I ought to be sufficiently primed for just about any
habitable environment this planet has to offer. But this place is pushing
my natural temperature regulation systems to the limit.
The transition from indoor air-conditioning to the humidity-soaked sidewalk happens twenty or more times a day, and that throws everybody’s inner thermometer out of whack. So, we take a lot of showers here in the hotel where ‘Cold’ means ‘warm’ and ‘Hot’ means ‘scalding.’ I don’t know why. But it’s been that way in the last three hotels we stayed. And I still can’t get used to it.
From a shooting perspective, we’ve done very well here in Jeddah. Today being Friday (meaning nothing’s open), we shot a service in a Mosque and then ran around getting exteriors, capping the afternoon with cityscapes from the roof of a 15-story office building.
Tomorrow we wrap it up in Jeddah and hit the long road to Yanbu. If you watch Lawrence of Arabia, you get to see Alec Guiness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) mention the port city of Yanbu a number of times. It’s right after he tells Lawrence that he must learn the ways of the Force to defeat the Evil Empire . . .
You might take it from the last two posts here that Stump and I aren't having a great time. In fact, we are having a great time, but there's no denying that the process of shooting in Jeddah has been more problematic than we imagined. Harder on the gear, harder on the crew, harder to get things on tape.
Part of it stems from cultural differences between Saudis and Americans regarding trust, relationships and timing. Part of it really is the climate--both meteorological and political. It just sucks the energy right out of your bones.
Tonight at dinner, Virginia and I went to see the family of a friend of hers from Chicago. Only the male member of the family would eat with us. By dessert he was staring me down, demanding to know what the hell Bush is thinking going after Iraq and ignoring the plight of the Palestinians.
"What do the American people think about Bush letting Israel and Palestine fight for so long? How can Bush call Sharon a man of peace when he murders children in their homes? How can you expect a man to not fight for his land and when he does, why do you call him a terrorist? Who decides who the terrorists are in America?"
And, so, I had some questions him. "Why were so many Saudis involved in 9/11? How can you expect the American people to sit idly by waiting for a nuclear bomb to destroy one of our major cities?"
He had no real answers for me either. But, the basic issue here in Saudi Arabia is always the Israel/Palestinian crisis. They are bombarded with news of killings and murders every day in every paper, radio and television news program they see. It is the issue at the 'center of the heart of every Arab' according to one of our interviewees. And, I think they're all just tired of hearing about it.
So, what can we do? Not much. For starters, here's what we learned in church today.
Jihad has nothing to do with offensive aggression, according to Yaseen. It is about defending Islamic freedom. Defending freedom is a concept we Americans can relate to.
Also, every good Muslim is Muttawah. The religious police are the official embodiment of the religious ideal, but not all Muttawah are hard-asses. Just like not all LA cops beat down every Afro-American they run across. By and large, most Saudis actually like the way The Muttawah have become western role models in every story that comes out of this holy state.
There are countless other little things besides the Muttawah that we encounter here every day. The rules and regulations of an Islamic government are difficult to follow. But understanding that this is first and foremost a Muslim society will at least give westerners a frame of reference when things look a little strange from our perspective.
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Maps
Saturday, October 12, 2002
8:22:34 PM
On the Road Again
We’re going into the last leg today, a 600-mile journey north from Jeddah, through the ancestral home of Mohammed, Mecca and Medinah, to Yanbu, a small fishing village that has been turned into a new industrial city, and Madain Saleh, an ancient Nabatean ruin from 70 A.D., previously off-limits to western journalists.
Wish us luck!
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Stump
Saturday, October 12, 2002
12:47:41 PM
Fun with Faisal
Travel Days are always hard. First there's the packing and the checkout, then that last little shoot (at 6 AM) to catch school kids going into Osama Bin Laden's old school at Al Thagre . . . and then there's waiting for the Ministry of Information to say it's okay to leave.
We travel now in two cars. Abdullah handles one with the day's shooting gear, Joel and Greg; and Faisal is supposed to take the one with the other luggage -- and us. Getting them both together at the same time, however, can be quite a trick.
We were planning on leaving the hotel at 1 PM. Faisal was there. He had to be. He'd been driving us around since 6 AM getting those last little shots. Abdullah would be arriving "in five minutes."
Faisal went off to get gas and oil. Ten minutes later, Abdullah called to say he'd be at the hotel “in five minutes.” Faisal came back, but not seeing Abdullah, went for coffee. Abdullah then came down from upstairs in the hotel (he'd been sleeping there all along) but he was still wearing his pajamas. So he went up to change just as Faisal came back. Faisal decided to call the Ministry to get a permission slip to leave the back seat of the car (which we'd removed for luggage) at the hotel just as Abdullah arrived with his newly pressed clothes.
You'd think at this point we'd be in business -- 45 minutes later -- but now Abdullah decided he needed to gas up too, but he could only do so with gas vouchers from the Ministry of Information, which they could bring over when they brought the permission to leave the car seat letter. So we talked about it for a while and decided we really didn't need the permission slip, but the gas vouchers were essential.
Soon enough -- in "five minutes" -- the support crew from The Ministry of Information arrived (and the car seat went in the back of the pickup.) Faisal started driving north, but Abdullah now wanted to try his gas vouchers. So one car hit the road and the other hit the gas station and -- 20 minutes later, after Faisal turned back to find Abdullah -- Mitch had a great idea: How about those walkie-talkies?
The walkie-talkies. Of course, why didn't we think of that? We rendezvoused again at the next gas station (the first one didn't take the vouchers) and, splitting the walkies between us, headed off.
"Breaker, breaker, one-nine on a full channel beep. This is rubber duckie and I think we got us a convoy," I shouted into one. I always wanted to say that. "You know these batteries can wear out," Joel answered from the other car.
We high-tailed it down the road, clearing the Jeddah traffic jams in about an hour, then hitting a road with nothing but desert on both sides (and mangled hulks of crashed cars, a frequent site in Saudi Arabia.)
Abdullah was doing about 170 km/hour (110 mph) and Faisal was right behind -- and both were soon chatting up a storm on the walkies. Abdullah popped in a Nazrene tape and cranked up the sound, then broadcast it over to Faisal. Faisal jammed up his radio in response. Between them, they cooked up a scheme to take a new highway that was all but finished -- except for both ends -- and almost had us stop for a leisurely lunch (45 minutes before sundown). We put the kibosh on that one, let me tell you. Miss sunset on a shoot? Not on my watch!
So
we're here. We got to the Yanbu harbor about 15 minutes before the sun went
down and caught some wonderful fishing village stuff in preparation for our
interview with a boat builder tomorrow. All's well. Except Abdullah and Faisal
have a question: How can they get themselves some of these "walkie-talkies"?
I suggested they try the customs office.
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Maps
Sunday, October 13, 2002
1:43:30 AM
Techno desert
There's something surreal about blasting down a newly poured, unmarked desert highway at 100 miles per hour listening to 'Hello Texas' songs at full blast – and not knowing when the pavement will end.
I hear it's cold and a little drizzly in Chicago. This morning while Greg and Joel grabbed some desert shots, Stump and I sat in the car and watched the thermometer rise from 95F to 128F in the space of half an hour. That producer's urge to carry the tripod diminishes a little bit each day.
Tonight Joel, Greg and I made our plans about which kind of booze we're going to drink on the flight out of here.
I think I'll have a Bloody Mary. Any suggestions?
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David
Sunday, October 13, 2002:
9:10:58 AM
How about some green tea?
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Bruce
Sunday, October 13, 2002:
10:12:04 AM
Have a Saddam. One part Ricin, two parts strychnine,
with a dash of death wish.
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Maps
Sunday, October 13, 2002
2:52:03 PM
Yanbu
Yanbu
this morning was a fishy-smelling steam bath. We got on the road an hour after
our planned departure, to visit a 94-year-old boat builder on the beach. He
looked great, his boats were great. Virginia told Stump on the way in that
she’d promised his brother to pay him “a little something”
to let us shoot him at work. “How little?” Stump said. Virginia
thought $300 would cover it. Stump settled on $125, grousing all the way.
Weather-wise, my utmost concern at the moment, Stump and I seem to be in a competition to see who can wring the most moisture out of his body in the least amount of time. By the time we left the first location, we were dead even, but once we got to the alleyways of the old part of Yanbu I took a marked lead.
Stump went into a hubbly-bubbly shop for a Pepsi and wound up shooting the shit with an oil worker from Aramco and the owner while they watched Vanna White spin the Wheel of Fortune on TV.
Greg, Joel and I went looking around the old Yanbu for shots in the dizzying midday sunshine. Even when playing my hardest game of football in high school, I don't think I've ever perspired as much as I did this morning. My eyes were bloodshot from salt and too much rubbing.
Finally, Abdullah, the driver, broke down and bought me a ghotra, the traditional headwear of the Saudi man. Fashioning it into a Yemeni style turban, I managed to stay remarkably cool for the rest of the day.
We left picturesque Yanbu and headed toward Medinah (portions of which are Muslim only). Our Sheraton hotel is just on the outer edge, so we were fine. But we couldn’t shoot any pictures. So I was dispatched to the Saudi TV station to negotiate the acquisition of some of their footage of the central city, and the famous “Battle of the Trenches” site where Mohammed began his crusade to unite the Arabian peninsula under Islam.
Two hours later, I am back -- with no tape. Seems like there are certain permissions required to get the tape out.
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Stump
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
4:08:01 PM
Mecca and Medinah
Mecca and Medinah are the Minneapolis-St. Paul of Islam, twin cities separated by 250 miles but renowned for their sameness.
For the 62 years that The Prophet Mohammed was alive, Mecca and Medina were the two poles of his world. He was born in Mecca in 570 A.D. into a tribe of Qureysh, a people who traced their roots back to Ishmael, the other son of Abraham, and according to both the Bible and the Quran, the whole Judeo-Christian tradition.
For the first 40 years of his life, Mohammed was a salesman. He started working retail alongside his grandfather, then began running caravans up and down the Red Sea into Syria for a woman whom he later married.
One day when he was 40, he went on a camping trip to Hira and Allah came to him through the angel Gabriel and told him “Thou art Allah’s messenger.” The proof was that Allah commanded Mohammed to read. Three times he commanded that he read and, even though Mohammed had no book learning, soon enough he was a regular reader rabbit.
The call from God changed Mohammed’s life. He started preaching the word of Allah but, after three years, he had only four converts -- his wife, his cousin, his cousin’s slave and his best friend Abu Bakr. They convinced him to start working the tent circuit and, sure enough, he soon was drawing a crowd, mostly the poor and oppressed, but a crowd nonetheless.
In those days, the Qureysh seem to have strayed from the straight and true Allah path. Alongside the Kaba in Mecca, they built shrines to various minor demi-gods; and Mohammed, much like Jesus before him, took it upon himself to go to the Kaba and denounce those who put false idols ahead of Allah.
Being a prophet is not easy (Just ask Jesus.) In the ten years that he preached in Mecca, Mohammed was always running into the authorities. He would raise a crowd, win converts and lay down the laws of Islam, then get chased into hiding when the Qureysh rulers thought he was getting too powerful.
At one point, they issued a decree proclaiming that all Meccans should boycott Mohammed’s store and those of his family. They stored the decree inside the Kaba. But the boycott flagged and some of the Qureysh elders demanded to see the document. So the authorities pulled it out only to discover all the writing had been eaten by white ants except the phrase "In Thy name, O Allah." That set them on their ear.
In 621 AD, hearing about The Prophet who was weeding out the pagan rituals, some Jewish rabbis from Yabrin (now known as Medinah) came to Mecca to meet Mohammed and invited him up to live in Medinah.
A year later, surviving assassination attempts and official persecution, Mohammed and a handful of his followers made the move. The Hijrah (pronounced HEZ-rah) which literally means “Move” takes up the whole second half of the Quran and describes how Mohammed took up residence in Medinah, organized the city along Muslim lines -- reversed the direction of Muslim prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca just to show he could -- and waged constant warfare against his old tribe, The Qureysh, to establish a Muslim state in Arabia.
In those days, the practice (among Jews, Christians, Moslems and pagans in the Arabian peninsula) was to make peace treaties with friendly tribes and raid the caravans of enemy tribes. If the raids let to warfare, it was pretty much assumed the victor would have the right to loot the bodies of the vanquished, enslave their women and make the rules by which the remaining members of the tribe would abide.
In this dog-eat-dog world, Mohammed proved himself a gentle man, often forgiving and especially concerned with the welfare of the widows and orphans (hence, the Muslim belief that a man can take up to four wives.) But he did have a mean streak. In his last year, before he died in 632 A.D., he sent out his armies on 38 missions to subdue pagan tribes and personally led 27 of them, including nine where there was hard fighting.
Our
journey from Yanbu to Medinah took us along the route of three of Mohammed’s
greatest battles: his “First Victory” in Badr; his “First
Defeat” on Mt. Uhood; and “The Battle of the Trenches” where,
in the 5th year of the Hijrah, he saved Medinah from a siege by the Qureysh
(and developed an abiding distrust of The Jews, then an ally, whom he believed
were conspiring with the Qureysh.)
In the first battle of Badr, Mohammed and 315 of his men were on a raiding party when the Qureysh sent an army of 3,000 men to quash them. Mohammed (fortunately) was camped around a water hole in Badr when the first wave of 950 warriors appeared. Before the battle was joined, Mohammed prayed to Allah for help. There was suddenly in the background the sound of horses -- the cavalry of Allah -- and Mohammed’s men rallied and swept into the field, killing 17 men and sending the Qureysh away in a route. The Muslim lesson of The First Victory is that with Allah’s help, you can overcome great odds.
In the second battle on Mt. Uhood – also known as “The First Defeat” -- Mohammed placed archers on the high ground protecting Medinah and warned them not to leave their positions even if they saw him fall in the field.
The archers, in fact, didn’t witness a defeat, but saw Mohammed’s forces conquer their foe. Thinking the battle was over, they came down from the mountain to help loot the bodies, leaving the ridge exposed.
The rival commander saw them leave and circled around behind where, now holding the high ground, he routed Mohammed’s army. The lesson of The First Defeat is that you cannot take Allah’s help for granted.
In the “Battle of the Trenches”, Mohammed was persuaded to dig a huge trench around the city -- a novel concept in the chivalrous age of horses and swords -- so deep neither camels or horse cavalries could cross it. Digging the trench was a tremendous task so, to inspire his troops, Mohammed himself dug alongside his men.
The trench kept the surrounding forces at bay for three months. Then one night, a huge sand storm arose blowing out the Qureysh’s fires, knocking down their tents and spilling their water buckets. Out of food and water (and pretty darn cold), the Qureysh abandoned their seige.
From
that day forward, Mohammed set out from Medinah to launch a series of attacks
that would, in the next five years, lead him to capture Mecca and unite all
of northern Arabia under his rule. The lesson of The Battle of the Trenches
is that even Mohammed is not above hard work.
Retracing the battles and listening to Islamic scholars interpret the Quran for me, I was astonished by the specificity with which even the laymen in Islam can recite the history and teachings of Mohammed. Two key factors seem to come into play in this modern Islamic world. First, Mohammed proclaimed that the Quran was not his doing, but the voice of Allah speaking through him; and second, the revelations, coming 600 years after Christ, came at the dawn of pencil and paper. So the words of the Quran are there as Mohammed spoke them -- and Allah intended them – even though Mohammed himself never wrote down a thing.
And that’s proving to be a problem in this modern world. In Judaism and Christianity, there is a certain sense of parable to the religious dictums scholars ascribe to the oral tradition that passed on the story. (Did God really make the world in 7 days? Did all the animals in the world really climb on the ark two by two? Did Jesus really walk on water or just find a high sand bar that, from a distance, made it look like he was walking on water?) Flexibility can be a good thing in religion. It gives it adaptability, allowing old lessons to re-invigorate modern times.
But Islam, especially as practiced in Saudi Arabia, doesn’t have a lot of room for flexibility. There are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia because Mohammed said there could be no churches and synagogues in Arabia. State laws are Islamic laws because Mohammed decreed no law above Islam (and issued a lot of them himself, many of which have no bearing in a modern world.)
Give Mohammed his due. In the ten years of the Hijrah, he destoyed idolatry in Arabia; raised women from the status of a chattel to legal equality with men; effectively stopped drunkenness and immorality; made men to love with faith, act with sincerity and conduct their businesses with honesty. He transformed tribes who had been content for centuries to live in ignorance into a people with a great thirst for knowledge and, for the first time in history, made universal human brotherhood a principle of common law.
But, man, did he make it hard for the rest of us.
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Maps
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
8:01:21 AM
It’s a Wrap
Well, that was fun. It's been a little rough here toward the end, but what an adventure overall.
Our last days here are back in Jeddah. Today was school day starting with an elementary/middle school and finishing at King Abdulaziz University (where Osama went-but don't tell the Min of Info we went back). Aside from the fact that our minder wouldn't let us actually interview anybody, everything went as smoothly as can be expected.
Two
days ago was the trip to Madain Saleh. Beautiful rocks and carvings. But,
the journey itself was hell on our guides. Two near wrecks had us all snuggled
into our seat belts while Abdullah Two went for a new land speed record of
185 kph.
Before we say goodbye, we want to give out some
best/worst awards. We decided on them at dinner last night. I'll write here
what I can read of Stump’s handwriting off the napkin he used.
Best Overall Hotel: Al Khozama - Riyadh
Best Rooms: Crown Plaza (the second time--we all got suites)
Best Lobby: Al Khozama
Best Buffet Breakfast: Crown Plaza - Jeddah
Best Buffet Dinner: Al Khozama
Worst Hotel: Sheraton Medinah (just awful)
Worst Buffet: Sheraton Medinah (no coffee, only Nescafe)
Best Bowling Alley: Holiday Inn - Yanbu
Best TV: Crown Plaza
Best Souk: Al Balal - Jeddah
Best Skyline: Riyadh (all two buildings of it)
Best Mall: Kingdom Center - Riyadh
Best Golf: Saudi Aramco - Dahran
Worst Dining Experience: Planet Hollywood - Jeddah
Best Concierge: Mr. Sothe - Al Khozama
Best Driver: Abdullah One - Riyadh
Worst Driver: Abdullah Two - Jeddah/Medina
Best Guide: Mohammed One - Riyadh
Worst Guide: Abdulshakur - Jeddah/Medina
Worst Muttawah: Jeddah
Best Fishing Village: Yanbu
And that's it. Tonight we get on another plane and make our way back to the states.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
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