No sorry

Submitted by Terry (United States), Apr 2, 2007 at 18:20

I am not a great believer in The Saudi culture by any means, but I do I hope believe in truth. The Saudi culture is bad enough, without over dramatising, and plain lying. Yes, buying a car was a bit of a pain, and involved a totally unneccesary kickback to a Saudi national, but in reality it simply meant an imaginary sale to the aforementioned Saudi national, with him then resellling the car then to me, and a wait in a queue for about an hour. Unnecesary, but not so bad. Hardly slavery in the same context of filipina 'maids' .

As for a driving licence, they wanted a pint of blood for it. I claimed I had given blood less than a month ago in Britain (untrue) and got my driving licence anyway. Accommodation was always the problem of my employer. There i will give you front seat. It was apartheid, pure and simple, flavoured with the needs of the country at the time. As an SCN, second country national (British) my accommodation was always of a reasonably high standard. (not quite up to the American touch although in theory they were SCN's like me, but much more needed) Saudis were of course FCN's (first country nationals), and everyone else was in theory at least a TCN. (third country national) In practice that did not apply to anyone with a white skin.

TCN's were graded along nationality lines. Pakistanis (ie Muslims) were usually two to a room, sometimes four. Hindus etc, were definately four to a room. On down the scale to Koreans, sometimes 16 to a room. Then you start to get into slavery. Of course they were making more money than they could in their own countries, and setting up good lives for themselves. That does not for a moment absolve the Saudis.

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