Arabian Sands

August 22, 2011

I just completed the book Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger.

It was recommended to me by our former regional president as a way to understand the Arab.  The book is a slow start and in the end it does paint a wonderful picture of the bedouin arabs that traveled around the peninsula in the middle of the last century before oil became prevalent and the wealth of the region changed the culture.

When I first started to write this entry I wasn't sure what to write about and what the book meant to me.  As I was driving back to the apartment tonight I saw a billboard for the Qatar Film Festival in October.  On the billboard there were images of what I would imagine was the typical Arab in the time of Thesiger's writings.  A presumably lost culture as the result of oil discovery and the impact it has had in this part of the world.

The result of the wealth from oil has taken a tribal culture and changed it in many ways, most notably to me it has created a sense of entitlement far beyond what I would have expected.  It has also created a very complex life for the Arabs.  The country is a state that is based in a conservative muslim tradition, with the impact of westerners converging on them to build the country.

Christians are infidels in the book and should be restricted from entering the country at a minimum, but death was often threatened if Thesiger went into an area without the proper permissions.  I often wonder if the feeling today is the same towards the expats who are here to help the country realize its vision.  We are looked down upon as infidels, only here to deliver a product or service because of the money available.

Qatar and the greater Arab world is a strange and complex place.  Thesiger's book does provide a romantic view of the bedu culture before oil arrived.  The world I am experiencing now is the result of the impact the oil wealth has and is having on this culture.

Thesiger feared this change in his book and I would say his fears have come true.

How to Read a Book

One of the benefits of living in Qatar by myself I have a lot of time to do the things I can never get to.  Reading and watching movies is a simple pleasure in life and I never make time to do either.  Well the long flights to Qatar and the quiet nights allow me to do both.

Recently, I picked up a book recommended several years ago by a proffessor of mine at the University of Baltimore.

How to Read a Book. The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading.

by Mortimer J. Adler

I just finished this book.

Everytime I told my wife that I was reading the book she would laugh and say that is funny.  You are reading a book on "How to Read a Book"!  It does seem funny, but the subject matter was engaging and in the end it is a very practical book and it was fun to read.  I would recommend the book to anyone looking for knowlege in books.

Mortimer Adler was a philosopher who found active and structured reading a requirment in learning and using the knowledge to make learned opinions on the information gathered.

The book is presented in four parts that are summarized below.

Key to the structure he provided in the book is the fifteen steps in performing analytical reading:

1. The first Stage of Analytical Reading: Rules for finding out what a book is about.
• Classify the book according to the kind and subject matter
• Stat what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
• Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.
• Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve.
2. The second Stage of Analytical Reading: Rules for interpreting a Books Contents
• Come to tems with the author by interpreting his key words.
• Grasp the authors leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences.
• Know the author's arguments by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences
• Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and of the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.
3. The third stage of Analytical Reading: Rules for Criticizing a Book as a Communication of Knowledge.
• General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette
• Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book.
• Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously.
• Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any critical judgement you make.
• Special Criteria for Points of Criticism
• Show wherin the author is uninformed
• Show wherin the author is misinformed
• Show wherin the author is illogical
• Show wherin the author's analysis or account is incomplete.

Adler also provides an outline for how to read practical books (such as this one), imaginative literature, stories, plays, and poems; history (interesting he encourages to keep in mind that history is written long after the fact and often romanticises the period; also autobiographies and biographies are from a single point of view and tends to make the person appear favorable); science and mathematics; philosopy; and finally social science.

The book concludes with a section on syntopical reading, wherein the reader is studying a particular topic by reading/researching several books.

Finally, the book concludes with a recommended reading list and exercises to demonstrate how to apply what is taught in this "practical" book.

I found the book very enjoyable and would recommend it to any serious reader.  I hope I live long enough to read the "recommended" list.

Qatar - August 8, 2011

I have been in Qatar since June 30th.  I guess it has been five weeks since I left the States.

You could say a lot has happened since I've gotten here and in some cases, not much has happened.  Over the past two weekends I've gone to Abu Dhabi to meet our Project Director there and to Dubai to meet our project director on the Dubai Metro as well as finish a proposal due today in Qatar.

The trips gave me a chance to do two things.  One, and most importantly is connecting with the local staff and understand their personalities and issues.  Try to make that connection and help develop solutions to their problems.

The issues both have are finding the right staff willing to come to the region for the right price.  I need to understand the barriers for those folks, whether it is an HR issue, salary, housing, etc.  I know this is solvable, but I need to engage with them.

The second benefit of leaving Doha over the past two weekends is getting out of Doha for a day or two.  Primarily, this is a small town with little to do outside of work - for me.  If I'm here I'm working.  By going to the other locations I can still work, but it is a diversion from the routine.

The biggest issue I need to solve (or at least mitigate) is how to make sure this assignment is as equally rewarding for my wife.  Now that she has left her job to prepare for her move, the question of "What am I going to do when I get there?" comes up more and more every time we talk.  I have directed her to the typical expat wives websites .