The story recounts the encounters with life of 4 college girls who are close friends. It touches on what life is like for young women in Saudi Arabia, at least women who come from what can be described as the upper class. It probably goes without saying that the book touches also on the relationship between men and women in this highly controlled Islamic society. There are some rather tragic occurrences as far as love is concerned and after reading the book I was left with a sense of compassion for not only the young women of Saudi Arabia but also for the young men. The relationships between men and women are completely controlled by the family which means that not only are the young women forced by their culture, duty, honor to behave a certain way but so are the men.
Since living in Saudi Arabia I have seen this difficulty for young men and women. The most striking example is the shopping mall. Young single men are stopped by security at the doors to large shopping malls and not let in. They (young men) also circle shopping malls with their cars...(they cruise the shopping malls!) holding out signs with their phone numbers on them while women are lined up waiting for their drivers (as they can not approach each other). An attempt to come into contact with the opposite sex.
But what has been interesting to me is since I have moved here I have gotten a flood of friend requests on Facebook and the like:
Firas Abu Thabet
Mohammed Mifzaal Tungekar
Tarik Laalilisse
Meshari Alnassar
Dadz Baligtad
Abram Emil
mrc03
Waleed40
gemadesigner
turki009
jwilliam
footix
abdullah099
nightshift
etc,
etc,
etc...
all want to be my friends..it must be lonely to not be able to meet people freely. To not be able to have a friendly exchange. To not be able to "hang out". To not be able to meet for coffee. To not be able to talk on the phone. To not be able to "date", grab a burger, all of the things that seem so easy for others of that age.
No comments:
Post a Comment