The trip to Saudi Arabia, as it was somewhat expected, took forever and then another, maybe, ten hours or so. Yes, it was that far from any cherished by me civilized point on earth, and the international airlines did not make it any closer and that was becoming clearer and clearer with every new stop we made. I was not really shocked to find out that there was no “low” road (cars, trains, ships and etc.) from America to Saudi Arabia. Many people in America did not even know where Saudi Arabia was so somehow no one ever built that road.

And, again, how often does one go there, I mean to Saudi Arabia? This was my first and I hoped the last trip there. So, because of the lack of alternatives (a very common thing in the pits of civilization) one had to use the “high” road and fly over there if something in your life demanded that trip. The international airlines had to follow the established and cautiously regulated routes and the fly patterns and I strongly believe that those routes were established by the camel caravans about five thousand years ago and religiously regulated ever since. Well, those caravans were the international airlines of the time and we just followed the well-worn traditions of flying carpets. What could I do but to trail the leaders on the slow road to Paradise and to the empty hole called the center of Islam that was born by the local superstition not much different from all other superstitions glorified by us? I was famished and totally exhausted but the adrenaline of anticipation kept me going, mile after mile, hour after hour. Well, to tell you the truth, it was not my idea of fun. It was not my idea at all. I was sent there to work and I could get paid only if I, at least, arrived there. Money... Sometimes they make you think but always make you move.

Frankly, it was somewhat nice, reasonably comfortable but nevertheless tiring to the point of exhaustion trip. I had to fly from New York in America to Paris in France; from Paris in France to Karachi in Pakistan; from Karachi in Pakistan to Abu Dhabi in the UAE; from Abu Dhabi in the UAE to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and finally from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia to Buraydah that was still in same Saudi Arabia – the land of the lost or never existed dreams, the desert of the questionably royal family, the leaning pillar of the shaken Islam and my final destination and the ultimate goal of despair. Why me? And, no matter what some others say, I do believe it was still an uncharted territory for all cultural, ethical, humanitarian and the scientific related purposes. There, the sand of the desert centuries ago had buried deeply all traces of anything decent, if that ever existed and were not just the tales from the “Thousand and One Nights”. Desert could do wonders to these things, you know. Saudi Arabia was still a few hundred miles from the center of nowhere and there was no real attraction to bring it any closer to anything we like, cherish and try to understand. In short, it was Saudi Arabia – the land of myth, misleading, misgivings, mischief, misdeed, misguidance, misjudgment, misappropriation, and misery, mountains of money and the misused Islam. Inshallah…

A little while back I came across of two old movies I really enjoyed when I was a young kid. These movies represented in my young mind the ultimate adventure I was constantly dreaming about. These movies were an illustration to books I knew by heart. “Ulysses” of 1955 with Kirk Douglas and “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad” of 1958 with Kerwin Mathews – how could I miss them? So, I watched both of them in one night. Marvelous… What a night it was. And, when I went to sleep, in my colorful adventurous dreams, I was the hero again. I traveled around the world and I fought the monsters and the wizards and I saved the beautiful maidens, many of them, I may add. I was the Homer’s Ulysses and I was the Arabian Sinbad. I was in both of them and they both were in me. It’s like we were the one united story and then I saw that they were the one united story told twice and at different times and on different languages. The seventh voyage of Sinbad was, in fact, the voyage of Ulysses only more then a thousand years later. So, I reread some of the Arabian stories and understood that many of them were just the loose Arabian interpretation of the Greek and Roman myths and the Chinese ancient fairy tales. India probably contributed to that as well and I am not certain if Europe did. I read some of these stories in the European elucidation but who was first I have no idea. So the Arab’s most famous cultural deed was only a compilation of the frivolously translated ancient myths from other, often conquered by the same Arabs cultures. Maybe Tartars and Mongols told them to Arabs while raping and pillaging the Middle Eastern uncertainty. So, the Muslim Arab culture is based on cultures of conquered and forcefully converted people. Do we know what the real Arab culture was? If we remove the enriching layers left by hundreds of generations of slaves of Islam, what would we find left there? Anything…? I doubt if we find anything worth mentioning and maybe that is why it is not mentioned too often. What a blow to the short-tempered pride of the Muslim Arabs.

Why did I go there, to Saudi Arabia, on the first place? Why do you ask? Ah, OK. I’ll tell you anyway. Well, that was time when by brains, not being strong enough to begin with and somewhat mushy due to a considerable load of education, made me to accept a good sounding offer to labor there getting the new Saudi pharmaceutical company working to the full capacity. Was it possible? No, but we tried very hard regardless of the local conditions. It was a state of an art facility ran by people with very little drive and desire to work from 8 to 5 and a very strong drive and desire to pray all day long, drink coffee, watch TV, discuss politics and read newspapers full of questionable truth, if one could call it truth at all, and useless religious information. The Saudis did not need that pharmaceutical plant or any plant but “need” had nothing to do with it. Someone high up, maybe one of the numerous princes, wanted it. He wanted to look important for the country. After all, one had to spend money, at least once in a while, on something else but the personal luxury and the habitually useless items. Every legal pharmaceutical company in the world and a few illegal ones were selling their renowned goods to the Saudis regardless whether they needed it or not already. Foreign drugs were fashionable in the country almost as much as the Italian made marble fireplaces. One may ask: why the heck do you need Italian marble fireplaces in the country, where a 100F is considered to be a cold day? Well, you need it for the same reason you attach the Mercedes steering wheel to the saddle of your camel or affix the Armani label to the questionably clean robe of a Bedouin customarily worn in Saudi Arabia. Fashion, man… This is the same reason some of us drive a huge SUV (even the monstrous Hummer H3) in New York City. Fashion man… Don’t you know that? They do.

The whole population of the country, at the time, was only nine million Saudis, a few million foreign workers like me, and an unknown number of slaves (male, female and children from Africa, Asian Islamic states and the former Easter Bloc countries). Yes, slaves but that was a deep secret vigorously protected by the Islamic democracy, state and the devoted individuals. Women came mostly from Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Philippines, and the former Soviet Union. Blonds, I hear, were at a premium price. Are not they always? Children came from Africa, Romania, former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union. Men came from Pakistan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Liberia, Nigeria and the rest of the world, where Islamic propaganda and the Muslim agents could paint slavery in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in bright colors of the Paradise presenting it as the most desirable way of life for the less fortunate brothers Muslims. Less fortunate… Yes, they always describe the lack of food on tables of people and children dying from malnutrition and sicknesses created by dirt and negligence as the question of fortune. Whose fortune? That was the Muslim democracy in action for you. Democracy… Where did that come from? Hmm… Islam and democracy – what a wild contradiction of terms… Is the word “Democracy” somewhere in Koran or somewhere in the cleric’s preaching? Is there a word “Democracy” in the Arab language?

Anyway, there was a pharmaceutical plant, owned by one or a few fortunate from the score of princes, and it was capable of producing enough of drugs for at least three Saudi Arabias. Well we even had at least two-dozen marketing and sales personnel and one customer – the Ministry of Health, which dutifully accepted inflated bills that were not always paid. Someone told me that the same prince or his uncle was the Minister of Health and money was just moving from one packet to another but who am I to judge. Money was not usually discussed in this country and the question was considered to be among the bad manners. And what was there to discuss? If you had money, what was to discuss there? If you did not, there was really nothing to discuss. I could not really understand the set up but it was not my business anyway. I was more on the engineering side of the enterprise and that was confusing enough. I think all this was more a cultural and an ethnic thing than a business arrangement. It was something for the show and to turn the extra money around balancing the state treasury out. In short, it was the family affair and that family was huge and hungry.

Work responsibilities over there were divided quite equally, but the Saudi style: President and the four VPs were the Saudis and all related; Director of Operations and the Director of HR and Training were British and not at all related; Sr. Manager of Finance, Manager of Purchasing and the Sr. Manager of Engineering were Americans, and the Chief Scientist and the Manager of QC & QA were from Pakistan. The working class was mainly from the Philippines and Pakistan. A few Saudis were employed there in different capacities and they worked irregularly between the regular prayers. You should know that at least four prayers fall on the working hours. Fifteen minutes for the prayer, a few minutes before and a few minutes after – at least two hours out of the eight hours dedicated to work they prayed to the mysterious god, Allah, and his dutiful prophet Muhammad. I always wanted to understand why someone would pray so much. What were they praying for? What was it all about? I figured that a large part of it should be asking for forgiveness, there should be a lot of guilt somewhere, and the rest of it was just ass kissing. Does it sound right? It does to me. Do you see anything else there? How guilty should one be to pray in that fashion every day, seven days a week and through the lifetime?

If the devoted Muslims pray, on the average, three hours a day, than they pray, let us say, over seventy years of the life span, for 76,650 hours, or 3,194 days, or 8.75 years. What did they do to deserve such a punishment? Yes, I know. Not all of it is praying for forgiveness. Some of it is soliciting for punishment and death of infidels as Jews, Americans, British, all Christians in general, all Buddhists in groups and individually, and the others and a large part of it is just plain ass kissing. Poor god, Allah! His ass should be so raw and in such pain by now from so much kissing. I would not want to be on his place. Never, ever… It should be a very painful and uncomfortable position even for a god. And what if he is sitting at the time of your prayer? How can one kiss the ass of a sitting god? And what about his hemorrhoids…? And what if he ate Mexican for lunch? Brrrrrr… I can’t even imagine that. My heart really goes out to all gods, prophets and saints. It’s a hard life after life they have to survive and we do not make it easy with all this praying and kissing. Give them a rest. Is there a sainthood union? I want to file the grievances on behalf of the holy sufferers.

Anyway, I was going there to the land of the sand and I was going to do my best in whatever my responsibilities were. I was going to work hard and that was the only way I knew. To me any work was hard if you had to do it for living. New York KennedyAirport was busy, dirty and full of the never-ending construction. Paris was nice, warm, clean, slow, and full of beautiful people of the European persuasion, and my stay there was not long enough for my taste. Karachi was demanding, smelly to the point of dizziness, confusing and I was there definitely for too long. Abu Dhabi was shocking the visitors with fantastic duty free shops that contained more jewelry than two 47th streets of New York City together but there were no Hassidic or any other Jews there. That was the local regulation (well-assimilated throughout the Arab world): “NO JEWS OF ANY SORT, SEX OR AGE WAS ALLOWED”. And who was I? The chopped liver? Arabs… You can’t live with them but you can live without them.

At Abu Dhabi airport they sold anything expensive including even cars. That’s what I could not figure out there. What if I purchased a Ferrari or two? What would I do with them in the middle of the International section of the Abu Dhabi airport? Could I ship cars as my luggage? Could I take it in as a carry on luggage? I mean I really wanted to utilize the duty free situation but how many gold chains, diamond rings, watches, golden pens, paintings, statuettes, Armani suits, hats, Hermes scarves, underwear, and the Ferraris does one need traveling in the desert of Saudi Arabia? Well, only because I could not figure out the answer to this question, I did not buy anything and wasted my duty free chance of the lifetime. Anyway, even the underwear price there could blow my food budget for at least a month or so. I did not really believe that Armani underwear on my cute ass could substitute for food in my hungry stomach. Everything was nice there but I had my priorities and no golden fountain pen from the Abu Dhabi airport duty free shop could change them.

Then it was Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, full of fast disappearing riches and the slowly piling problems. After the Golf War and repaying the international coalition for the war expanses, while not slowing their own extravagance and the spending rush even one iota, the Saudis came somewhat short in the treasury department. The royal family and the surrounding relatives were throwing money around like its was going out of style. Money was going out faster than the oil pumps were able to pump it back in to the treasury and the pockets of useless princes. They were buying everything producing nothing but oil and even that was done by people from all over the world and not by the Saudis. The relative shortage of money was seen even in the airport. It was so quiet there that even prayers were not heard. No departures, no arrivals and no people but a few cleaning Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and an occasional worker from the Philippines doing maintenance of some kind.

There were a few heavily armed Saudi soldiers, here and there, and a dozen of totally bored cops. They did not even have donuts to decorate their lives. Donuts were not listed among the Halal food of heaven. But, on the other hand, their duties at the airport were kind of easy and not too stressful. There was no tourism in the country and, even if there was, there was not much to see there anyway. One could come to Saudi Arabia only by invitation. Only the religious pilgrims from the Muslim world on the other side of the border, foreign workers from wherever and a few business people from around the world entered that airport on some kind of regular bases. No one else came but many Saudis left and that was definitely on regular bases. Planes were always full going out and almost empty coming in. Actually, there were more planes going out then planes coming in and that was how they balanced the planeload. So, cops and the soldiers were stationed there to serve and protect the Saudis and the Westerners and to bully the rest of the world trying to make an honest buck there or to pray at the holy place for forgiveness for doing something or not doing something somewhere else or during different reincarnations. I assume these cops performed their duties well judging by the appearance of cops and the scared looks of the visitors. It was the world where people respected force and local cops had the power to apply it. Here, in the Muslim world, power was openly demonstrated and easily applied and violence was the only understood way of life. It was survival of the fittest all over again and Saudis were one of the surviving fittest in the Muslim world. They had mountains of money none of them ever worked for and they freely shared it with the Saddams, Bin Ladens and the Arafats of the world spreading the word of Allah and the influence of the royal family. Blood shedding and death of the enemy was considered good because infidels had to go to hell anyway and the sooner the better for all and death of the faithful was good because they could go to paradise and the sooner the better, and that was good for all. Saudis had it good on both sides for as long as they could remain in the middle of all goods and did not have to be on either side of the issue. In short, life was good for the Saudis regardless of situation in the world in general and in the Muslim word specifically. Saudis paid every terrorist in the world to take the bad to other lands and to leave the good in Saudi Arabia but bad was coming back time and time again and the good did not feel comfortable there and kept going to the other palaces.

Hmm… I think I can see the pattern. When Saddam was in trouble (and he started it to begin with) with Iran, he begged us for help. He was considered the lesser enemy and the lesser threat so we helped him. Every time Arafat or his Arab half brothers started the open war with Israel and lose, they begged the international community for help calling Israel “aggressor” and “an occupant”. Muslims around the world and Arabs specifically always reacted by creating a lot of noise pushing on every button (usually financial). Arafat gets help and Israel was always forced by the international community to stop whatever they were doing and to return whatever they were winning. Saddam attacked the Saudis and their first cousins, Kuwaitis, and Saudis ran over to us begging for help. We helped time and time again but every time the immediate danger was over, all of them, all Muslims went back to biting the hand that helped them. Do you think we should learn the lesson by now? It is not Saddam or Arafat or Bin Laden. It is not Taliban or Al-Queida. It’s us – people from the West and people from the East, North and South, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, non-affiliated and non-religious but of all nationalities and national groups versus Muslims of the world. Do you think we can fight them by picking and choosing our targets? Do you think we should keep allowing them to walk freely in our countries when they would not allow us even to visit their countries? They hate us, and why should we love and understand them? What is there to love? What is there to understand? Even the best intentions of the kindness mind should have the limit on lies, misleading and betrayals. Are we there yet? Did we have enough? Did the World Trade Center attack do it? Why don’t we ask thousand of innocent people killed by the Islamic extremists around the world? Why don’t we talk to families of these good people who died only because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? For how long would our anger keep us going after September 11? It was not Bin Laden or the Al-Queida. It was Islam of the world. Can you see it, people? Every time liberals stop us from stamping out the new militant Islamic snake nest (Egypt, Syria, Gaza, West Bank, Beirut, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) the snakes quickly spread out throughout the world using the loopholes in our own laws and we loose more and more good people to its poison. Shall we finish the job or shall we worry about how the terrorist prisoners were treated in one jail or another and whether they have enough of Korans to pray for the death of infidels? They are praying for our death. We are the infidels.

Let me see if I can find another pattern. Nazism (fascism) – paradise for one nation. Communism – paradise for one class. Racism – paradise for one race. Islam – paradise for one religion. Is it not what we have forbidden in our country already? Did not we outlaw the political parties, social and religious organizations founded on the basis of discrimination and hatred of one group of people by another? Did we do that? Do we enforce that in every state and every city of our vast multinational nation? Islam is the biggest association founded on the basis of discrimination and hatred of one group of people by another and it fits right in the middle of the pack, just between the KKK and the Arian Brotherhood. Only Islam went much farther than the rest of the pack of just talking screwballs by feeding terrorism and finding nourishment in the blood of innocent victims. Islam is hungry for death and it has always been that way. Am I the only one to see it? How come we did not see it and let it be? Oh, we saw it… and… Did you say democracy, the founding fathers and the basic rights? Yea, right…

Well, but back then I was not thinking of all of that and was just entering Land of Sinbad the Sailor but with every step sadness and disappointment were building up inside of my heart already. I was really annoyed by the young Saudi on the plane, who was getting drunk through the flight loudly cursing Saudi Arabia, the king and his own family for stopping his stipend and calling him back from abroad. He was a student in America seriously looking for an American wife so he could stay there permanently. Parents found it out and cut off his money supply and he needed money to impress girls. What else did he have to show for? Money was the most impressive part of him. Now he had three bottles of Irish whiskey that he wanted to take over the border. Everyone tried to convince him not to do it because he would be severely punished by the authorities but he did not want to listen to any of arguments. Drunk was always the drunk. The American favorite “F” word was filling the cabin of the plane to the capacity ready to spill out as soon as doors were opened. Pressure was going high and everyone was getting quite agitated. So, a few young Saudis using force took bottles away from him trusting the steward with responsibility of destroying them and he cried all the way down and during the landing. He screamed that because he was a poor Arab Jews took advantage of him and denied him a drink. I still can’t understand how Jews got in to that one. But he blamed the Jews…

Another thing I noticed was that all Saudis, small and big; young and not so; men and women, change their appearance as soon as they leave the Saudi territory or just before they enter it. They replace the shapeless traditional robes with the most expensive but tastelessly selected Western clothes and the traditional headdresses with baseball caps. Women apply cosmetics and smoke cigarettes and men ordered drinks with the speed of a man dying from thirst. They usually flew to countries where drugs and prostitutes could be obtained without hassle and the vacation-long party loudly took off right upon arrival. They were known for being bad students, crooked businessmen and the generous sponsors of everything god and decency forbids. It’s like they had two faces and you were allowed to see only one at the time. So, when you see the second face, you cannot recognize its owner.

Sad and disappointed I sat on the bench in the waiting area of the Riyadh International Airport drinking the light brown strong Arabic coffee and smoking a Winston cigarette longing for the plane to Buraydah that will end the misery of traveling to and start the misery of staying in Saudi Arabia. Yes, one misery was replacing another but it was a different misery. So, it was a change.

A group of well-built and military/athletic looking young men approached my corner of the specious hall. There were eight of them and they did not look very Arab to me. They looked more like Turkmen and Tajik of the former Soviet Union (living there I saw many of them there and on multiple occasions) or like Pakistani from the mountains (I saw them in movies and documentaries). They were tall and looked strong. They looked like Afghanis and that struck me as odd. All of them were dressed in light brown uniform-like loosely fitted but tight on the bottom pants, and long slotted on the sides, down to the bottom, shirts. Some of them were wearing sleeveless heavily embroidered vests with multiple packets. Heads were covered by some kind of a beret styled like something people used to wear centuries ago. They looked strange to me but I’ve seen this before and the edge was taken off already. To me they just looked like some of the guys from another side of the world, the less fortunate, visiting this side of the world maybe to find an employment. They did not look like the pilgrims and what else was there?

They set on the floor closer to the corner forming a small circle, pulled out three long-stemmed smocking pipes, filled them in, lighted and started to smoke passing them around. The Pakistani serving man had brought over, probably previously ordered, glasses with sweet strong dark Indian tea called Chai. The slow somewhat quiet conversation started I think in Uzbek or Farsi or any other language of that region. Sweet spicy smell of hashish filled this neck of the woods as rapidly as air circulation allowed. I knew that smell from my travels in the former Soviet Middle East, Turkey, and Israel. I was not mistaken; it was hashish in its brownish/greenish purity. This was the drug that created Paradise for many. But, in Saudi Arabia… Out of the whole world… Death was the only sentence for drugs here and this was a public place of all filled with cops and soldiers. I was getting very nervous. My tired brain was rapidly firing images of execution right here, right in the middle of the airport. I did not want to witness execution or even the ugly arrests. I did not want to be involved with something like that. I gathered my things searching for a place to go to.

The closest cop abruptly turned in our direction. The smell and the smoke reached him as well. Policeman motioned the two nearest soldiers to follow him. They stepped in front of me but looking questionably at the group of strangers. The cop said something and one of the offenders answered. I could understand only one word – Buraydah. The cop turned to me and asked for my passport and the ticket. I gave it to him.

“Mister… Where are you going?” Said the cop in very passable English.

“Buraydah” answered I.

“Why?” The cop was still holding my passport.

“I will work there for the pharmaceutical company” I smiled and extended my hand toward the passport.

“Yes, good… Your plane is not soon. Another hour, maybe. Please sit over there.” And he motioned toward the other end of the hall. “There will be more comfortable for you. I can send the Pakistani boy with some coffee for you or, if you like, food. Whatever you want… Free… You are guest of my country.” My passport was still in his hand and one of the soldiers leveled his gun, an American made M-16, at my chest. It was not a comfortable feeling at all. So, I held my breath and I don’t know why.

“OK, if you want to.” I think I was stuttering quite noticeably by that time. “Coffee would be fine” I got up and started to walk following the cop with my passport. I got my passport back from the cop when I was at least fifty yards from hashish and could not smell it well any longer. It spoke volumes for the American air-conditioning in Saudi Arabia. It was efficient.

The plane arrived on time. I was met by the company car and a Pakistani driver, and my fellow travelers, hashish smokers, were met by a military truck and a heavy set driver in a uniform of some kind. I asked my driver if he knew who these people were. And he said that they were Afghanis being trained in Saudi Arabia as the Muslim religious police and the freedom fighters. He said that there was a training camp full of them just outside the city line and not necessarily all of them were Afghanis but all were Muslims. He thought that some of them were called Taliban and some Al-Queida but he was not certain who was who and what did it mean.

Sun was coming down already in this part of the world and it looked almost like in any other part I’ve been. The blistering golden disk was getting cooler lowering itself down to the level of us, humans. It made me wonder whether it was coming up over here in the same way it was coming up over there. And, if it was, why we were so different? Us and them…