I love going and seeing culture in a different country. Almost more than that I love researching and studying about that country before the trip or move abroad. I find each country's culture and history fascinating - especially when I know I am on the verge of seeing it with my own eyes soon!
To prepare for my time in The Gulf I bought Margaret K. Nydell's book
Understanding Arabs A Guide of Modern Times. I absolutely love it! There are many facts and personal stories that give me an idea of how my life might be in Qatar. Like some formerly very traditional countries that did not have much global interaction, these days The Gulf is facing a challenge of how to maintain their traditional culture in a globally influenced environment. To better understand The Gulf as it is today, Nydell cites many statistics about life there not too long ago. Here are some of the more shocking statistics:
Life Expectancy 1955 versus 2005 ("Statistics and Indicators on Men and Women," U.N. Statistics Division, Demographic, 2005,
http://wwww.unstats.un.org/)
Morocco = 43 versus 69
Egypt = 42 versus 69
Kuwait = 55 versus 77
Saudi Arabia = 34 versus 73
After reading about those statistics, I began to wonder about other countries. On the
CDC website we can see that the
US had quite different data.
1950 = 68.2
2005 = 77.8
Nydell also cites information about regional women's modern participation in politics. I was surprised to see that many countries reserve a percentage of Parliament seats specifically for women only. Here is more information about that:
Arab Women in Government in 2004 (Julia Choucair, "Women in Parliament in the Arab World," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004
http://wwww.ceip.org/)
Algeria = 5 ministers, 52 Parliament
Bahrain = 1 minister, 6 Parliament
Egypt = 2 ministers, 23 Parliament
Iraq = 6 ministers, 86 Parliament
Jordan = 3 ministers, 13 Parliament
Kuwait = 0, 0
Lebanon = 2 ministers, 3 Parliament
Libya = 0, 0
Morocco = 2 ministers, 38 Parliament
Oman = 1 minister, 10 Parliament
Qatar = 1 minister
Saudi Arabia = 0, 0
Syria = 2 ministers, 30 Parliament
Tunisia = 1 minister, 21 Parliament
UAE = 0, 0
Yemen = 1 minister, 4 Parliament
I guess we all have preconceived notions of women in The Gulf and The Middle East. That is why I assumed (incorrectly) that the women simply did not participate in much outside the home. We can see from this information that not only do they participate in politics, but they are guaranteed participation in some countries. Nydell points this out, "Algeria, for example, reserves a minimum of 20 percent of its parliamentary seats for women; the Iraq interim government reserves 25 percent, Morocco, 10 percent, and Tunisia, 20 percent." (Nydell 2006)
Nydell also retells many situations where there was a cultural clash between western foreigners and locals in The Gulf. I already experienced first hand that traditional cultural norms do not always apply to foreigners. For all that I tried to hurriedly learn about Korean culture before I moved there in 2006, I did not realize that there would be another subculture for me as a foreigner. I do however, vividly remember my co-worker and friend, who'd spent 2 years in Korea, telling me "You will not be seen as a woman, but just a
foreigner in Korea." That statement could not have been truer for me in Korea and I wonder if the same will be true in Qatar.
Until next time!
Photo: Sophia & Frankie bathe and then wrestle on their Cat Canopy
