DOSE THE MIDDLE EAST DESERVE THE MISTRUST GIVEN TO THEM

kev- not quite.You have to realise that Iran has a unique system of split government.An Islamic Republic.
Day-to-day running of the nation is in the hands of the elected government & president.Ultimate authority is with the Supreme Leader.
It’s not the Supreme leader’s approval that counts in elections.Candidates have to meet Islamic standards to stand for election.Otherwise the Guardian Council can dismiss them.
It’s a shame there is even a question of mistrust about the middle east & Iran.Given the nature of recent history with the west (war & hostility), it’s not surprising.What really gets under Arab & Iranian skin is the blatant double standards in western attitudes to Israel & hostility to other countries.Not to mention the perceived war on Muslims & the occupation of Iraq.
So, mistrust is hardly surprising.On both sides.

I understand what you’re getting at.

We experienced the same kind of hostility at Mumbai Airport, where the security are just looking for an excuse to manhandle someone.

These people also shouted, and did not speak in a calm way at all, which seriously angered me back then. Of course you can’t even speak back to them, their police stations aren’t very kind.

Anyway, which part of Saudi Arabia/Jordan/Egypt did you stay in? That could explain it.

It was not so much the rudeness, it was what lay behind it. I used to get s*** from the moment I stepped outside my door till I came back. On advice from the embassy I followed these procedures as well – Before I left for work I used to check the roofs of the three buildings opposite my place from INSIDE my house in case there was someone ready to take a shot at me. When I got to the car outside I had to check the wheel arches and underneath for bombs and then have a good look around to see who was hanging about because the prelude to an attack is they will check your movements and times while they size you up. All this was sent in weekly updates by e mail to us from the embassy. We were told not to use Large supermarkets after a Dutch family (including a 6 and a 4 year old) had a device put under their car at a supermarket on the airport road called Watania which I regularly used. That device incidentally failed to go off because it was one of the few days it had rained and it had got wet and only went off partially. All this for no other reason than you are not one of them.
I was in Jeddah but my job required regular travel to Riyadh, Dammam and Khamis Mushayt and the treatment never varied with the exception of Riyadh which was the worst.
It was the fear of being shot and (as happened to one British bloke North of Jeddah) having your corpse tied to the back of a pick up and dragged through the streets for 3 miles plus all the low level hostility that went with it that made me jack it in. My nerves were gone at the end. My job while I was there was to train two young Saudi men in their 20’s to pass on my knowledge to them which I was happy to do.
Of course one can say these things happen to other people but I am more concerned with what happens to me. As I said previously I went with a great deal of goodwill and I had even bought a copy of the Koran to read.
By the time I left I felt as if I had gone to someones house with gifts and had them thrown back in my face. The thing is that Saudi is not everyones cup of thea but it was my cup of tea and I liked the life there. I had plenty of interests and I enjoyed diving in the Red Sea. It was only when things kicked off that life became intolerable.
Incidentally, an Egyptian bloke in the same company I worked for said goodbye to me when I left and said on behalf of all Muslims and Arabs he apologised for their behaviour that had forced me to leave so its not all bad.

To the Hamburger.

No I am not Jewish but if I was, would it make any difference? Would you love me less?

Sauron

no, i’d make love to you the same way I do to anyone else 😉

To the Hamburger.

No I am not Jewish but if I was, would it make any difference? Would you love me less?

Sauron

Hey Sauron, i was always wonderng. Are you Jewish?

I certainly will go further with that “little comment” as you put it. The people who used to shout at me (and there were many of them) almost always seemed to have long beards and wore thobes as opposed to say Egyptians or Jordanians most of whom I met or worked with tended to wear western style clothes. This meant they were almost invariably Saudis. I will give you another example – one day I was stopped at a road block by twelve armed policemen who asked for my papers.They were really p***** off although I don’t know why. When they spoke to me in English I replied in Arabic. The greatest hostility seemed to come from the three bearded members of the group. One of them asked me if as I spoke Arabic was I also Muslimeen? I replied again in Arabic that No I was a Christian – he then flung the papers back at me in the car and said “Big Problem” and motioned with his thumb for me to go. You seem intrigued why I mentioned “Beard” but I fully understand the reasons for wearing a long beard, particularly so amongst the Saudis but the reason for my annoyance is that I went to Saudi arabia in 1998 with a lot of goodwill towards the culture and people. I studied for a degree in Arabic at my own expense and time and as I say I have spent many years in Muslim culture but that last spell in Saudi has changed my mind about the way I view the Middle East. I come from Ireland which has no axe to grind with the middle east. When I was there there was a terrible slaughter of hostages in Khobar including a Swede and Filippino who were murdered for no other reason than they were not muslims. On TV, the room they were murdered in looked like someone had thrown buckets of blood all over it, it was even on the ceiling. I lived in the middle of this nonsense for five years so perhaps you will forgive me if I have offended you in some way.

I understand what you’re getting at.

We experienced the same kind of hostility at Mumbai Airport, where the security are just looking for an excuse to manhandle someone.

These people also shouted, and did not speak in a calm way at all, which seriously angered me back then. Of course you can’t even speak back to them, their police stations aren’t very kind.

Anyway, which part of Saudi Arabia/Jordan/Egypt did you stay in? That could explain it.

Well, as long as there steady stream of hateful remarks from the mosques, governments and editorial pages throughout the M-E, directed at Israel in particular and the west in general, it is hard to imagine that there will be a buildup of trust in the west.

As Iran and Israel have already figured in this thread, it may be relevant to site the recent speech by the newly minted political head of Iran concerning Israel which is for all intents and purposes a ‘western country’. If you haven’t already heard about it you can link to one of these but the are others.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/14ee1ccc-465b-11da-8880-00000e2511c8.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_israel

It seems to me that statements like this are sufficiant reason to worry about Iran developing nuclear weapons.

Sauron

That is intriguing.

Did you experience this from a wide variety of people, or just one individual?

“Bearded cretin.”

I am not bearded, but please do not go any further with that little comment.

Thanks.

I certainly will go further with that “little comment” as you put it. The people who used to shout at me (and there were many of them) almost always seemed to have long beards and wore thobes as opposed to say Egyptians or Jordanians most of whom I met or worked with tended to wear western style clothes. This meant they were almost invariably Saudis. I will give you another example – one day I was stopped at a road block by twelve armed policemen who asked for my papers.They were really p***** off although I don’t know why. When they spoke to me in English I replied in Arabic. The greatest hostility seemed to come from the three bearded members of the group. One of them asked me if as I spoke Arabic was I also Muslimeen? I replied again in Arabic that No I was a Christian – he then flung the papers back at me in the car and said “Big Problem” and motioned with his thumb for me to go. You seem intrigued why I mentioned “Beard” but I fully understand the reasons for wearing a long beard, particularly so amongst the Saudis but the reason for my annoyance is that I went to Saudi arabia in 1998 with a lot of goodwill towards the culture and people. I studied for a degree in Arabic at my own expense and time and as I say I have spent many years in Muslim culture but that last spell in Saudi has changed my mind about the way I view the Middle East. I come from Ireland which has no axe to grind with the middle east. When I was there there was a terrible slaughter of hostages in Khobar including a Swede and Filippino who were murdered for no other reason than they were not muslims. On TV, the room they were murdered in looked like someone had thrown buckets of blood all over it, it was even on the ceiling. I lived in the middle of this nonsense for five years so perhaps you will forgive me if I have offended you in some way.

F-18.

My apologies, you were right about the chemical weapons.

PilotDKH.

“As for your democracy question, it’s a good point.There is democracy of sorts,but not to a western extent.They have an elected legislature (Majlis) & elected government. The chief executive of the government & national leader is an elected president who delegates powers to a Prime Minister.
There is also a Supreme Leader (currently Ayatollah Khameini) who is not elected & commands the military.He also has the power to (but rarely does) over-rule the President.He also selects an un-elected Guardian Council which has to approve all legislation & can veto potential Majlis & presidential candidates.”

So, it’s not really a Democracy at all is it? If the Ayatollah selects the unelected Guardian Council and can veto any and all potential Presidential Candidates it is nothing more than a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. If you can only vote for a group of candidates personally approved by the Ayatollah that makes a complete nonsense of any election. Basically the Ayatollah is saying you can vote for anyone you wish as long as they meet with my approval.

I think the most telling comment yet is from Old Git.

Regards,

kev35

Well mate having spent a very large portion of my life living amongst muslims in the middle east and africa I can tell you that before I left Saudi Arabia (after five years there) I couldn’t cross the road from my house to buy some milk without having some bearded cretin either :
a) try and run me down – as happened on a number of occasions.
b) shout one of two things at me – either
Fack yew!
or
Go home
I decided on the second option in the end and I couldn’t wait to see the back of the place or the people in it.

That is intriguing.

Did you experience this from a wide variety of people, or just one individual?

“Bearded cretin.”

I am not bearded, but please do not go any further with that little comment.

Thanks.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out what the middle eastern people thought of us,seen as they only see the TV version of our lives as we see the same of theirs.

Well mate having spent a very large portion of my life living amongst muslims in the middle east and africa I can tell you that before I left Saudi Arabia (after five years there) I couldn’t cross the road from my house to buy some milk without having some bearded cretin either :
a) try and run me down – as happened on a number of occasions.
b) shout one of two things at me – either
Fack yew!
or
Go home
I decided on the second option in the end and I couldn’t wait to see the back of the place or the people in it.

I agree with shadow about the portrayal of the middle east by the media, i now our news and papers are very insular but not as much as the US and bush must be very frightening to them.

That’s correct F-18.It was the Arabs who used chemical weapons on the Iranians.Not t’other way!
kev- regarding the nuclear programme. There in your last reply lies the point. “..can we be confident..?”. Can we be confident of being certain? Considering how long the programme has existed (before the revolution) there is no real evidence to consider anything but a peacefull use of nuclear power.
As for your democracy question, it’s a good point.There is democracy of sorts,but not to a western extent.They have an elected legislature (Majlis) & elected government. The chief executive of the government & national leader is an elected president who delegates powers to a Prime Minister.
There is also a Supreme Leader (currently Ayatollah Khameini) who is not elected & commands the military.He also has the power to (but rarely does) over-rule the President.He also selects an un-elected Guardian Council which has to approve all legislation & can veto potential Majlis & presidential candidates.

“wasn’t it the other way around? Iraq using WMDs on Iranians?”

It may have been, I may well be mistaken but I was always under the impression that both sides used chemical weapons?

I have never suggested that Iran was a pro western democracy, that was others on this thread.

Regards,

kev35

okay. But yes, I’m pretty sure it was Iraq that used it on the Iranians. if you’ve some time, go read their history on Wikipedia. What’s happened there for the past 50 years is pretty ****** up.

you got a country that was largely illiterate. Initial gov’ts tried to improve it, but they were oppressive. later leaders tried to regain control of their economy, which was pretty much controlled by the West (particularly oil).. which led towards Mossadeq being ousted by British and US intel agencies after he attempted to nationalize the oil.. which then led towards the Shah who publicly stated his dislike of his own people. Very unpopular guy who did lots of human rights abuses.. but was supported by the west due to the oil issue and his anti-Soviet stance. led to the rise of the Ayatollahs, who many Iranians also dislike, but thought it was alot better than the Shah. And then shortly thereafter, the Iran-Iraq war, which at the time Iraq used WMDs and was pretty much supported by most of the world.. why? because the Arabs didn’t want their Monarchies threatened by a theological movement, thus they sided with Saddam.. as well as the major western powers. Which is why I can’t really blame them for feeling the way they do.

as for being anywhere near pro-Western.. the was alot of warming between the US and Iran during the 90’s.. back then Clinton was in office and his administration began lifting some sanctions (i believe it was nuts).. and Khatami was president of Iran.. the most liberal guy there who gave more rights to women, willing to have dialogue with the west, and stood up to the hard liners and ayatollah. Now.. we got the bush admin who lumped Iran as an Evil Axis, and people electing a president who is a hard liner, and US forces on both sides of their borders. doesn’t look too good for relations to me.

—
edit
—
went to look for clarifications on the WMD issue during that war and here it is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_iraq_war#Weapons_of_Mass_Destruction
seems like Iraq was the sole user, and Iranians suffered tens of thousands of casualties from it.. of which a large percentage were civilian.

One of the reasons why we mistrust the Middle East is because of the portrayal displayed by the medias. We are made to see more negatives than positives. We here more about the daily bombings in Iraq, the murders, the kidnappings and other atrocities. When was the last time any of us heard of something overly positive coming from this region of the world. Aside from the possible ratification of Iraq’s new constitution, when was the last time we heard of a new hospital opening providing badly needed medical help for those in need or when was the last time we heard of the reopening of a school where Iraqi children could learn of their once rich history.
All we ever here about is the amount of people who get butchered by people who are fighting a so-called crusade against an invader. How can the Iraqi people continue to protect those who kill there own daily? These are the questions asked by us the little people and the answer we get from the so-called experts is that they are savages, mere uneducated barbarians who have little care for human life. Such a description could somewhat be accurate of the people who pledge allegiance to Al-Qeada. But what of those who stay at home and hope this senseless violence will soon end so that they can return to a sense of normalcy. They sit idly by while they get slaughtered like sheep while, it seems, the rest of the world waits for the American President to call it quits.
Can we really sit here in the comfort of our plush homes and watch the innocent get killed daily by people who have very little respect for others? I don’t think so! The problem lies in the way the conflict is being fought. Not enough effort is being made in flushing out the enemy! This comes from bad leadership from the highest office! This supposed war on terror has became a joke since Iraqi Freedom came to a conclusion.
In the end, no matter what happens, we will only see the negatives come from the battlefield which lead us to mistrust those from the Middle East, which is unfortunate as I have many friends who are of Middle Eastern origins and I can tell you that none of them are anything like what we see on the news on a daily basis. One of them was even born in Teheran and I can tell you that he hopes things will change in his homeland as he still has relatives there.

“wasn’t it the other way around? Iraq using WMDs on Iranians?”

It may have been, I may well be mistaken but I was always under the impression that both sides used chemical weapons?

I have never suggested that Iran was a pro western democracy, that was others on this thread.

Regards,

kev35

“Iran isn’t exactly North Korea. Iran has large malls and shopping centers. Iran has lots of freeways with traffic congestion.”

Britain has lots of shopping centres and motorways. It didn’t make London immune from the attentions of Muslim terrorists who were actually British citizens, did it? Britain is a Democracy but we still manage, within that democracy, to allow our own citizens the freedom to attack the democracy in which they live. Somehow, I can’t see that being tolerated in Iran.

and what does that have to do with comparing Iran and N.Korea? As for Democracy.. certainly it’s much more democratic than pro-western regimes such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Is it as democratic as Europe or the US..no. The people can elect the President, but it seems, not the Ayatollah. Sexual differences and inequality are still present (but have been made lax due to Khatami).. but you will still find protests, infact lots of them between the two polar ends of politics.. those who are conservative and those who are reform minded.. they clash often, loudly, and sometimes violently.

Is Iran a democracy? Was the overthrow of the Shah a democratic process?

the shah wasn’t exactly the best leader, nor was his gov’t represent any kind of semblence of a democracy.

Some recent bombings in Iraq have been attributed to groups who had the bombs supplied or received their training from Iran. Can anyone tell me what the Pro-Western Democratic Government of Iran are doing to prevent the supply of materiel and training to Iraqi insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters?

since when is Iran pro-western? as a matter of fact, there’s lots of news articles that concluded that British claims of Iranian involvement are based on obscure and inconclusive evidence.

The Iranian Government may or may not have peaceful intentions regarding their nuclear programme. But as they were not averse to using chemical weapons (WMD’s) in their war against Iraq, can we be truly confident that Iran will be able to control its nuclear technology in future? One Ayatollah dies, another hardliner replaces him….

wasn’t it the other way around? Iraq using WMDs on Iranians?

The Iranian governemnt isn’t doing/can’t do anything about it.

They lack the ability to keep such power from the crazy
terrorists.

Which surely reinforces my point that the situation is far too volatile in Iran to give them the keys to the toy cupboard? Isn’t it alleged that since the Soviet Union disintegrated that there are a number of nuclear warheads which can no longer be accounted for? Do we want the same situation in Iran?

regards,

kev35

I don’t think the west can understand the mindset of the Arab people and nor them us.I think they see the west as a threat especially as they sit on a great lump of the worlds oil.Could it be all a tribal thing ,it cannot be that long ago that they were split into different fractions, the same could be said about africa.I feel peace will not come easily or quickly to these Regen’s.

It’s not the Iranian people, it’s not so much their government – it’s
the theocratic mullahs and weird-beards that dictate things that are
the problem.

When you see Iran’s streets, hear the people – it’s not so bad.
However, when you see a large public islamic service, where the
predominant t theme is literally “death to America, death to
Israel”, you can’t help but wonder…

I’ve got friends in Iraq – literally. In the Sunni regions, they’re
killing ex-saddamites, Saudis and other foreigners. In the Shiite
reigions, most everyone they’re killinmg is Iranian, and they’ve
been using bombs unlike what saddam had stockpiled. It’s
generally accepted (but not really spoken of much) that the Iranian
theocrats are sending and funding most of the attacks in the Shiite
regions of Iraq, and the government isn’t doing much about it.

the mullahs of Iran are directly involved in the murder of Iraqi
civilians, Americans, and Iraq police and military.

The Iranian governemnt isn’t doing/can’t do anything about it.

They lack the ability to keep such power from the crazy
terrorists.