I LEFT MY HEART IN FREEDOM AND CAME HOME

S E C R E T JEDDAH 000485

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

RIYADH PLEASE PASS TO DHAHRAN, DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ARP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/20/2027
TAGS: SOCI SCUL KWMN SA
SUBJECT: I LEFT MY HEART IN FREEDOM AND CAME HOME

Classified By: Consul General Tatiana C. Gfoeller for Reasons 1.4 (b) a
nd (d).


1. (S) SUMMARY: There is no subject dearer to the hearts of
even moderately well-off Hejazis (inhabitants of the Western
Province) than leaving Saudi Arabia. The most stilted
gathering can be brightened up at once by steering the
conversation to a fondly anticipated (or remembered) stint
outside the Kingdom. The issue boils down to this: if the
oppressive Wahhabi lifestyle annoys Hejazis as much as
everyone else, why don't they change it? Most claim fear of
amorphous "masses" who would overthrow the monarchy if it
were being seen as Westernizing. Yet the Hejazis voicing
these fears admit to never having discussed this with anyone
from the "masses." Could it be that only the Wahhabi
religious establishment in the Western Province actually
supports such a lifestyle? It appears that no one dares to
find out. END SUMMARY.

PLAY SPIN THE GLOBE AND PICK YOUR HEART'S HOMELAND


2. (S) Over the course of the past few years in the Western
Province (the Hejaz) of Saudi Arabia, Consulate General
Jeddah staff has met a surprising number of Hajazis who bear
an interesting secret. (Note: Jeddah is(the capital of the
Hejaz. End note). Outwardly, they seem perfectly normal.
If they are men, they wear the uniform white "thobe" and
white or red-checkered "gutra" just like everyone else. If
they are women, they come swathed to a more or even more
degree in their black "abayas," headscarves, "hidjabs," etc.
But pick a slight acquaintance with them -) sometimes
embarrassingly slight -* and they will reveal that they are
not at all what they seem.


3. (S) One man (interestingly, the majority of these
daydreamers are men) mentioned casually that at heart he was
a Spaniard, "somewhere from Andalucia." Another vouchsafed
that Paris was his true home. A third shared that he never
felt as well as in England, "Saudi Arabia's historic twin,"
) a surprise, possibly, to the British. A very prosperous
Jeddawi businessman by the name of Islam waxed eloquent about
how he had never known where his true home was until at a
mature age he went with his wife on safari. "All of that
greenery, the water, the humidity, the vast plain.... I felt
I was in the true Hejaz, in my true home, in the Hejaz the
way it ought to be." (Note: while Jeddah is certainly humid
and near the water and the Hejaz is vast, one cannot claim
that it is green. End Note). Like the men, the women tend
to identify with foreign Western countries as opposed to Arab
or Islamic-majority ones. One brunette originally from
steaming Najran, for example, confided that she never feels
more at home than in Canada. For both sexes, however, the
United States is the most likely "real homeland."

SOCIAL GRACES


4. (S) Social interaction with relative strangers -- even in
the Hejaz, the most cosmopolitan and liberal part of Saudi
Arabia -- can be heavy going. Many subjects are taboo except
for with the closest of friends: religion, relationships,
Saudi politics, human rights, anti-Semitism, the rights of
members of other religions besides Islam, the tratment of
Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia, women driving, and the list goes
on. Others will elicit such predictable responses that they
may seem pointless, for example: the Arab-Israeli conflict,
the supremacy of Islam over all other religions, the "fact"
that the entire Arabian peninsula is the "Vatican" of Islam
(and therefore other faiths are forbidden to practice here),
etc. The safe topics would appear to be limited to: where
(in the West) did you go to school? And where (in the West)
do your children go to school? This usually elicits fulsome
and lengthy explanations but can grow tedious as the list of
schools and experiences is not unlimited.


5. (S) However, there is a topic absolutely guaranteed to
fill the most recalcitrant conversational lull: leaving Saudi
Arabia. Once having exhausted the topics of education and
children (or skipping them altogether) one can bring up the
concept of life outside the Kingdom. It does not matter if
the trip to be discussed is a vacation or for business, it
suffices that it be abroad. Smiles then light up faces.
Voices vibrate more. Even the posture straightens. Men and
women begin to talk enthusiastically of the trip they just
took, the trip they are looking forward to taking, or their
favorite trip of all time about which they are happy to
reminisce. Unbelievable detail is provided regarding
airlines, car rentals, hotels, sights to see, rates, etc. as
if disgorged from a photographic memory. The slightest
incident is recalled with pleasure. Intricate timetables are
shared of when the future trip will be able to take place,
often to the day and even the hour of the anticipated
departure.


6. (S) The down side of this, inevitably, is a discussion of
the return to Saudi Arabia. But while painful to see the
accompanying sadness, still the interlocutor remains
intensely alive as he or she shares feelings which might
otherwise be hidden. The predominant sentiment was best
summed up by Islam in a conversation with a ConGenoff as he
described the end of yet another trip to South Africa: "I
left my heart in freedom and came home."

IMPENDING DOOM?


7. (S) That is indeed the predominant sentiment of the Hejazi
returnee: impending doom as individual freedom (what in the
West is considered "normal life") is to be surrendered to the
stifling strictures of Wahhabi Islam. It is not the feeling,
familiar to all, of loss at the end of a vacation. Jeddawi
businessmen coming back from grueling negotiations overseas
describe the same angst. Neither is it the regret of losing
a luxurious lifestyle one can only afford for a few weeks a
year. Many (though certainly not all) of these people own
palatial homes to rival any luxury hotel, eat five-star
restaurant food at home, have staffs to rival any resort, and
can purchase the same multi-carat jewelry in Jeddah as they
could splurge on abroad. But no amount of money or status
can buy them freedom.

UPRISING OF THE "MASSES?"


8. (S) In these circumstances, the question poses itself: if
the oppressive Wahhabi lifestyle annoys Hejazis as much as
everyone else, why don,t they change it? After an extremely
well-spoken government official had waxed eloquent about how
happy he had been traveling through the United States South
recently and how he had dreaded coming back home, a ConGenoff
hinted at just tis query. Reciting the answer she had heard
many times before, the official said that while a prosperous,
Western-educated minority pined for Western-style freedoms in
the Hejaz, the religion-drenched, uneducated "masses" would
rise up as one were even the slightest lifestyle strictures
now in place be relaxed.


9. (S) "This could spell revolution," cried the official,
warming to his subject. "This could be the overthrow of the
monarchy. We could see Osama Bin Laden as a theocratic-style
dictator and all of the modernizing that we have so
painstakingly brought about since the reign of King Abdul
Aziz blasted back into the Middle Ages." The official (as
many other interlocutors before him who have tackled this
subject) went on to say that he and his entire family
(including the womenfolk) were willing to sacrifice their
freedoms here in order to secure the peace (and their
privileged positions, no doubt). Concluded he: "If there
weren't the pssibility of escape, maybe we would be forced
to do something but since we can periodically leave, we don't
have to. That'shat trips to the West are for."


10. (S) When the ConGenoff asked in turn how he was so sure
of what the "masses" really wanted, the government official
had only the vaguest of answers. Asked whether he had ever
even discussed the subject with any Hejazi who was not
prosperous and Western-educated, he admitted that he had not.
(Neither has anyone else to Post's Knowledge who follows
this line of reasoning. Asked why, some say to do so would
be too "dangerous," while others, more candidly perhaps,
admit that they do not know any such Hejazis. The only poor,
uneducated people they come into contact with are their
invariably expatriate servants.)

COMMENT


11. (S) There is little doubt that the Hejaz's
English-speaking, foreign-educated, globe-trotting elite is
out of touch with the average, lower-class and even
middle-class Saudi. Certainly, even the Westernized elites
of the Nejd (the center of the country) and the Eastern
Province are much more conservative and more supportive of
pan-Saudi social strictures than is the Hejazi elite. There
is also no doubt that the Hejaz's Wahhabi religious
establishment is as conservative as in the rest of the
Kingdom. Listening to Consular District mosque sermons, as
Post does on a continual basis, vouches for that.


12. (S) Yet Post reporting also reflects that at least among
young Hejazis (working or unemployed, poor or middle-class,
men or women) the greatest frustration is over never having
even been asked what kind of country they really want. And
if they were to be asked, the answer of many of them here in
the Hejaz would be a less restrictive form of Islamic
monarchy. Could it be that only the imams and the muttawa in
the Western Province actually support the oppressive
lifestyle now prevailing? Maybe not, but it appears that no
Hejazi dares to find out.
GFOELLER