I live in Saudi Arabia. AMA!

[Shmithecat]

I still hear so many daft claims about certain aspects of living in KSA. Happy to confirm or deny what you've been told!

I would take the time to respond to you hearhere, but I feel it would be akin to urinating in a very strong breeze, as you've chosen to be very selective and obtuse with regards to the content and context of my posts. Have a chat with Mousse or Windows, they seem like your sort of people. 👍

your reluctance is understandable....pissing in the wind is very difficult when you don't have a leg to stand on

Interesting Shmithecat2 refuses to reply while JoinTheMicrodots demands a response.

I can only assume you want a response on this thread to a question you asked and I answered on another thread. You can not point out which question on this thread I have not answered..

Here goes again. Other countries are brutal and extreme but this thread is about the KSA. Whataboutery is the classic way to look away from the key points of an argument.

You made a point about lack of substance - I provided substance.

I am not distracted in fact I am very focused. This thread is about the KSA. In the very recently this regime has beheaded a number of young men from a minority group several of whom were gay. I am very focused and totally lacking in distraction techniques when I say I would not voluntarily work and pay tax to a regime that did this. You?

Much easier to turn a blind eye when you are dazzled by the glare from your huge earnings

But if you limit your choice of travel to work etc to countries that don't carry out all of those injustices to varying degrees, you'd have very slim pickings.

But the injustices are so wide that it is fairly easy to find a line and stick to it. We have a very simple rule - we do not visit any country that has the death penalty. I think there are about 50 countries that still do out of about 200 in total so it doesn’t particularly stop us from travelling or living our life.

Does America or Saudi Arabia or China or the other 47 care that we don’t visit them? No - of course not. But the fact remains that they will not get our money and they will not get our skills. As one little family then that won’t make a lot of difference but if every person who comes from a country that does not have the death penalty refused to go to any of the counties that do then that might just change things,

Like you Smith I believe that the death penalty is barbaric and horrific in every form. And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.

Ok then, I'll bite

Capital or corporal punishment is primitive and barbaric in my view

Agreed, already made that clear..

and it does make a difference if it's carried out in public, the method also makes a difference to the message that is sent

It makes a difference TO YOU. And that's your prerogative.

To just shrug and say 'death is death... well that's a very self-serving responses isnt it, as it's saying that you don't mind because it acts as a good deterrent

I'm not shrugging. I'm stating my opinion. To me, you can't make capital punishment any less horrible and barbaric than it is by using different methods. You're sentenced to death. How does the method of execution make that any less heinous?

As for 'not my sort of thing' - I'm sorry, would you prefer me to express my displeasure about viewing public executions with a little more drama? If so, you'll be disappointed I'm afraid.

I’m going to post the exact same same message to you here as I did on the other thread, Windows, since you seem to find it hard to keep track of what’s been said on both. 🙄

Even though I didn’t agree with you, @Windowsareforcheaters, I was finding it an interesting debate, and I’m strangely disappointed that you’re clearly unable to put together a coherent response to my questions. I find it a bit sad that you have to resort to obfuscation and bleating about ‘whataboutery’ to avoid answering perfectly simple and very relevant questions.

I also find it interesting that you mentioned crucifixion of children in virtually every post until I asked you to define crucifixion, and you’ve not answered that or mentioned crucifixion since.

Well, this is my my last post to you, given your unwillingness to genuinely engage, but thanks - considering your points (even when you seemed mainly to resort to deliberate melodrama and straw man arguments) encouraged me to widen my knowledge of politics and human rights in the ME.

@Mumoftwoyoungkids so, a little bit of injustice is ok? Why does where you draw your line make you morally superior to me and my line?

Which country do you intend to visit next?

How does the method of execution make that any less heinous?

In fairness schmith I think it does, and please don't think I'm criticising you - Im not. It's more the intellectual argument.

I'm a bit sorry that this thread has been so badly derailed, though I kinda helped with that :/

Have the last few months made any difference to every day living there?

Also, is there a big temperature difference between winter and summer?

SeaEagleFeather, if you think so, that's really, absolutely fine I'm totally ok with people that have differing opinions to me, it's the internet after all.... I don't. I can't see how someone having a lethal injection is any less distressed than someone being decapitated. I do not agree with capital punishment, end of.

Weather - Jeddah, hot, humid, all year round. Up to 50c in the day in summer, 30s at night. Winter drops to 30s in the day, mid 20s at night. Still horribly humid. You're drenched as soon as you step outside at 6 in the morning. Yucky.

Riyadh - hot in summer, again up to 50s, but it's a dry heat, very little humidity. And in winter, it can actually drop to single figures overnight. I put the heating on in January! Its warning up now and will get hotter until late October time then cool down again. I'll be in the UK for summer, can't handle it here with a 3yo that doesn't like to be indoors much...

@JoinTheMicrodots there is actually quite a lot of information on the internet about crucifixion in the KSA but to be honest I find it immensely distressing. There are pictures and video clips if you are really interested.

The links I posted from AI and HRW have information about the crucifixions if you are really interested.

@Mumoftwoyoungkids has summarised my feelings about traveling to countries that have the death penalty. Although, I do believe due process and the lack of torture make a difference.

Everyone draws their own moral line in a different place. I can understand why someone might choose to go to Dubai although I wouldn't but the KSA is so far beyond reasonable i am aghast.

If you look at the top 10 countries for human rights abuses the KSA appears in them all. As an absolute minimum line I would avoid the the top 10 countries for abuses of human rights. I don't think that is setting the bar to high.

In terms of whataboutery this is something you hear a lot when trying to make any kind of moral argument. There is always someone poorer, something worse or someone worse. You need to draw your own line a stay focused.

Sorry, no, no difference to every day life here. Last year when missiles were being intercepted over Riyadh, it was a bit , but luckily nothing landed any nearer than about 8km from us. You could hear and feel them though.

I believe that every country (including the one I was born in and live in - I’m British) commits human rights abuses. Everyone has to draw a line.

There are lots of lines you can choose to draw - several people on this thread have stated that they have a particular problem with public executions and beheadings.

Like you - my problem is with the death penalty full stop. I believe that state sanctioned murder is the ultimate in human rights abuse. So I use that as my line.

Would I like it if 5 or 10 or 50 people reading this think “yes - that is a good line - I will use it too” - yes please - and tell your friends!

Does having my line make me morally superior to you and your line - I don’t know for sure as you haven’t stated yours. But I guess on this issue as we are willing to make sacrifices that you presumably are not because we believe in it. (My husband has an engineering degree, my kids would probably rather like to go to Disney land.)

On other issues I probably am not - I don’t particularly like cats so I won’t be rescuing any.

Like I say - anyone reading - feel free to adopt my “no visiting death penalty countries” stance. Very few of us are people who are in a position to do anything big. But if lots of us do something small then who knows what will happen.....

uggggh the humidity sounds horrendous.

About the public/private thing, I think public is worse because 1) a whole bunch of strangers might be there at an intensely private moment for the individual and 2) if it's public, presumably anyone can go ... and I don't think that such a thing should be encouraged, one imagines there must be an element of gruesome gawking or rubbernecking. Not the sort of thing you really want to encourage in society!

Sorry - forgot to say - we have just got back from the Canaries. Spain is pretty good these days - in most indices it is “dark green” for human rights - the same as the U.K.

There are a couple of “Blue” countries which are better - but only about 4 (Norway, Iceland and a couple of others - can’t remember).

We did make a slight error a year or so ago - we went on holiday to Southern Spain but what I didn’t realise (package holiday) is that we would be flying to Portugal. (Portugal is “light green” so less good than quite a lot of Europe although as the scale goes through yellow, orange and red there is much scale for worsening.) It doesn’t have the death penalty so it is not in my “no visit” list but had I realised before booking I probably would have investigated if it was avoidable.

But I didn’t so we didn’t because we are just doing the best we can.

All any of us can do really......

@mumof, I stand with you on that line

I am against capital punishment. But I want my children to see the world and understand that we are privileged to live in a 'dark green' country (in terms of human rights) and that not everybody was lucky in the birth lottery like they were. I want my children to see outside this bubble and understand as much as they can about the world, if I travelled to only 'green' counties, I'd be restricting their chance to form their own views.
I travelled and lived in ME growing up, it definitely opened my eyes and i can 100% see why you'd make the decision OP did and raise your children abroad.
A fair and open justice system as the Uk aims for is not afforded to many across the world and I think it's easy to forget that. I had no hand in creating the legal system here just as OP has no hand in creating the legal system in KSA.

Smith Actually thinking about it you should love people who have a moral objection to KSA. Because we are the reason that your husband earns so much money.

Simple laws of economics - the more people who refuse to go there because of human rights issues (or because they don’t fancy the heat!) the higher the price those who are willing can get.

Eski How do you use holidays to teach your children about the issues with capital punishment? Do you visit the courts? I have to admit - I prefer our holidays to remain holiday like (think buckets and spades) so it would never occur to me to holiday somewhere with human rights abuses as a form of education. Then again - my kids are still pretty diddy(hence the buckets and spades) so maybe I will feel differently when they are older. Although how far do you take this? I’d like to think that my kids have the imagination to understand that public executions are not a good thing without actually having to take them to watch one!

No I don't i didn't watch public executions growing up in ME but I did learn about cultures outside the UK and I hope my children are able to look outside the box too.
They were fascinated by double decker trains in Switzerland and how precise the timetables are- nobody's preaching about anything but they certainly absorb the idea that there's more to the world than the Home Counties.

The thing about executions out there (setting aside the barbarity of public ones - and the floggings and amputations) the sheer imbalance of those who are executed - many westerners or wealthy people? How many are poor foreign women who have been accused of murder or fought back after being abused/raped by their ‘owners’ (they are more solace than employee). Women who want freedom or equality? Gay people, people with mental illness.... what about the women who fought for the right to drive being tortured in jail right now?

Great to be an Brit expat because it is very unlikely to touch you directly.

No - I couldn’t do it for the money.

@Mumoftwoyoungkids
SmithActually thinking about it you should love people who have a moral objection to KSA. Because we are the reason that your husband earns so much money.

😂😂. Yeah, I think 8m odd expats might laugh at you too.

8m expats in Saudi?

@LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD

Just Googled to double check as the 8m figure was from a couple of years ago. Its approximately 9m now.

source

That’s shit loads. How many are there as workers in the building industry or domestic help I wonder. Neither groups exactly ‘living the dream’.