Camels & Christians

Due to an extremely busy week, I have been unable to spend any quality creative time on blogging. So let me take you back to December 2007...

If there is a city in the Arab world that would seem to be safe for Americans, it is Dubai.

The events over the past decade have made many Americans uneasy about traveling in the Middle East. Much of this fear is based on media propaganda that needs to demonize the “other” in the so-called “war on terror.” But the less communication and contact that the Middle East and West has with each other, the more stereotypes fester and grow, and the more media plays on people’s fears. The image of the “Muslim terrorist” is ingrained in many Westerners’ subconscious; conversely, many Middle Easterners only know the image of a materialistic and war-mongering American.

Yet there are places in the world where interactions between cultures are breaking down these barriers.

Dubai is a city of immigrants. Nearly 4 out of 5 people on the street hail from other countries - primarily South Asia and North Africa. The few Emiratis you see are usually cruising in their plush Toyota SUVs that match their white gutrah headdress and long flowing thoub, with a Middle Eastern beat thumping through dark tinted windows. Wealthy tourists from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Kuwait, Iran, and other countries in the region come to Dubai for vacation; it is known as the Las Vegas of the Middle East.

Yet despite the immigrant nature of the city, Dubai (and the United Arab Emirates) is visibly Muslim. Five times a day, the uncountable muezzins call out for the city’s faithful to pray. On Fridays, stores are shuttered and the streets teem with laborers and construction workers enjoying their day off. Alcohol is forbidden; yet the five-star resort hotels skirt the law to serve their foreign clientele, an arrangement of convenience between law enforcement, businesses, and the Sheik.

The “news” in the UAE is centered on the Sheiks; who they visited with, what they said, what events they hosted, and what words of praise other world leaders had for them. Any notion of a “free press” is only a facade. Pictures of Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid al Maktoum, the UAE’s prime minister, vice president and Dubai’s ruler, adorn buildings, lobbies, and every business. A taxi driver originally from southern India brags about “seeing the Sheik walking this very street once.” The Sheik enjoys more than celebrity status; he is, well…king.

It is the Sheik’s rule that demands tolerance in the name of economic growth. The meeting of cultures and religions in one place is possible, in part, because of the Sheik’s desire to make Dubai a world-class city.

Yet Dubai is an exception on the Arabian Peninsula. How far into the desert does the tolerance and respect that all people are afforded extend?

Beyond the glitz and glamour of Dubai is desert, and eventually, the oasis city of Al Ain on the border with Oman. The 90-minute trip follows a first-class, two-lane paved highway surrounded by sand as far as the eye can see. The only plant life visible is the lush palms and bushes that line both shoulders and the median. A sprinkler system of tubes and hoses keep the roadside vegetation lush - literally “greening the desert.” Electricity is no problem for the oil-rich state, either; street lights illuminate the highway at night, geometrically placed along the median every few hundred feet.

Still largely functioning on immigrant labor, Al Ain feels more conservative and obviously doesn’t see as many foreign tourists. Not only a physical oasis of trees and water in the middle of the Arabian Desert, it seems an refuge for Emiratis seeking to escape the bustle of Dubai or the nearby financial and business hub, Abu Dhabi.

It is in this noticeably more conservative city of Al Ain that I admit to harboring doubts about how I will be treated as a westerner - more specifically, as an American.

We find a jovial Pakistani taxi driver who tells us in very broken English, when he’s not spitting rust-colored betel juice out the window, that he can take us to the Camel Souq, or market. A twenty minute drive away from town takes us back into the desert. In the middle of nowhere, pens of dozens of camels are arranged in the sun, with SUVs parked haphazardly between.

We are immediately surrounded by the camel traders. Their dress and skin color suggests many different nationalities - Sudanese, Egyptian, Saudi. They are excited to see westerners at their camel souq and greet us with gratuitous “A salaam Alaykums.”

Each one wants to show us his camels (as if I look like I’m going to buy one). They want us to touch them, pet them, feel their “strong legs.” I’m wary; it’s the first time I’ve seen camels in their native environment and I don’t know if they are going to bite, spit, or shit.

We walk along the stalls, and one camel trader appears to have “won” the competition - he has managed to secure our undivided attention and we walk off to see “his” camels. Dressed in a long robe and sandals with a weathered kaffiyeh wrapped loosely around his neck, he keeps his arm around my shoulder. As we walk, he asks one of the questions I had been dreading.

“Where are you from?”

“California. America,” I say. I had briefly considered lying and saying I was Canadian.

“Ah. America.” Then comes an even more uncomfortable question. “You Muslim?”

It is one thing to consider denying your country. It’s another to deny your faith. Though I don’t consider myself part of the organized Christian religion, I was raised Christian and my belief system today is based on the teachings of Jesus. I will always identify myself with Christianity.

So I answer truthfully. “Christian.”

I hold my breath and await the fury of the Muslim terrorist who will likely behead me for being an infidel, or torture me and hold me hostage, sending videos of me in an orange jumpsuit over the internet demanding that Americans accept Allah and ride a camel to work or I will be killed.

In the past, I have often heard a saying that many people “don’t hate Americans, they hate American foreign policy.” Based on experiences in the UAE, Afghanistan, and India, this still holds true.

But I wonder for how long we can continue claiming an inability to control our own country’s foreign policy? How long will we enjoy the goodwill and hospitality that the rest of the world is still willing to offer us?

The camel trader in the desert smiles and squeezes my shoulder.

“Ah. Christian. Good Christian. Come, see my camels.”

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