I agree completely. I spent 10 years living and working as a teacher in the Middle East...2 years in Iran until the fall of the Shah, then 8 more years in Saudi Arabia. I have spent time in the majority of the Middle Eastern countries as well as Israel. What I realized most of all was that the differences in people in different countries…
I agree completely. I spent 10 years living and working as a teacher in the Middle East...2 years in Iran until the fall of the Shah, then 8 more years in Saudi Arabia. I have spent time in the majority of the Middle Eastern countries as well as Israel. What I realized most of all was that the differences in people in different countries around the world was that it is first and foremost culture, and second, culture driven by religion that creates the vast divide between people. Islam in particular is strange in what it does to people. In S.A. almost every sentence was punctuated by the words "If God wills it." What I soon realized was that this sentence uttered dozens of times each day had as one effect that a person removes all culpability and consequence from his actions....if God wants something to happen, you can't change that, God willed it. I also realized that Islam by its very nature taught its followers to not question anything, and certainly to not question any of the Koran's dictates. In addition, this ingrained attitude was in pretty much everything...just don't question anything, essentially. So much of life in S.A. in particular was tied to a very rigid version of Islam and Sharia law. At the time I was in Iran during the Shah's time, it was much less like that. Religious, but also secular. I don't think it's like that any more, however.
I also saw so very clearly that just like there is no way I could ever assimilate into their culture (to say nothing of not wanting to!), equally there was no way these people could truly assimilate into Western cultures because of how repelled they are of Western cultural practices. In my teaching experience with other Muslims, I saw how ingrained their beliefs were and moreover, even if they had spent time in the West or even if they wanted to live in the West, that did not in the least mean they wanted to adopt Western culture in any way, shape or form.
In the middle of my time in the Muslim countries, I took my first trip to Israel. The difference was like night and day. It was the culture of Israel that made the difference and showed up the stark contrast, and yes, it was also very familiar to me as an American. Different from America, yes similar in so many ways. Culture.
In Saudi Arabia (which I always considered as the most extreme practice of Islam), the separation of men and women was a huge influence on attitudes. I'm a woman and I taught in a Saudi medical university. I taught only women, and the women's section of the university was walled off from the rest of the university. Women were covered head to toe and only males who were close family members would ever see them. Inside the female part of the university (inside only) the women threw off their veils and coverings and it could seem almost normal. But the men were incredibly restricted from acting normally. They would be matched up by families with (often) first cousins, couples would perhaps meet one time before getting married, there was no dating or ability to meet other women, there were no normal interactions between men and women. So the men and their male-female attitudes became what I considered to be quite twisted. In that context, seeing foreign women wearing modest but more normal clothing (I had to wear ankle length skirts, tops with sleeves to my wrist, no low necklines, and a scarf loosely over my hair), hair and faces visible, this was upsetting and considered extremely provocative to these men, many of whom would never have a female partner. Men were taught that they could not control themselves around women, hence the necessity of head to toe coverings. Eliminate temptation, that was the goal. I should emphasize that this was cultural, and not required by anything in the Koran (which told women to dress modestly). So Saudis interpreted that as "cover up head to toe" and they were quite Nazi-like in enforcing it. The Saudis had armies of "religious police" to go around making sure everyone was following the rules.
So men often resorted to homosexuality as a sexual outlet, although they would never admit it because religiously, it is considered an abomination in Islam. Ultimately, if you put a lot of these men into our socially free Western societies, it's not surprising there is so much rape in Western nations such as Sweden. In the male-female aspect alone, these people don't assimilate. Period. To them, uncovered women out alone are seen as prostitutes in their minds. They don't make distinctions of cultural differences.
I spent 4 years as a woman on my own in UAE and can definitely say I would never have gone to KSA in the same circumstances. I felt perfectly safe and as long as I dressed modestly and respected their ways, especially during Ramadan there was no problem. The really irritating thing was this "if God wills it" which applied to the most mundane things like when your fridge might be delivered and life or death situations such as when uttered by a mother whose 5 children had been killed in a car crash, none of whom was in a car seat or safety belt.
I agree completely. I spent 10 years living and working as a teacher in the Middle East...2 years in Iran until the fall of the Shah, then 8 more years in Saudi Arabia. I have spent time in the majority of the Middle Eastern countries as well as Israel. What I realized most of all was that the differences in people in different countries around the world was that it is first and foremost culture, and second, culture driven by religion that creates the vast divide between people. Islam in particular is strange in what it does to people. In S.A. almost every sentence was punctuated by the words "If God wills it." What I soon realized was that this sentence uttered dozens of times each day had as one effect that a person removes all culpability and consequence from his actions....if God wants something to happen, you can't change that, God willed it. I also realized that Islam by its very nature taught its followers to not question anything, and certainly to not question any of the Koran's dictates. In addition, this ingrained attitude was in pretty much everything...just don't question anything, essentially. So much of life in S.A. in particular was tied to a very rigid version of Islam and Sharia law. At the time I was in Iran during the Shah's time, it was much less like that. Religious, but also secular. I don't think it's like that any more, however.
I also saw so very clearly that just like there is no way I could ever assimilate into their culture (to say nothing of not wanting to!), equally there was no way these people could truly assimilate into Western cultures because of how repelled they are of Western cultural practices. In my teaching experience with other Muslims, I saw how ingrained their beliefs were and moreover, even if they had spent time in the West or even if they wanted to live in the West, that did not in the least mean they wanted to adopt Western culture in any way, shape or form.
In the middle of my time in the Muslim countries, I took my first trip to Israel. The difference was like night and day. It was the culture of Israel that made the difference and showed up the stark contrast, and yes, it was also very familiar to me as an American. Different from America, yes similar in so many ways. Culture.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
In Saudi Arabia (which I always considered as the most extreme practice of Islam), the separation of men and women was a huge influence on attitudes. I'm a woman and I taught in a Saudi medical university. I taught only women, and the women's section of the university was walled off from the rest of the university. Women were covered head to toe and only males who were close family members would ever see them. Inside the female part of the university (inside only) the women threw off their veils and coverings and it could seem almost normal. But the men were incredibly restricted from acting normally. They would be matched up by families with (often) first cousins, couples would perhaps meet one time before getting married, there was no dating or ability to meet other women, there were no normal interactions between men and women. So the men and their male-female attitudes became what I considered to be quite twisted. In that context, seeing foreign women wearing modest but more normal clothing (I had to wear ankle length skirts, tops with sleeves to my wrist, no low necklines, and a scarf loosely over my hair), hair and faces visible, this was upsetting and considered extremely provocative to these men, many of whom would never have a female partner. Men were taught that they could not control themselves around women, hence the necessity of head to toe coverings. Eliminate temptation, that was the goal. I should emphasize that this was cultural, and not required by anything in the Koran (which told women to dress modestly). So Saudis interpreted that as "cover up head to toe" and they were quite Nazi-like in enforcing it. The Saudis had armies of "religious police" to go around making sure everyone was following the rules.
So men often resorted to homosexuality as a sexual outlet, although they would never admit it because religiously, it is considered an abomination in Islam. Ultimately, if you put a lot of these men into our socially free Western societies, it's not surprising there is so much rape in Western nations such as Sweden. In the male-female aspect alone, these people don't assimilate. Period. To them, uncovered women out alone are seen as prostitutes in their minds. They don't make distinctions of cultural differences.
I spent 4 years as a woman on my own in UAE and can definitely say I would never have gone to KSA in the same circumstances. I felt perfectly safe and as long as I dressed modestly and respected their ways, especially during Ramadan there was no problem. The really irritating thing was this "if God wills it" which applied to the most mundane things like when your fridge might be delivered and life or death situations such as when uttered by a mother whose 5 children had been killed in a car crash, none of whom was in a car seat or safety belt.