the seduction of stereotypes

Last week I spent an hour or two staring at the car wreck of the New York Times' article "Young Saudis, Vexed and Entranced by Love's Rules," and the online comments it inspired. The article follows two young Saudi men for a couple days, quizzing them on how courtship, marriage, and love function in Saudi society. The reader comments started to fall into some themes.

Readers expressed outrage at Saudi society and the men's behavior, often coupled with notes about how, as a nation, it's a shame that we're so economically connected to such a repressive society. Some had criticism of the article for its inaccuracies, often from those who were personally familiar with Saudi Arabia, often expressing anger at the Times' propagation of stereotypes. There were some who promoted a kind of cultural relativism, suggesting it's not our job to judge, including (and this is my personal favorite) some single New Yorkers lamenting that their dating scene doesn't really offer much in the way of romance, either.

Comments of the outraged and bewildered variety were often frighteningly racist and intolerant, making incredibly sweeping statements about Arabs and Islam. Of course, such ignorance and hatred is often construed as an act of righteous feminist rage. My favorite, for its imagery, from a woman who describes herself as "shaking with fury" at the men's treatment of one woman they see in a restaurant:

"Would that the internal combustion engine had never been invented, would that not a drop of oil rested under that god forsaken desert, then these swine would be on the backs of camels in the Sahara, where they belong."

The scary part is that this kind of comment frequently goes uncontested- maybe even a majority of commenters on the article would AGREE, at least in some way, with this commenter. She deplores that we have to interact with Saudi society but recognizes it as an economic necessity, displays an almost comical lack of geographical understanding (the Sahara is in North Africa, not the peninsula where Saudi lies), and says that the men in the story are less than human.

I'm starting to think that a sense of entitlement- to oil, of course- coupled with deep racism and distrust towards Arabs and Muslims has a much stronger hold on the general American psyche than I ever imagined.

And, personally, while I'm somehow fascinated and compelled to interact with this dialogue, I find that it wears on my psyche, too. I'm so busy trying to make sense of it all- how can I respond to such comments? Is there REALLY something "ingrained" in Islam that subjugates women? How can I ask people to have a more nuanced view of Arab cultures while not falling into a cultural relativism that flies in the face of my commitment to justice and human rights? How can I decry the subjugation of women wherever it exists while still maintaining that the lives of many Arab women are rich and complex? How can I strongly agree with those who note repression in Saudi Arabia when to side with them seems to mean siding with imperialist projects and Islamophobia?

I want so badly to find a comprehensive, honest, intellectual response that I sometimes forget to allow the lived experiences of others speak for themselves, to rest for a moment in the knowledge that the truth of real faces, real personalities, and real relationships exists despite news reports and analyses.

Not surprisingly (my incarnational religious tradition shows) my liberation lies in taking the hands of others. It was like waking up from a bad dream in the days following my reading of that article, to spend time with Arab friends, and to enjoy their company and their stories. Faced with that reality, faced with forging friendships and communication, all the inaccuracy and violence of those news reports lost some of its grip on me.