Few of the world's societies are more fundamentally different from American society than is that of Saudi Arabia, yet oil and the circumstances of history have brought their destinies together, as five hundred thousand American troops were stationed on Saudi soil in the fall of 1990, and then used it as their base for the invasion of southern Iraq and the liberation of Kuwait in early 1991. It is more than likely that this remote desert kingdom, traditionally so isolated and secretive that even its population can only be roughly estimated (Congressional Quarterly, 1981: 139), will continue to play a major part in America's relations with the Middle East and the world.
For this reason, it is particularly useful for us to gain some understanding of what Saudi Arabia and the Saudi people are all about. To the enduring intellectual value of gaining an appreciative understanding of a people and their culture we must now add the practical importance of understanding a society that will be of great importance to us for many years to come.
Saudi culture is an easy one for Americans to stereotype. Early in the Desert Shield deployment, American GI's characterized their feelings about being there with the bitter slogan "no beer, no booze, no broads." (Their commanders reported that precisely these factors led to exceptionally low rates of disciplinary problems.) The veiling of Saudi women, known to the GIs as "ninja women" or BMOs ("black moving objects"), and the law forbidding them to drive, are deeply alien values to Americans and particularly offensive to many of us in the age of feminism. Yet we need to understand these things, and other features of Saudi culture, in their own context.
This report will examine five features of Saudi culture, and compare them to the comparable aspects of American culture. These five features include three social institutions: religion, government, and the law; and ...