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!

Hello everyone!

Just popped on to repost this metaphor.

Would you go to the house of a known child abuser?

There is someone who lives on your street who is a known child abuser ( beheading 16 year olds is child abuse I think we can agree on that). Everyone, knows they abuse their child. They ask you to a party where there will be free food and lots of cake. Do you go?

If you go to the party you are not causing the abuse, you are not involved in it and you are not helping them with the actual abuse. However, by going to the party you are giving your support to them and letting people know you approve of them. Would you go to a party in the house of a known child abuser?

You could go to another house, it's not perfect and they sometimes shout at their kids but they don't abuse them.

Neither house is perfect but one is a lot worse.

You go to the party and people disapprove saying you have supported the abuse. You say you haven't done anything wrong and anyway they had lots of cake and your son really likes cake.

OP you think it's OK to call people demented and be open ly sarcastic and derogatory to those who disagree with you.

That's tells me a lot about you,and its not OK to treat people the way you are.

You best tell your DC not to be gay right now and teach them how to live in fear of ever displaying any of their natural tendencies if they are. All because, you know, money, super husband

Very mysogynistic language

The op chose to move from a country which killed thousands in an illegal war and continues to profit from death through selling of arms.

Just because you choose to dress up one set of atrocities differently doesn't diminish the other.

Wow.

Just wow.

Thank you for all of the info you’ve given, OP. Great thread (once you skip the repetitive posters)!

For all those criticizing the OP, put to the world (okay, let's limit it to this forum) how you would change Saudi Arabia with your ideas. Show me the way how you can change the country within, say, a decade. Keep in mind, revolutions imposed by foreigners have never worked in our history.

It's easy to criticise, but how would you change the society without a very bloody war, general misery, or plundering the country.

We hear about human rights abuses in SA all the time.

We killed literally thousands in the Iraq war. I'm just waiting for the first one to accuse me of whataboutery. That's a very easy get out clause when you're accused of hypocrisy.

It's a real pity you don't move there to help the brave Saudi women

@findingmyfeet12

If we are going to discuss war crimes perhaps you need to do some research into the Saudi war with Yemen. They don't come out of it well.

Do some posters genuinely think there is a moral equivalence between the U.K. and the KSA?

A million people marched against the war in Iraq. No one was arrested for peaceful protest. No one was tortured by the state. No one was killed and no bodies were displayed.

These Saudi-apologist "arguments" are quite something. Think of apartheid South Africa as a parallel. Many were mocked as "trendy do-gooders" for boycotting South African fruit. Yet the sanctions were ultimately a key tool in ending apartheid. And suddenly everyone had been a Nelson Mandela fan all along. Those of you just saying "oh but we killed people in Iraq too so we are (somehow) not entitled to criticise any breach of human rights ever" and refusing to recognise the tyrannical nature of the Saudi regime will find yourself on the wrong side of history. Of course greedy expats like the OP refusing to go and live in comfy Western compounds (whose very existence, along with the drunken philandering young Saudi men chucking their money around in London, should tell you all you need to know about the sheer hypocrisy of the Saudi regime) will not end the situation. Neither did refusing to buy Cape bananas end apartheid. But it was part of the picture.

Many other posters have already pointed out and provided multiple links to impartial sources and evidence of the lack of due process and outright state-sanctioned murder (Khashoggi) so no need for me to reiterate. For all the shortcomings of Western European countries (I will make few apologies for the US under Trump) they still have a free press, freedom of speech and accountable governments. KSA emphatically does not and I find it very strange that an intelligent person can live in a Western compound and drive through the city without thinking of all the misery and fear experienced by vulnerable men and women in their own homes and at the hands of security forces who know the authorities will never protect them against bullies and abusers.

No they weren't but we still went ahead with the war.

It's easier to dismiss attrocities when they happen so far away.

Our arms dealing also happens thousands of miles away.

No one has clean hands.

That is true findingmyfeet and our disgusting government should be ashamed of themselves for selling arms to such regimes. But I am still glad that you and I can post that criticism without fear of receiving a knock on the door from the police - I could not say the same in KSA

It's easy to criticise, but how would you change the society without a very bloody war, general misery, or plundering the country

There are many within the Arabic world and the KSA who want and campaign for change. Unfortunately, this is very dangerous and many have been arrested tortured and killed.

I can support human rights within other countries. I can offer help and support to human rights activists who risk their lives.

Organisations like AI and HRW keep a spotlight on activities in these countries to help the activists within. If the names of the people fighting for freedom are well known they are less likely to be arrested and imprisoned.

The Amnesty symbol is a candle. They want to cast light into the dark places so we know what is going on. The want to publicise the atrocities and keep them in the forefront of peoples minds so they are not forgotten.

Many ex political prisoners say how they were helped by international publicity and support. So I can do very little but I can publicise, nag and bleat about the HR abuses and make sure they are not forgotten or hidden behind swimming pools and nice shiny cars.

It's pitifully little but it's better than doing nothing.

You're right grim but suppressing criticism is no worse than our arms trade which kills thousands imo.

Both are pretty bad but I'm not criticising the op for making money in SA. I benefit from the money my country makes from warfare so I don't have a leg to stand on.

I do wonder if someone working in Israel would get the same amount of stick.

I'm afraid that I would disagree that the two are equal findingmyfeet. There is a possibility in this country not only to work freely with campaigning organisations, as windows has explained, to highlight abuses (never underestimate the power of publicising individual cases, especially in the age of social media) but also to campaign for the election of a government which would pledge to end such arms sales (as I believe Corbyn has said he would do). However if we all just shrug and say "Iraq war, Bush, Blair, everyone is as bad as each other, let's just make as much money as possible for our own kids and ignore our wider responsibility as citizens" then we are selfishly throwing away the power that freedom gives us.

Saudi citizens have absolutely no safe way to campaign for change, as the jailing of the women who fought for the overturn of the driving band has shown. Not the same.

And yes I absolutely think the same applies to Israel - my freelance husband refuses opportunities to work there or with any Israeli state-sponsored projects.

Oh dear.. Much shame on those daring to air their wailing morals
Trying to minimise normalise and deny hideous atrocity.
Basically, yeah, we all know it goes on but you know, money (I'll make sure my DC aren't gayband at risk of death/stoning)

Why not start your own thread to discuss this?

This is AMA. And not your AMA.

Sitting in the West, you are doing nothing. Stop kidding yourself.

My mother’s family is from Ukraine. They were imprisoned in gulags. My husband’s family is from Russian nobility. He grew up as a representative of the wrong class and was restricted in his life until the collapse of the USSR. That totalitarian regime was just as bad, if not worse than Saudi Arabia and I can tell you it collapsed when people refused to support it. Foreigners have virtually no effect on such regimes.

The USSR was a global superpower with huge natural resources. It didn't need to ship in millions of professional expat workers and its economy wasn't disproportionately reliant on international oil sales. The cases are not even nearly analogous. Boycotts are effective when a regime derives its power and wealth from trade or other international assistance.

Westerners staying sitting in their seats yes not jumping on jet planes to support and profit from grotesque regime

The USSR's economy was disproportionately reliant on international oil sales, which is why, when oil prices tanked in the 1980's. the road to collapse was established. Russia is still disproportionately reliant on oil sales.

A boycott of Saudi Arabia would have no effect, and in any event, the world has changed. Do you really believe India and China would boycott Saudi Arabia?

Regimes must change from within.

SOME parts of the country and its culture really is wonderful, but gets totally shouted down in favour, rightly or wrongly, because of the atrocities repeatedly mentioned in this thread for example. It's a shame, all of it.

Do you mean it is a shame atrocities happen or a shame that they are mentioned?

As for child abuse happening, well it is illegal here and people go to prison. I think, even if a child is married, it is still abuse and should be illegal.

I'm old enough to remember a near diplomatic incident when a Saudi diplomat brought his 9 year old wife to Britain.

And yes I know child marriage happens in lots of places including the US.

I've worked with people who loved in Saudi and all say the same, you are fine in the compound. What goes on outside the compound doesn't seem to concern them. I've even been given recipes for 'Jeddah Gin'.

I couldn't do that, so forgive me being interested in how you do.

Seriously now start your own thread. It's so repetitive and op has said time and time again that she neither agrees or supports some of the things the Saudi government does nor is going to come home. She know what goes on there, we all do.

OP has weighed up the benefits and negatives and decided in her case that providing for her family and her sons future is worth spending a few years in a country that does these things. Whether you think that is right or not, that is her right.

I happen to agree with some of the most 'vocal' posters on here that I'm not sure I could live there, but it's my right, just as much as the OPs to decide that. If I found out my partner or I could earn enough to secure our future would I reconsider? Potentially. We all make decisions everyday that are questionable in the eyes of others. I've worked for companies that I wouldn't choose to if I didn't have to put food on the table but this is what life is in someways.

You may think that Saudi Arabia is the worst of the worst and on human rights it is one of the countries that comes up as that but you know what, it's out there, we know about it. The USA on the other hand kills thousands of civilians all the time all over the world while on a mission as the self-appointed policeman of the world. They also carry out the death penalty on dubious grounds, with an unreliable legal system (watching any documentary on the matter will tell you this), disproportionately put BAME to death, whether sentenced as such or murdered by police on the street. They also have fundamentalists Christians in positions of power which are threatening women's rights all the time, including that of access to abortion and maternal care. They have a racist and misogynistic president. I could go on!

Doesn't stop millions of people holidaying there and expats moving there. Saudi may be more 'in your face' and you may consider their methods of execution more brutal and outrageous which affects you on a more visceral level. But again this is your choice to make

Start your own thread.

Sorry that was so long!

Sitting in the West, you are doing nothing. Stop kidding yourself

As has been said many times on this thread many people choose not to go to the KSA because of their own moral compass. I make my decisions and other people make theirs - this thread is a discussion board though and so invites discussion.

As has been said before the KSA will change in its own time and it must change from within, I don't think anyone has said differently. Outside pressure can quicken change but the push must come from within.

In the mean time what I and many others will not do is support, placate or pander to a regime that commits a multitude of human rights abuses.

What I will do is offer what support I can to those fighting for freedom within the KSA. Those people want and ask for support, I will not wash my hands and do nothing.

My input is pitifully little in the face of the horrors but it is better than nothing and it is better than actively excusing and supporting this regime.