Saudi Arabia – A history of a Bourgeoning Country
Saudi Arabia’s unique role in the Arab and Islamic world, its ownership of the world’s largest oil reserves, and strategic location have played a role in the long-standing bilateral relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Oil Industry drives Saudi Arabia’s wealth and influence both regionally and around the world. It has allowed it to create strong relationships with powerful friends like the USA.
The world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Arabia is also the driest and sparsely populated kingdom in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia covers much of the northern and central Arabian Peninsula and is a young country with a rich history. The population are divided between just a few cities and the desert and small towns. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi with other large cities being Dharan powered by oil and military bases as well as Jedda on the west coast. This city is a modern city with a lot to see. Located on the coast it is convenient to the holy city’s of Mecca and Medina where Islam began.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East is the fourteenth largest country in the world. It covers an area of two million square kilometers, making it the largest OPEC member. The majority is desert with even Riyadh being 2000ft AMSL but on sand. Moving south west you are met with quite rocky mountains that extend up to 10,000 ft amsl where there is a hotel you can visit. This is in the south wet corner in the Asir region.
Many citizens have benefitted from huge and rapid investments in the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, but these investments also supported the lavish lifestyles of the ruling family. The royal family are who are religious conservatives rather than liberal democrats rule the country with much of the wealth being extravagantly used while some of the country remains poor and undeveloped. The royal family has been accused by some within the family of squandering or mishandling the country’s wealth. Saudi Arabia remains one of the few countries in the world that has not accepted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations.
Saudi Enjoys Two Seas
Saudi Arabia ( Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or KSA) is a country in the Middle East that occupies most of Arabian Peninsula and the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
The country is situated between the Red Sea and Arabian gulf which are quite busing shipping lanes. The Red sea is an amazing place to visit with its very warm waters and sandy beaches. There are lots of places for locals to visit and enjoy a swim as always remaining modest in their attire.
Along with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, it is one of only two countries named after their royal families. In response to criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, Saudi Arabia pointed out to the country’s peculiar Islamic character and claimed that it justified a different social and political order.
The royal family is the house of Saud where the countries name comes from. They have been ruling the country since the days of Lawrence Arabia who assisted in bringing the many tribes together under one ruling family and creating the Saudi Arabia we see today.
Islamic Terrorists & Saudi
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in 2010, Saudi Arabia became the world’s largest arm importer. It received four times as many important weapons between 2005 and 2009.
Saudi Arabia’s relations with the West began to cause growing concerns among ulama (students of Sharia law), one of the problems that led to an increase in Islamist terrorist terrorism in the country.
Islamist terrorist attacks on Saudi nationals in Western countries. According to the World Bank, in 2012 14,3 million people visited Saudi Arabia, making it the most visited country in the world.
Saudi Arabia have long been held as sponsors of terrorisms even against their allies with the view of leading the Islamic world against the wet. This is in stark contradiction of the fact there major trading partners like the USA and UK are the then enemies but their major trading partners. Its a very complicated relationship between Missle East and West.
Saudi Arabia Crime Rates
Although Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, there is a regular police presence in the public, and in other parts of the country there is a small number of non-violent opportunistic thefts, pickpocketing, and handbag robberies. The Internet in Saudi Arabia is closed and filtered ; its targets are pornography, non-Islamic religious and domestic political pages in Arabic ; illegal gambling ; criticism of their religion ; government from the perspective of travelers. This is stricter than in China. There are well-known Saudi Arabian human rights activists in the country who are arrested and imprisoned at the end of each year.
More than 10 million migrant workers remain subject to the kafala sponsorship system in Saudi Arabia, which gives employers disproportionate power over them, prevents them from leaving the country to change jobs without their employer’s permission and increases their vulnerability to abuse and exploitation of labor.
Saudi Human Rights
In August, in a long overdue development, the Saudi Human Rights Commission announced that the country’s public prosecutor’s office had ordered a review of the death sentences against Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood al-Marhoun, who were facing imminent execution. The three young men were arrested as children in 2012 and charged with crimes related to their participation in anti-government protests in the eastern province.
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Saudi – Expats Point of View
If your an expat your going to find so many contradictions within Saudi Arabia with its people wanting the benefits of the west but rejecting the western culture which often accompanies it. In my 13 years living in Saudi Arabia I found the people quite difficult to work with. They were mostly uninterested in doing any work in the RSAF (Royal Saudi Air Force) and wanting the contractors like myself which were suppose to be their instructors to be their workers. Their general opinion was we were the workers and they were the bosses.
The Saudis I met were not technically minded and had some bazar ways of repairing things when they were broken. Deciphering faults and repairing them was ok at a limited level but if it got complex they mostly struggled. This is not to say there were some that were very good at their jobs but it wasn’t common.
Life is very segregated in all aspects although there seems to be a push by the current King to modernize Saudi Culture to a point. Women’s only recently were given permission to drive cars. I would suspect for most it will never happen especially in the country. Many Saudi women have been killed protesting their bleak lives and asking for more freedoms.
Western women are often followed around by young Saudi men who have been seen masturbating’s while doing so. The culture is very backward in my opinion at least when I left there in the 1990’s. There is a lot of amazing tourist areas from the Red sea to the Gulf and the mountain ranges in the Asir region to historical areas where Lawrence of Arabia fought battles to bring the Saudi nation into being.
Would I recommend traveling to Saudi Arabia as a tourist. I certainly would not. If your going there for work you had better be ready for a bit of a culture shock. It’s not like any place I have been.
