Today's Arab News has an interview with Sir William Patey, who has just moved to Afghanistan after three years as Britain's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is changing, he says, and for the first time in ages it has a sovereign and group of senior people who are thinking long-term: “They accept that you can’t just go on the same old way.”

This is probably true, as far as it goes, but Patey seems determined to look on the bright side and any hint of criticism is couched in suitably diplomatic language. “Saudi Arabia,” he says, “is investing hugely in the education of women but is not realising the benefits of that investment ... I am not confident that women will be able to exploit their education.”

It's typical of the bland interviews that departing British ambassadors give to the local press – which don't necessarily reflect their real thoughts. Their final (but private) reports to the Foreign Office in London tend to be a lot more interesting. 

I have no idea what Patey's final dispatch to London says, but in 1972 Willie Morris, the departing ambassador in Riyadh described life in the kingdom as like "being shut up in a theatre where the repertoire consisted of extravagantly over-written and over-acted plays constantly repeating themselves". 

His confidential memo, released into the public domain 30 years later, went on:

It is a great tragedy that, with all the world's needs, Providence should have concentrated so much of a vital resource and so much wealth in the hands of people who need it so little and are so socially irresponsible about the use of it ... What they do with the wealth is often comedy and sometimes farce; there are also legal, social and religious dramas, and the theatre of the absurd is never far away.

A country where the Head of State has strong personal views about the iniquity of male sideburns and where the barbers are ordered to cut them to levels consistent with morality; where a probable murderess of foreign nationality escapes with a deportation order because the only alternative is decapitation – and is prevented from leaving until she gets an exit visa; a dry country, where one can find a Minister incoherently drunk in his office before noon – who could fail to be diverted in such a country, or fail to develop claustrophobia from time to time, and want to get out of the theatre into a street of real people outside?

Meanwhile, Ahmed al-Omran of the Saudi Jeans blog reflectson the current debate about gender mixing and makes the important point that this time the battle is not between liberals and conservatives but is taking place among the conservatives, and is likely to continue. But he wonders if this debate is really changing how the Saudi public feel about gender mixing – and suggests it is not:

Socio-religious beliefs are very difficult to change. Even more difficult in a conformist society like ours ... For examples, look at hospitals which have always been some of the few places in the country where men and women work side by side. I currently train at a hospital pharmacy in Hofuf. The pharmacy has separate windows to serve male and female patients, but from the inside pharmacists and technicians of both sexes work together without segregation. To reduce dispensing errors, a new policy has been recently implemented where some female pharmacists work on the male window while some male pharmacists work on the [female?] window.

I asked a female colleague, let’s call her Zainab, what is it like to work on the male window. “Work is work,” she said, “it’s the same for me here or there.” A male colleague who was in earshot, let’s call him Basheer, turned to me and asked, “would you let your wife work in a place like this?” I was shocked by the question, but I calmly replied that I certainly would. I said it is a respectful and professional work environment, so what’s the problem? I glanced quickly at Zainab who was standing next to me, then asked him: do you find anything dishonorable or disgraceful about working here?

Basheer said that some guys are jealous and can’t let their wives mix freely with men. “I’m that kind of guy,” he added. I was struck by the hypocrisy of what he said. He finds it acceptable for him to be here and work with other women, but apparently the same rules don’t apply to his wife. This kind of hypocrisy, however, is nothing new. It is a typical symptom of the double standards many Saudis practise in their lives every day.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 7 May 2010.