This is a follow up to my last blog, "The issue of taking pictures".
I have a friend who moved from here to outside of Bahrain. When she visited a mall in Bahrain, she looked at the advertising posters in the stores and told me that the faces are not blurred, as they are here. She said that they look like normal advertising posters, as at home. Since Islam is the state religion in Bahrain, this seems to provide more evidence that the blurring of faces on advertising posters is not a Muslim practice, but a Saudi cultural one.
Yesterday, I asked a lady from Jordan if I could ask her a question about "privacy" in the Middle East. I am sure that she thought, "Oh, no! Not another one of these questions.". But she smiled sweetly and said, "Of course, I will try to answer." I explained about my curiosity about the blurring of the models faces or mannequins not having heads in the mall here. I asked if this is the way it is in Jordan. She laughed and said that the models faces in advertising posters are NOT blurred in Jordan, that they look just like they do in the West.
Then, I asked whether you can take pictures in public in Jordan, where strangers might be in your photo. For example, one of my friends took a picture of the produce area of a grocery and one of the workers came up and asked him to delete it because there was a Saudi woman in that area picking out vegetables. My friends and I took a picture at an open air market making sure not to have any Saudi people in it. But you could see that it made people uncomfortable.
The lady from Jordan said that would not happen in Jordan, unless you went up to the person and were taking a close picture of them. The lady from Jordan is Muslim. She said that this is not a Muslim practice but a Saudi cultural one. As everyone says, Saudi culture is very private. They live behind high walls. Most Saudi women are completely covered, except their eyes.
I ran across a blog about life in Saudi Arabia called American Bedu: http://americanbedu.com/. The writer is a former CIA intelligence officer with a focus on Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She met her Saudi husband in Pakistan and they moved to Riyadh where they raised two kids. So, I believe her opinion has some credibility. Here is what she said about privacy in Saudi Arabia.
"One will always hear references of the closed and conservative culture of Saudi Arabia. And the culture is the most closed and conservative when it comes to protecting privacy. This can be protecting the privacy of an individual, a couple and/or a family. Saudis value privacy and even the most innocuous or happy moments that one may typically wish to shout out in a western world will not happen in Saudi Arabia. For example, it is customary to keep engagements private. A couple may be engaged for a year before other members of the extended family will realize an agreement to marry was in place. It is customary to keep silent about illness. If a family member has a disease or is ill, a family may choose to keep this information private. The family may eventually acknowledge a family member is ill but will not advise the true cause or diagnosis of the illness. A Saudi family may have a child who is learning disabled or handicapped in some way. Outsiders may never be aware of the existence of this child. This child may be sheltered from view. A Saudi couple who has been living apart ostensibly under the guise that the spouse lives in one city due to the job and she in another city for the children’s school may actually have been divorced for many years but it is not openly acknowledged. These are just some of the examples of which I am aware of how some Saudis will choose to guard their privacy."
So...after "not extensive" research, I conclude that this is not a Muslim trait or a Middle Eastern trait, extreme privacy must be a cultural trait of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, my next question is whether this is a Bedouin trait because I think it would be interesting to know the "why" of this. Did extreme privacy help with survival at one time in Saudi Arabia?
I have a friend who moved from here to outside of Bahrain. When she visited a mall in Bahrain, she looked at the advertising posters in the stores and told me that the faces are not blurred, as they are here. She said that they look like normal advertising posters, as at home. Since Islam is the state religion in Bahrain, this seems to provide more evidence that the blurring of faces on advertising posters is not a Muslim practice, but a Saudi cultural one.
Yesterday, I asked a lady from Jordan if I could ask her a question about "privacy" in the Middle East. I am sure that she thought, "Oh, no! Not another one of these questions.". But she smiled sweetly and said, "Of course, I will try to answer." I explained about my curiosity about the blurring of the models faces or mannequins not having heads in the mall here. I asked if this is the way it is in Jordan. She laughed and said that the models faces in advertising posters are NOT blurred in Jordan, that they look just like they do in the West.
Then, I asked whether you can take pictures in public in Jordan, where strangers might be in your photo. For example, one of my friends took a picture of the produce area of a grocery and one of the workers came up and asked him to delete it because there was a Saudi woman in that area picking out vegetables. My friends and I took a picture at an open air market making sure not to have any Saudi people in it. But you could see that it made people uncomfortable.
The lady from Jordan said that would not happen in Jordan, unless you went up to the person and were taking a close picture of them. The lady from Jordan is Muslim. She said that this is not a Muslim practice but a Saudi cultural one. As everyone says, Saudi culture is very private. They live behind high walls. Most Saudi women are completely covered, except their eyes.
I ran across a blog about life in Saudi Arabia called American Bedu: http://americanbedu.com/. The writer is a former CIA intelligence officer with a focus on Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She met her Saudi husband in Pakistan and they moved to Riyadh where they raised two kids. So, I believe her opinion has some credibility. Here is what she said about privacy in Saudi Arabia.
"One will always hear references of the closed and conservative culture of Saudi Arabia. And the culture is the most closed and conservative when it comes to protecting privacy. This can be protecting the privacy of an individual, a couple and/or a family. Saudis value privacy and even the most innocuous or happy moments that one may typically wish to shout out in a western world will not happen in Saudi Arabia. For example, it is customary to keep engagements private. A couple may be engaged for a year before other members of the extended family will realize an agreement to marry was in place. It is customary to keep silent about illness. If a family member has a disease or is ill, a family may choose to keep this information private. The family may eventually acknowledge a family member is ill but will not advise the true cause or diagnosis of the illness. A Saudi family may have a child who is learning disabled or handicapped in some way. Outsiders may never be aware of the existence of this child. This child may be sheltered from view. A Saudi couple who has been living apart ostensibly under the guise that the spouse lives in one city due to the job and she in another city for the children’s school may actually have been divorced for many years but it is not openly acknowledged. These are just some of the examples of which I am aware of how some Saudis will choose to guard their privacy."
So...after "not extensive" research, I conclude that this is not a Muslim trait or a Middle Eastern trait, extreme privacy must be a cultural trait of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, my next question is whether this is a Bedouin trait because I think it would be interesting to know the "why" of this. Did extreme privacy help with survival at one time in Saudi Arabia?
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