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.