Regional Unrest

Well, it has been going on for quite sometime now but, now that I've taken up the blog again, I guess I feel that I should comment on what has been going on in the world. Or, rather, what hasn't been going on here in Saudi Arabia.

During the last several months somewhere between protests and civil war have been taking place in the Middle East and Northern Africa:

Egypt

Tunisia

Libya

Algeria

Bahrain

Djibouti

Iraq

Iran

Jordan

Syria

Oman

Yemen

..and, can we forget (or have we forgotten) Afghanistan?

In fact, if you look closely at a map, you'll see that with little exception, Saudi Arabia is entirely surrounded by countries that can loosely be described as "in conflict". A seeming island of calm in a sea of unrest.

I wouldn't say we, and by we I mean the ex-pat community, have been entirely at ease with what has been going on. There were calls in Saudi Arabia for a "day of rage". That day was March 11th. March 11th came and went, however, with nothing eventful happening. A large police presence and no demonstrators. A few days later, our maid came in in the morning as we were getting ready for school and work

"Is Emily's school closed?"

"No [confusedly] We haven't heard anything."

"There were protests last night and the king has closed all of the schools"

A quick call to the school

"Have you heard anything?"

"No, we havent heard anything"

Later that day we find out that no, there weren't "protests" there were "celebrations" and the king didn't close the schools as a response to unrest but instead as a gift to Saudi families. (That explains why the international schools weren't closed!) These spontaneous "national holidays" happen quite often.

From what I have seen and experienced, it seems as if the people here really love the king and he is of course not a stupid man. Quite the contrary, in the midst of unrest in the middle east the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah is adding thousands of new jobs to the government payroll, raising the minimum wage, fighting corruption.... and the people are celebrating him.

With that, I must remind everybody that I am not Arab and do not speak Arabic (of course you know this but, a little reminder in context never hurts!). I was completely shocked over the events in Bahrain and Oman....we were just in Bahrain in January and loved it, it felt safe and easy. We never would have imagined a situation as the one today...there. Instinct can be wrong.

An article that you may find interesting:

Saudi's Interest in Arab Upheavals Dwindling

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article336631.ece