young men have many of the same restrictions...

Here is another great article from the New York Times on the Middle East, this one on young men in Riyadh. Much like the previous article on young female flight attendants, this one focuses on the young men from Saudi Arabia. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for almost a year, I can say that I'm both thankful for the experience and glad not to make it a permanent home.

Last year, I lived and worked in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which is certainly more liberal than Riyadh but also still very much a part of Saudi Arabia. The picture painted by the New York Times is quite familiar to the lives that most of my students lived, with a few exceptions. Some of the students do routinely claim to date girls, and its very possible to see a few brave young men and women eating together in the malls around Khobar.

My friends regularly spoke about how the religious police had really toned down their pressure on social activities in the past 5 years in the Eastern Provence (which includes Khobar, Dammam, and Dharan which is home to the largest oil production facility and company in the Kingdom.) That said, the affect of the occaissional vice bust or worse, social policing by family and community members prevents almost all interaction between men and women at all times.

The result is a bizarre partioned world reminisent of segregation from my American history books. Instead of "whites only" signs, there are "singles section" and "family section". In nicer restaurants, they have seperate entrances, and if you are an unlucky brave sole who isn't married or related to your date, occaissionaly police check id cards to ensure nobody sneeks in. As a westerner, I knew of friends who had broken rules before, but I was terrified when a woman once asked me for directions. Even worse was walking around a mall and hearing loud whispers in Arabic saying "ohhh, welcome my love" and giggling. But for all of the talk of people getting busted, I had several students who clearly broke rules, I went to an underground rock concert, and never once was I ever hassled by the police, religious or not.