Choosing an authoritarian state.

Being invited to the international stroke conference in Saudi Arabia was one of the best things to happen last year. I previously wrote about how much I enjoyed the event, how impressed I was with my hosts, and how exciting it was to be in a place so unfamiliar to me. At the same time, I was constantly grappling with the fact that Saudi Arabia is a terribly oppressive country. In that context, some of the most fascinating discussions were with Western “expats,” whose perspectives often stemmed from balancing personal ambitions with the challenges of living under authoritarian rule. Why choose to live in a country which consistently ranks so high among the most authoritarian states, and so low on human rights? And what does this say about how we stand to our values? Perhaps this is the right week, or year, or decade, for me to finally work through my impressions.

This post is very much about “us” in the west. More than 40% of the country’s population are non-Saudi. The largest share, however, are migrant workers from low-income countries, especially South Asia, or the African continent, and about which I can say very little beyond what one reads and my brief impressions. They form a dark-skinned, abuse-prone worker caste, which provides fuel to the Saudi infrastructure boom, but is visible even to a conference goer/tourist in hotels and airports. During my trip, they were the short-sleeved people hailing a taxi, cleaning my room, or the women in plain clothes watching the kids at the terminal while carrying most of the family’s hand luggage.

This post is about US citizens, Europeans, Australians who chose Saudi Arabia. Like, most impressively, the European woman who started more than 10 years ago in a position of leadership, but was not allowed to drive a car, or meet a man alone.

My personal view is that, even if I was without family, I am not sure I would go work in Saudi Arabia, despite the lure of adventure. A number of times during my stay, I felt uncomfortable. First of all, I found the segregation staggering. Brazil, where I was born and which serves as my usual reference, holds no candle to how separated ethnicities are in Saudi Arabia: who dines in restaurants and who sweeps the floors. There also seems to be a general fear of people in uniform, who display a level of confidence which would be deeply strange in the UK or Germany. On my first day, I had a brief, but unsettling encounter with a Saudi soldier. On my way from the international to the domestic terminal in Riyadh, I was walking alone in a corridor when a short, sly young man in uniform entered from the other side. He looked me in the eyes with full intention, reached for his pistol holster and snapped it open. It was clear I was no threat to him. The only explanation I have is that he wanted to show a foreign traveller who has the power in that little corridor of King Khalid International.

Obviously, the lack of rights and the state authoritarianism are not the appeal. Higher salaries and lower taxes might be, but its not what expats most passionately mentioned. The biggest appeal was, as far as I understand, the sense of progress. Saudi Arabia is “behind” Europe, the US, and other countries in many ways, from transport infrastructure to public health and education. But it’s a country with a rapid pace, and there is a level of public investment currently unmatched in Europe or North America. “Saudi Vision 2030” is truly transformational. As a professional, one has the opportunity to become part of a system that simply improves. I heard several versions of “I go to work, and things get better”, and how attractive this sounds compared to a general sense of managed stagnation and decline expressed in other places. One complaint I heard from a neurologist was that this development was too fast, that there were too many new possibilities, things to learn, as the country overhauls its health provision. What a problem to have.

Liberties, too, are improving. Some say that comes at a cost of a more strict crackdown of dissent, but the freedoms are felt more immediately: the ability to watch whichever film, access almost anything on the web, the freedom of women to drive, or to apply for travel documents. Again, in comparison to most countries, Saudi Arabia is doing very poorly, but the direction of movement is the appeal. It feels good to be in a modernizing country, regardless of where it stands.

The other point that struck me is the degree to which Saudi Arabia appears to deliver on everyday safety and order. I have to state very clearly that I am making this point based on my own experience, and not what expats told me. At the same time, the general sense of peace and order is striking. For example, on my second evening I left the hotel on my own to explore the Dammam Corniche, the well-kept parks along the ocean. I quickly felt safe despite being a lone foreigner walking the waterfront at night, with no knowledge of Arabic. What also struck me is that, while even affluent parts of London, Paris, or Los Angeles can be crowded with homelessness camps, I did not see a single beggar, and for obvious reasons no drunks, no shouting, not even suspicious loitering. The crime rate is comparably low. Of course, the simple reason for this lack of disorderly behaviour is that it is strictly illegal. Beggars can be fined or imprisoned. Drinking (apart from drinking in Riyadh's diplomatic quarters; another new development) can be fined or punished by prison or public beating. Drug dealing can be punished by death.

The simple fact is that while these laws often punish the victims, they deliver, aided by the fear from the person in uniform. Living in a city where I regularly change the carriage because the smell of a homeless person has become unbearable, I must admit my walks in Dammam satisfied some longing for order. Just tune out the underlying cruelty. It’s very much the realization of proposals made several times by the German AfD, and yesterday by the American president: Sure, it’s not that nice to shoot refugees at the border, and the police can snatch people from the streets, but our smartphones are safe and we don’t have to look at misery on the way to work.

Ultimately, this also means that some of the human rights violations will be regarded as beneficial, especially since they disproportionately affect the powerless, such as migrant workers, who are overrepresented among the victims of the death penalty. The beheadings and stonings practically don’t happen to Westerners.

Similarly, the homogeneity of Saudi society must satify some people’s preference. A restaurant in a better part of Al Khobar, or the wonderfully designed King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or the Heritage Village in Dammam, are primarily visited by fair-skinned Arabs and Western foreigners. There are simply very few different societal elements to deal with, there is a lot of politeness, it’s all very comfortable.

While, at the end of my stay, I was personally missing the messiness of London, plenty of Londoners complain about the lack of order, and fixing the problem may just require ignoring the unpleasantness of the police carrying out a simple solution. When Trump says problems can be “annihilated”, we know it’s true.