Travel to Middle East

Arabian Sands: Revised Edition (Travel Library)

Format: Paperback
Author: Wilfred Thesiger
ReleaseDate: 05 March, 1985
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Rating:

Arabian Sands
His assesment of Arab honor and harsh Bedu life give great insight on the Mideast today. A rare look at the empty qaurter of Arabia by a seasoned adventurer who obviously loved his subject both place and people. One becomes attracted to the silence and vastness of the unknown deserts of the world. .

As an Arab, I recommend this book of "understanding"
The Arabic mentality is fully explained in this book. I could not find a truer book that this one to describe us, the Arabs in the proper & correct way. Although the incidents occurred more than fifty years ago, the true essence of Arab culture today is still mirror image of ancient times, which was described fully in this book.

As an Arab, I can attest to the author's success in understanding Arabs, although from time to time he confuses Islamic tradition with tribal traditions. For example, in one paragraph, the author describes the marriage process as if it's solely an Arab process, while in reality it is an Islamic process shared by every Muslim whether in Malaysia or in US.

Why did he do it?
Sure, we can like our easy chairs; but without a steady diet of raw experience and unprotected (social) intercourse we lose our edge. I'll admit I've got a deep suspicion of comfort and convenience, probably because they seem so inexplicably important to a lot of people. Thesiger was addicted to living on the edge, and he was lucky and intrepid enough to capitalize on some sweet opportunities. He had the explorer's instinct to be the first one in, the humility to be accepted most places he went, and the intelligence to understand and record what he experienced.

After living in Saudi myself, I still look forward to every opportunity I get to go back and visit; but they've got air conditioning there now. I can appreciate the unique-window-to-a-vanishing-culture angle, but at several points in this book I wondered to myself, "Why in the world would this guy keep going back to such a hellish place?" The desert may seem romantic from a distance, but to be stuck in the middle of one without food or water is truly heinous. Even the solitude he expected from being in the middle of nowhere was hard to find. Not many people today would choose to do what Thesiger did.

It's interesting to speculate why Thesiger did keep going back: ego? masochism? love? Or did he want something we've been conditioned not to want anymore? With all the money and psychological expertise that's gone into advertising since Thesiger made his trips it's naïve to think our desires haven't been conditioned to some extent, and this conditioning will not have been designed to make us seek out hardship. I worked for three years to recruit people to join my team in Saudi. That experience made me very pessimistic about the sense of adventure and curiosity in people these days.

Thesiger shows in his observations that there was genuine curiosity at work. Love, masochism, and ego were probably also involved; but there's a strong possibility that Thesiger really did understand he was preserving a mosaic of cultures the only way he was capable. And it's obvious that the awe he felt for these dying, ancient ways of life placed a heavy responsibility on him that he worked hard to shoulder. Today, this kind of awe seems too often overcome by a strong temptation to bow down to the dollar. . . or the easy chair.
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