Sex and the Saudi

Arjun:

I think Ahmad Madani is Indian...kinda like Bhartiya Mussulmaan used to be Muslim.

Fuzair,

I can`t see how, what you are saying is any different from what I have said. The only difference is that our perspectives are different yet we base our perception on the same fact. And the fact remains that Arabs do not have control over their money . The saying that `Possession is half owner-ship` does not hold true here instead we should say that `Possession is THE owner-ship` holds true here. Since Arabs do not have possession of their money they are bound to do what they are told to do. I think the only Arab that ever tried to take that control back from West was Shah Faisal; he was instrumental in imposing oil embargo and introducing reform in the society. He was the first who introduced TV in SA and opened up education institution for girls and women - a first in that society along with some judicial reforms. So he was assassinated. The West did freeze Iran`s assets (aka their money) after the revolution, as a punitive action, and had they not siezed US embassy, West would have digested all their assets without a burp. The fact remains that Arabs despite all their money have no leverage, because they do not ``possess`` the money.

You say that it is Arabs fault and I say that Arabs are forced to committing that fault.

re. Fuzair, #58
As usual, always a pleasure reading your psots. Very informative!

Here`s something I didn`t quite get though.. (emphasis added)
``US banks are now flush with funds which they lend to other countries. Parts of these loans are used to pay for very expensive oil imports--which leads, indirectly, to the Debt Crisis of the 1980s but that is another story.

Fuzair, correct me if wrong, but aren`tthe treasury bonds etc., really a way of selling, not lending, their budget deficit (which of course, makes it a liability; not an asset, as implied above)? And is it really an indirect link?

And is the US currently not facing a Debt Crisis? I`m speaking with reference to Richard Duncan`s (?) contentions in The Dollar Crisis here.

Thanks.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Urstruly,

OK, here goes nothing. Saudis sell oil to the West, the West pays them $. In the normal course of events, the $ would be used by the Saudis to pay for whatever they want to import (i.e., everything except for camels and dates). So far so good?

So the Saudis, having no education, no industry, no infrastructure, no nothing in the 1960s are very rich and live rather luxurious life-styles by the 1980s. Within a generation they go from wiping their behinds with rocks to gold-plated bidets. For a while at least, they have so much money that they can`t spend all of it, no matter how hard they try. They have to invest the rest of their wealth somewhere and so they hire foreigners to build their roads, their ports, their airports, their refineries, their gold and iron mines, etc. etc. etc.. They also have to hire foreigners, roughly 4 million at last count, to run everything, from banks to convenience stores to oil refineries to the army, for them. And they also provide a cradle to grave welfare state to keep their people happy.

They, however, still haven`t run out of money yet. There is really nothing to invest in in Saudi so they take their unspent dollars and either invest it in the US Stock Market or in US-T Bills/Bonds. That is a petrodollar. The etymology is clearly derived from the Eurodollar accounts of the 1950s. US banks are now flush with funds which they lend to other countries. Parts of these loans are used to pay for very expensive oil imports--which leads, indirectly, to the Debt Crisis of the 1980s but that is another story.

So, Oil => Export Earnings; recyled back to West for imported goods and workers to give Saudis an OECD lifestyle; surplus is reinvested back into the West (with a crumb thrown to the Islamic Development Bank).

However, a Total Fertility Rate of 6.15, a population growth rate of 3.27% and a rise in life expectancy to 69 leads to a massive increase in the Saudi population: lots more Saudi mouths to be fed and found jobs for. However, combine this with declining per capita oil demand in the West, the oil price crash, huge bills from the 1991 Gulf War, massive spending on arms, etc. etc. etc. and you have a crisis in the brewing. Further combine it with the fact that 80% of the Saudis work in the public sector and that no Saudi ever actually wants to have to work for a living and you get a 0.4% real GDP growth rate. Only 4% of the Saudi workforce is in manufacturing and 12% is in the service sector. So Saudis want to work for the govt--i.e., be paid for 8 hours work while actually doing 2 (tops) or if they work for the private sector, want to start very high up the ladder, supervising Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis/Egyptians/Jordanians who do the actual work.

Lets add some more spice to this disaster pot bubbling on the fire. Why does it surprise you that the country is tottering on the brink of fiscal collapse when 20% of the college graduates in Saudi Arabia have degrees in Islamic theology rather than anything even remotely useful in the real world? (Actually, I thought the figure was more like 25% but this is all that I can definitely confirm.) You seriously think that a graduate of the Islamic University of Saudi Arabia is fit to do anything other than (not) work in a goverment office?

Where you got that grocery store analogy from, I have no idea. What makes you think that the Saudis haven`t been paid for their oil? What makes you think that the West ``owes`` the Saudis tens of billions of dollars that they refuse to pay back? Probably, if the Saudis were to liquidate ALL their investments in the US and demand to be paid back immediately (in Swiss Francs or DM or some other non $ hard currency) this would trigger a worldwide financial crisis and might well lead the US govt to freeze all Saudi assets, but that is far cry from what you describe.

Hope this helps.

hamidm

Are you trying to tell me that we should look at the whole west through the paradigm of these three countries..sweden, finland, and Denmark? I am appaled that you take me for that much of a phuddu.

It is true that these three countries did not colonize any of the third world country, but i recommend that you look into the brief history of those countries. You will see how their economies flourished through their natural resources that they sold to their colonial neighbors (which I dont think is a crime) but indirectly they have benefitted from their colonial neighbors. The question thus is whether these countries could still be that rich hadn`t they been in the vicinity of their colonial neighbors?

tahmad

Palestinians sold their land to jews happily? absentee landlords?..............are you totally out of your mind? Massacars of palestinians happened in 1948 and 3 million of them were forced out of their homes to live in refugee camps in neighboring countries. I have yet to come across a person who happily sells his property and starts living in a refugee camp in a neghboring country without any citizenship status. I am so glad that you found 3 million of them.

Look I appreciate you desperate attempts to give a human face to the colonialism and the attroicities that US and Israel are committing against Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general, but please spare me from this propaganda. You can still do it but plz dont address that post to me....it wastes my time.

Fuzair

I dont think so, but I am willing to listen and learn. But I assure you that despite all the niceties that you will use to describe the situation, one will reach to the same conclusion. Facts on the ground i.e. what is happening in middle east vs. US, are beyond those niceties. Anyway lets here it.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Sigalph #41,

Yes, you are right about civility stopping you from making adverse comments about
Hamidm....but I am sure you know from your long presence at chowk that much of
what he says here is in jest. I guess ``Bengalis`` was thrown in there for purely alliterative
purposes.

As a fellow Bengali, I would like to believe that.

A recent report widely circulated from Pakistan mentioned that roughly 8,500 Pakistanis

were currently in overseas jails. And most interesting was the fact that out of these

over 5000 of these were jailed in Saudi Arabia.

Any questions or comments?


Ras

Fuzair:

``An uncle of mine, very Martial, really does believe that PMs make better soldiers than, say, Sindhis because there is such a long tradition of soldiering in the Five Districts that new recruits come already half-socialized into the Army`s ethos. ``

HAHAHA! This was funny. I guess a comparison could be drawn with Gujarat where no recruitment of any name takes place. You do have a point about the military ethos. My own feeling is this ethos may not go back more then 4-5 generations, that is all.

hamidm #36 Agreed on your basic point that western prosperity is not built - as the self-serving argument goes - on colonialism. If colonialism was all that was needed, the Mongols would have been the wealthiest people in the world. Western prosperity is based of course on the dawning of the Age of Reason, which in turn gave a boost to science, which gave rise to technological advancements, which in turn increased productivity. 18th and 19th century colonial empires were the result of this increase in western power and prosperity, not the cause of it. They did further boost their power through provision of raw materials, but those raw materials were mere inputs to the industrial machinery of the west, not the cause of it. And in any case, the colonies are long gone, and the west (and other countries in the world that have learnt from the west rather than closing their eyes to reality) has made incredible advancements in productivity and science and technology in the 50 years after that.

I dont think it is genetic though. After all, racially the Arabs and Europeans are much closer than either side acknowledges. a brief reading of history would make this clear - including crusaders in the 11th-13th century AD who settled down in the middle east, married locals, and for a long time there were christian kingdoms in areas stretching from modern day israel to southern turkey and syria and jordan. There were many other ways in which intermingling has taken place - janissaries were largely european boys and young men who were raised as muslims and formed the most loyal fighters of the ottoman empire; white slaves were captured by arabs from eastern europe, southern england and as late as the 16th century i think there was an arab slave ship that brought in fresh captives from Iceland of all places. It is not surprise therefore that many arabs are as blue eyed and blond as any european. and many europeans (including germans - are of arab descent - king Frederick I i think, great grandson of Charlemagne, had arab women to keep him happy, and he had arab soldiers in his castle in Germany.

So, it cant be genes that modern day arabs seem so incompetent. I guess that is good news. The entire genetic view of the world is largely hogwash i think (i think..)

Irrespective of what everybody else is saying, I fully agree with the author as the situtation is very much the same there in Saudi Arabia, from Khafji to Ha`il and to Jezan as nothing has changed much. At present I am stationed in the very center of the country and have been living with the actual natives for quite a long time.

It is nothing with Islam as I suppose as most of the local people are still illetrate and do not know about what and why they are doing...they still drive their GMCs, pray in the middle of desert on bare sand when it is 50`C and never bothered about whats going on around thier country and in the world.

However the economic situation is detiorarating very rapidly now. The major reason is off-course lack of education and skills among the saudis as the widely spoken bandwagon concept of `Saudization` has lost its effect due to people not moving into skilled trades and technical jobs. 95% of hospitals, technical, and professional arenas are all ruled by kharjis and Non-Saudi Arabic speakers. Saudis have strong self esteem and never go for lower jobs which is the major cause of their present condition.

As for the Labour class, it is nothing personal that most of the labour and blue collar workers are Asians, and due to lucratrive currency conversion rate, Bengali, Sri Lankan and Indian workers agree on very low wages as compared to Pakistanis or Filipinos. Most of the cleaning, watchman and other petty jobs are done by young Bengali lads who are low educated and are ready to do any job for a modest salary.

My host, a Saudi who is an American educated white collar professional and very good friend of mine, has two bengali workers and honestly speaking, he beat them very harshly with a cane stick when he found them doing nothing of the house work, sleeping at dinner time or not bringing his Ghutraa or head scarf from the Laundry early morning.

And still a bachelor at the age of 36 (when their parents used to get married at 16), he was telling me that most parents are asking so much dowry that no saudi lad can afford to pay (200k riyals or so for an uneducated saudi girl) when they can get a highly educated, beautiful Egyptian, Morrocan or Syrian girl for almost half of that price. He has gone to Hydrabad in India for some good proposals but due to language barrier hasetated to go forward, but so many parents were ready for the marriage and atleast three of his Saudi colleagues have married from Dakkan. Infact he gave me addresses of marriage bureaues he visited in India for a respective matches.

And no heart feelings as this is his true account that he and many of other young saudi lads like him have started using their male employees for their sexual satisfaction.

And the bitter part of reality is that AIDS and HIV+ cases are being diagonised regularly as on every Driving Licence renewal, the drivers are required to donate half a pint of blood and they are getting the facts now in picture. So it is nothing to do with islam what individuals or states are doing now as this is all self imposed ignorance and self mutilation which has nothing to do with the actuals religious teachings and obligations.

Albait, there are so many of hidden secrets still to reveal but the beating is still going on even today and the poor sufferers are the unfortunate Bengalis.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts