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Final exams are upon us. Most Saudi households are affected by the finals in one way or other in a country where approximately half the population is in school. This is the time to go out shopping or whatever. You’ll notice the crowds are a little smaller and the traffic is a little lighter. It will get even better starting from June 14^th and two weeks on. If you’re planning a trip to Dubai or Bahrain, try to manage it so that it falls within those two weeks so you can at least avoid the Saudi crowds.

If you are a Saudi there is a certain atmosphere about this time of year, even if you’re all grown up and out of school. A certain smell of fear and pending doom. Exams are extremely stressful in Saudi Arabia. On that one final paper, a minimum of 50% of your mark for the whole semester is hanging. And for high school seniors, the results decide what college they’ll be able to get into.  The current education system is quite theoretical, relying mostly on written explanations and pictures in books, even if you are studying physics, chemistry or biology. The best way to get by is through rote memorization. So by the time these students reach college, they’re so used to this system that it is a feat to wean them off it. A question that always comes up with my students is which pages exactly are in the exam. And no matter how many times I tell them that we are testing their ability to communicate in English not how many grammar points they memorized, they still don’t get it.

What’s funny is that in many colleges across Saudi Arabia, they still rely on memorization. I remember in college, students who couldn’t write one sentence in English pass Drama because they memorized the “handouts”. A whole culture of handouts has ruined our higher educational system. As long as the students memorize the 20 to 30 page handout, they’re good to go. The handouts even tell the student what to write when they’re asked for their opinion. And believe it or not, these handouts are written by the course instructor himself. Then the instructor would have answer sheets that are all identical. Can you imagine how easy it is to grade memorized answers?! Where I work, this was going on, but the administration banned instructors from writing and distributing handouts with the aim of raising the educational standards. I hope all institutes across the Saudi follow suit.

In 2005 the government opened an anonymous account, anonymous in that you can put money in without anyone knowing who you are.  As of April 7^th 2008, the balance of that account has grown to 152 million riyals which equals about 40 and a half million dollars. Where did this money come from? No one knows. No one is allowed to know. I don’t know the details of the story behind it but I do know that an Egyptian who had worked as a civil worker in Saudi Arabia had stolen some money from his department and got away with it. After he got back to his home country, his guilty conscience would not let it go so he decided that he wanted to give the money back but didn’t want to get prosecuted. He called someone powerful back here and told him and someone came up with the “clear your guilt account” they advertised it and in just three years, 40.5 million dollars were returned to the government from Saudis and expatriates who wanted to clear their conscience.

Not much. I’ve had a few Saudis who after visiting a western country comment on how many westerners carry books around with them and read in public. They are always surprised that average people might actually enjoy reading. Books here are considered very intellectual. Once I was sitting in a waiting room at the hospital reading a David Lodge book and the woman sitting next to me took me for a college student studying. She wished me luck on my exam. And when I brought up reading for pleasure to my students many of them said “fathiya” (translation: nothing better to do or get a life). After these conversations, I get a little depressed. If only they knew how wonderful books are, especially for young women who are cooped up for most of the day. If only they knew the astronomical difference reading would change in how they view the world. They could read something as low as Tucker Max or read something that would help make them more aware of one of our cultural minorities like God of Small Things.  Unfortunately, they limit themselves to Arabic women magazines. The most popular of which is Sayidty.

This limitation of what they read starts early in a Saudi’s life. In schools they are not taught to appreciate all books. They are taught that if it’s not religious, scientific or at least a hundred years old then it’s rubbish. The majority of schools do not even have a library. The poor quality of Arabic children literature also plays a role. These books lack in creativity and publishing quality. And finally the difficulty of accessing books. Bookstores are few and far in between.

By the time they reach adulthood this lack of appreciation becomes ingrained. And the sort of Arabic literature available currently doesn’t help the situation. Most books are bad translations from English. The problem with translation is the translator might get the words and sentences right but the context and culture stays just out of reach. So a Saudi might enjoy a couple of these books but eventually gets bored with the minimally relatable characters. And then we come to Arabic literature. The issue here is what form of Arabic to use. Classical Arabic makes a book more respectable and less realistic. No one uses classical Arabic in real life and I repeat no one except passionate Arabic language scholar and even those use their own dialect outside of professional settings. However, if a writer uses a local dialect or somewhat contemporary Arabic, it won’t matter what the book is about, it will not be considered literature. And here let me refer you to Raja Al Sanea’s Girls of Riyadh. When it was first published it got banned from Saudi Arabia. The effect of that ban naturally increased its sales and Saudis from all walks of life secretly got the book and read it. I’m pretty sure they enjoyed it too. But if you were to ask Saudis what they thought of the book, most would dismiss it saying the author didn’t even bother to use classical Arabic. It isn’t “real” literature. The depictions were too close to life. It’s like gossip. She purposely put our dirty laundry on display. They don’t get that that is the point and that’s what makes the book literature.