Bruce Anderson

‘Female soldier’ is an oxymoron

Bruce Anderson says that the scandalous events of the past week show that the Arabs can take brutality — but not from American women

Bruce Anderson says that the scandalous events of the past week show that the Arabs can take brutality — but not from American women

Anyone who wants to understand the peoples of Arabia and the surrounding regions ought to start with Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands. He was writing about the late 1940s and, as he knew, the world which he described was about to vanish. This provides the modern reader with a necessary perspective. It should make him aware that in the whole of human history, no major region has undergone such profound changes in such a short period.

Today, the Maktoums of Dubai fly the world in their private 747s to inspect racehorses. Then, they still rode out on camels to battles and blood feuds against their neighbours. In the late 1940s, oil exploration was gathering momentum. The first consequence was a greater demand for labour and an increased traffic in negro slaves.

There was also cruelty. In one Arabian town, Wilfred came across three youths who looked miserable. That was hardly surprising. Their right hands had just been cut off on the King’s orders because they had been circumcised in the wrong way. Even for those correctly cropped, the conditions of life were hard, especially in the desert, ‘a bitter, desiccated land which knows nothing of gentleness or ease’. But its inhabitants ‘were not ignorant savages; on the contrary, they were the lineal heirs of a very ancient civilisation who found within the framework of their society the personal freedom and self-discipline for which they craved’.

They also had high standards of conduct. Wilfred Thesiger once heard two youths arguing about the merits of their paternal grandfathers. One scored a knock-down victory. ‘My grandfather never farted in public.’ The flatulent grandfather had been dead for 20 years, yet his breach of decorum was still a matter for mockery and shame.

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