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The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom
by Sandra MacKey
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (T) (1987-04)
ISBN: 0395411653
EAN: 9780395411650
Dewy Decimal #: 306
Hardcover: 433 pages
SKU: 06434
Condition: Collectible: Good Fi
Comments: First edition book, in good condition
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
THE RECKONING is an account of the forces--historical, religious, ethnic, and political--that produced Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Iraq was forged after World War I from the Mesopotamian region of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, and its people have never had a national identity or a sense of a common purpose. Hussein, ruling by terror, pitted the various ethnic groups, religious interests, and tribes against one another, and in so doing achieved the destruction of Iraq's middle class and civilized society. After he goes, the country could be the site of conflict even more vicious than the Balkan wars.
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Customer Reviews
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Tocqueville she is not...
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-11-19
At the beginning of Chapter 4, Ms. Mackey relates an incident that provides ample insight into the author's attitude towards a country, people and culture she presumes to report upon. Despite more than adequate signage that a non-Muslim is not to enter Mecca, which she clearly sees: "Immediately billboard-size blue and white signs in both Arabic and English appeared along the road, warning non-Moslems to turn back," she coaxes her husband to drive on. Is it any surprise that shortly "We were forced off the road by one of the angry policeman"? and "each yelled and gestured at us with a passion only a Saudi can muster." Only a Saudi can muster!?? Wow. The vast majority of Americans who have traveled into foreign cultures have been there before. One is on an Indian reservation in America's southwest, ample signage and even personal instructions that one is not to photograph certain buildings or objects and yet there is one of our "compatriots" who insists on ignoring the polite requests of the "natives." Ditto the same scenario for the compatriots who refuse to remove their shoes upon entering a Buddhist temple in Thailand. The vast majority of Americans sensitive to the nuances and prohibitions of another culture can only cringe in embarrassment that such a person is one of our group.
Ms. Mackey lived in Saudi Arabia for a period of four years, two at the end of the `70's, and after a two year break, returned for two more in the early `80's. She accompanied her physician husband who worked at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. She used the "cover" of a housewife to file freelance stories with Western publications, some quite respectable, such as the Christian Science Monitor. She is not a journalist by training, but clearly aspires to be one, which all too often results in adopting their negative traits, such as finding a story to fit the "party line" of the editor, accepting much of expatriate folklore as unassailable fact, and even reporting as facts items that strain the far outer envelope of credulity. For example, on page 311, she has the Crown Prince and her husband engaged in a conversation, and the Crown Prince is denying the validity of political rumors to him. In English or Arabic? Any physician addressing the medical needs of the senior leadership did not engage in casual political conversations. On page 362, she says that: "In the Saudi embassies in Cairo, New Delhi, and Bangkok, I pushed through corridors crowded with men squatting, anxiously waiting for a precious Saudi visa." The authenticity of the first person? I've visited two of those three countries, and the very last thing I, or the numerous other expats, including almost certainly Ms. Mackey, would do while on vacation, is go to the Saudi Embassy! Would any book on Saudi Arabia be complete without resorting to the most tired cliché -that the Saudis are all camel jockeys, and so on page 169 she goes deep into the bigotry of urban myths that "the Toyota dealership in Riyadh was forced to build a corral where Saudis could jump off their camels and into their shiny new cars." In a far wiser and factual book, "Passing Brave," by Polk and Mares, reporting almost a decade earlier, they bemoaned the fact that it was virtually impossible to find Saudis who could ride camels, or the equipment necessary to do same.
Her overall tone is so relentlessly negative. "The Saudis," and all too often it is that broad generalization, are "arrogant," "haughty", "sensitive," "obsessed with saving face, honor" et al; in short the whole panoply of characterizations attached to the West's "Orientalist" view of the East. Like water torture, these same words and phrases are endlessly repeated. The book is filled with sentences like: "Science has failed to penetrate the minds of Saudi males." (p.152). "The need to preserve each Saudi's honor may be the single biggest obstacle to the development of a modern economy." (p 119) and "To begin with, a Saudi employer, loving exaggerated flattery, usually will regard intellectual honesty in the form of criticism as a personal insult" (p 119). Should it be any surprise that Ms. Mackey reports: "I, like all Westerners, found it almost impossible to become a friend, in a Western sense of the term, with a Saudi" (p 110). Perhaps the Saudi's "sensitivities" included detecting "the Ugly American" and avoiding same, since other expatriates were able to establish relationships of friendship. Overall, her book reads like a "reporter" visiting, say, Taos, NM, reading the police blotter, reporting only this, and believing they have captured the essence of this exciting town. Furthermore, there simply is no empathy for a people who endured the ultimate in "future shock" of economic development.
She also engaged in much speculation on the political inner workings of the Royal Family that must cause chuckles among them if they have bothered to read this book. Clearly, unlike Tocqueville, they have not withstood the test of time.
Early in the book, on page 10, after a brief tour of Syria, Jordan and Israel in 1997, she declares that "... I was, by now, inescapably addicted to life in the Middle East." Why, one wonders? After enduring the "hardships" she relishes relating of their first two years, why return? Her second chapter is entitled "The Magic Kingdom," but the "magic" other expats found is never identified. Upon her return, she does relate that there are a vast number of improvements, but never speculates how, with what she had previously identified as the "Saudi mentality," that this is possible.
I did not give the book a 1-star rating because occasionally she did see "arrogance" in Westerners, (though she apparently avoided the mirror); she was able to wisely discuss the Saudi form of "democracy," i.e., their consensus building process p (205); identified, and longed for the beauty of the desert (p 227); and described other positive developments on page 265. Also, the book is not the utter fantasy that some books about the Kingdom are.
"The difference is that when a Saudi fails he never accepts the responsibility but blames it on `bad luck', the unfairness of the teacher, the difficulty of the material, and, in the end, the will of Allah." (p119) America remains bogged down in two endless war, and is now commencing the worst financial crisis since the 1930's, yet we have a President who still believes that he made no mistakes, other than a few inappropriate expressions he once uttered, and we have Wall Street and Detroit lining up for government handouts, yet no leader seems to be willing to accept responsibility for their actions. It is the "differential diagnosis" that this book so painfully lacks.
Others have detected the flaws and negativity in this book, including the posted review from the Library Journal. But it IS a book that should be read, critically, because it is another case which illustrates how faulty our "intelligence" is, and how Western attitudes towards this part of the world are formed. A revision of these attitudes is required, for the United States simply cannot afford to engage in endless conflict.
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Highly Recommend
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-07-28
This was a very good book. I was quite impressed. I definitely recommend as your next nonfiction read.
It's a longitudinal series of snapshots of the country before and after the acquisition of money, offering both a political and an anthropological view into another culture/society.
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Politics According to Islam
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-23
As others have noted, this book was written in the late 80's, early 90's and, given the pace of change in our society, it's not just dated but, in places, it's almost quaint.
That said, this book needs to be required reading for any serious student of the Middle East, or anyone who's wondering how we got where we are - and what can we do about it? "The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom" is a foundational primer on Saudi Arabia and serves as an excellent introduction for all your future reading on the topic.
Sandra writes, "Without doubt, the West's view of Saudi Arabia is distorted. ... Much of this anti-Westernism is born of frustration with American policy toward Israel and Europe's inability to win something concrete for the Palestinians."
However, for the Saudi's, the frustration was much more personal. Much of the confusing relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States grew out of a dawning realization of the part of the House of Saud that they literally couldn't protect their desert kingdom militarily. For many years, Saudi defense plans were based on what was called, the "American Option." This was, primarily, having just enough troops to stall an attacker until American military might could swoop in to save the al Sauds, but not enough military to organize an effective coup and depose the royal family.
Confidence in America's commitment to protecting its allies began to collapse with the events in Iran that lead to deposing of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini. While Carter dithered, Saudi Arabia sent increasingly more blatant signals to the US that surrender to a radical Islamic regime would be a disaster for Saudi Arabia and the entire region. The tone deaf Carter did nothing and the anti-western traditionalists in the royal family triumphantly seized on America's failure to even grant the Shah asylum as proof of western perfidy. Even the pro-western elements in the family had to be nervous at this betrayal of a long-time (if problematic) US ally. This disaster was followed by Soviet incursions in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, with only weak US opposition (boycotting the 1980 Olympic games, held in Moscow, was strongest response the Carter administration could muster.)
"The al-Sauds as a result came to believe that by tying themselves too closely to the United States they were guaranteeing neither the throne nor their personal protection in case of political turmoil. Furthermore, the United States not only failed to move protect the Shah but had allowed a regime to come to power that was determined to destroy American presence in the gulf and to pull down the House of Saud. ... [F]or Saudi Arabia, the United States as the ultimate security guarantor in a grand strategic design was a concept that had failed."
In 1986, Saudi Arabia got caught up in the Reagan administration ill-considered Iranian Arms imbroglio. "Every innuendo that linked Saudi Arabia to the affair added fuel to the widespread dissatisfaction within the Kingdom, for the revelations coming out of Washington tripped anti-Western emotions[.]"
As a consequence of the serial mismanagement of the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia (on both sides of the American political aisle), "[t]oday's Saudi is reaching not toward modernization but toward the security of Islam, the gateway to the past."
" ... [T]he great dividing line between the Saudis and the Westerners is religion. Islam for the Saudis is more than a theology, it is an entire way of life. Religion is the central force of their existence. Religion is life and life religion."
She writes respectfully about Islam and the Prophet (PBUH) who revealed it. She gets a few things wrong. In the quote above about "religion is life and life religion" Sandra acts as if this is something unique to Saudi Arabia and not the religious practices of every Muslim in the world. She also writes in various places about Muhammad (PBUH) founding a "new" religion (instead of a restoration of the authentic faith revealed to Adam, practiced by Ibrahim and all the prophets that followed - but that's another review for another time!).
Sandra suffers from none of the west's prejudices towards Islam. Insightfully she quotes "... a Western-educated, middle class Saudi, `The problem here is not Islam. The problem is too many young men with no job and no university and nowhere to go except to the mosque, where some [radical preachers] fill their heads with anger for America.'
"[t]he portrayal of internal politics in Saudi Arabia as a contest between Westernized moderates and puritanical Wahabbis is grossly oversimplified. [...] In truth, the modernizers and the traditionalists occupy parts of each other's realm. No matter how Westernized they regard themselves, the modernizers neither are able to not want to escape their own culture, for Islam weaves it's way into every aspect of Saudi culture, mandating that every Saudi is to some degree an Islamist. By the same token, Islamists have not escaped or totally rejected the forces of modernization. As an example, the most militant and influential Islamists now post their sermons calling for a return to the past on the Internet."
Sandra Mackey writes with obvious love for the Saudis, their culture and their country. As a western woman, she can't help but shake her head over what her western perspective considers injustice (the status of women) or just undesirable (a love of exaggerated flattery.) These flavor her accounts, even though she struggles, and for the most part succeeds, to remain impartial.
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"That woman" is an amazing writer with great knowledge
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-02-24
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a fantastic book that gives you a great inside look into a country full of changes and hard to understand.Mrs Mackey really captures what happened in Saudi Arabia in the last years of the 1970's and the first years of the 80's regarding the oil boom in that country.She experienced first hand what the changes brought to the Saudis in their personal,cultural and religious life.This book not only helped me understand much better the Saudis and their economic impact in the oil business but also helped understand them as a people and as a culture.I believe that Mrs Mackey wrote a fascinating account that takes you deep in to arabian society.Her narrative is alive and her descriptions are sharp and capture the images and mood of the times.For me it was like i was walking thru the markets and bazaars with her at my side as a tour guide.Excellent book by an excellent author.
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Irresponsible
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-01-25
3 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
I read this book while living in Saudi Arabia, across the street from where the author lived. I'm surprised the book is still in print, and I am even more surprised that anyone continues to be impressed by it. Those who have spent more time there than the author, and who have made the effort to learn about the culture and context of Saudi behavior, will perceive the errors in many of her interpretations.
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