“All I Wanna Say Is They Don’t Really Care About Us”

Since I’ve been in Saudi Arabia my parents have always treated me like a child. I’ve been allowed to take minimal risks in life. I believe this took away a significant learning experience from my childhood. Children should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from the mistakes on their own. I was never allowed to drive without supervision. I wasn’t allowed to wear shorts in public. I wasn’t even allowed to play football along the beach. None of these things were things that were legally restricted; they were all just slightly frowned upon. Despite the frown, all Saudi’s did them. As I grew up I began to realize why my parents were slightly harsh on how I acted in public. It’s because in Saudi Arabia, we were a minority. The expatriet community was treated horribly by the general public. Arabians seem to carry an ego, inflated by their status of wealth, that makes them feel like they are better than us. They feel like they are doing us a huge favor by letting us work in their nation, which they might be. But without us they are nothing. For the past few decades Saudi Arabia has had a high non literacy rate. Their people have been living off the wealth of their families for years. We, the exapts, have been working hard to extract their oils, expand their industries, and economically improve their nation. Despite all this, we are still disposables to them. In any situation, the Saudi is right, the expat is wrong. In a way they show patriotism through unjust and immoral decisions. It is unfortunate that they have to protect their people this way. So being ristricted in how I act in public was an important caution that my parents took, and I undestand that now. If I messed up once, we couldve been kicked out. No one wouldve known, and honestly no one would have cared.