9-11: Personal Account Inside Saudi

I was on the ground, in Riyadh Saudi Arabia during 9-11. It was a strange time--a frightening time, and after a brief period of celebration, a dark oppressive cloud transcended the country.

I had just finished working an assignment at one of the Royal Places, taking care of a prominent Princess who was a member of the ruling family. This Princess was elderly, and needed nursing care, but since she was on a physical decline, she was admitted to the hospital in Jeddah, where she had round the clock care in on one of the fancy ICU suites in the new hospital.

My time at the palace was both good and bad: the royal family was gracious and generous towards me, but the members of the Princess's household could not understand my role. A colleague and I were one of the first Westerners to cross the threshold of her home, and the servants, slaves and maintenance personal were not accustomed to the ways of Westerners.

As a nurse, there are certain interventions in caring for a patient that are routine, but in the eyes of the servants, were menial. These deemed menial tasks would ordinarily place a person on the "low' end of the spectrum when assessing status in society--status is of utmost importance in this society.

Dining at the table with the royal family, engaging in casual conversation, standing up for yourself and other behaviors, were confusing for the staff. My time in this palace is chronicled in the novel, Surreal in Saudi , and in it, it explains how these people turned against us, deemed us traitors to the Princess, and because of their confusion, jealousy and superstitions, placed us in a frightful and desperate position.

Our lives were threatened, then to top it off, one of the Princess's sons, a lust-driven prince, kidnapped us. Our escape was much more involved that what was described in the novel, and in the upcoming second novel, Awry in Arabia, it chronicles the hows, whys and twists leading to my continued working in Saudi Arabia. To summarize, we were fortunate to escape with our lives.

After the experiences in that palace, I settled back into the hospital, working on one of the units.

On the unit, I worked with people from all around the world. My colleagues were mostly Australians or British subjects, and the support staff were people from Jordan, Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis acted as interpreters for the medical staff. We even had one Saudi who was a social worker, assigned to this specialty unit.

Then 9-11 happened. I’ll never forget how 9-11 changed things in an instant on that fretful day. I was just back from a vacation, visiting my family. Why I came back to Saudi Arabia after all I suffered, was a mystery to me, but I believed God had a purpose for me there.

(Yes, I am a Christian, but I do try to keep an open mind, and I have deep respect for those who are sincere and devout in their beliefs and practices. This extends to other Christian practices as well.)

I know many Muslims believe in Christ, but not in the same way as a Christian does, or even a non-Christian who was taught about the role of Jesus, and who is familiar with the true meaning of Christmas or Easter. Jesus is no more than an historical figure, and a person, in some of the Muslim’s beliefs, who may or may not have been a prophet ordained by Allah.

Some even think He may have been a fantasy figure—or a devil to turn the hearts and minds of the multitudes away from Islam, dooming them to eternal hell. Many Muslims say they believe in Jesus the Prophet, but they are hoping that will open the door to dialogue and a ‘Christian’ person will see the error of their ways and ‘revert’ to the one true faith, Islam.

My previous assignment, living in the palaces and neighborhoods of the Saudis and the conduct of those around the time of 9-11 opened my eyes to the true heart of the Arab. Some, mostly the Egyptians, Jordanians or Persians, I will admit, felt sorry for the tragedy, and were fearful that 9-11 happened. But for the majority of the Saudi nationals, 9-11 was the impetus and an excuse for Wahabbi Muslims to openly show their hatred toward Westerners, our lifestyles, but most astonishingly, hatred toward the "Christian God", Jesus Christ.

Imagine me being on the ground in Saudi Arabia, the country responsible for the calamity of 9-11! It was a nightmarish catastrophe, and many of us, at that time, weren’t sure if we’d come out of Saudi alive. I remember how the American and Canadian nurses clustered together, devising a plan of escape from the country.

There were about fifty or sixty of us, men and women alike, and we prearranged a van to take us to the border and crash it if we had to, to escape. The embassies would help us with getting new passports and arranging for travel home, but any travel was difficult and most were afraid to fly because of terror threats.

There was no doubt in my mind that the ruling family knew about the plot to create devastation in America, and even supported it. The response from one of the Princes in charge of military operations, and a high official in the government was quoted, “we are sorry this event had to happen, but it did have to happen, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of people.”

Numerous Saudi VIPs, businessmen, doctors and lawyers echoed that exact same sentiment, but were quickly silenced.

The shopping mall downtown Riyadh, called Kingdom Tower is a strange architectural design, and looked to me like a French fry box, with two towers rising high into the sky. It was under construction when I first arrived in the country, and was completed before 9-11.

There were rumors among the ‘common-folk’ that those towers were constructed to fly a plane through them. I always wondered why anyone would want to fly a plane through a building. Practice for 9-11? It was certainly conceivable.

Even the ordinary Saudi seemed to know about the planned disaster beforehand. Looking back, I couldn’t understand the sly grins from the people, the whispers, and finger pointing days before 9-11. It was as if the whole country took in a deep breath, waiting for the right moment to exhale. When they did, they exploded in merriment.

Patients I had cared for, people I thought I made a connection with, families I tried to show kindness towards, spit on me, threw urine and excrement, laughed, mocked and taunted.

The televisions in every patient’s room played and replayed the planes flying into the Twin Towers in New York, the devastation at the Pentagon, and when distressed American citizens were shown running from the scene with clouds of grey smoke behind them, the Saudis jeered and laughed.

Every time the footage was played on the TV, over and over again, staff and patients and their families raised their arms in celebration and shouted joyous chants.

I remember the hoards rushing to the streets, piling into their cars, honking their horns and waving their flags in some of the streets of Riyadh. Those with weapons shot bullets into the air. Women screeched ‘lalalalalala’ in high-pitched, shrill screams, dancing in exhilaration.

I don't know if other cities in the country celebrated--but in Riyadh they did.

Thankfully, the celebrations were short-lived. Orders from the royal families and other authorities halted the public celebrations, and, in Riyadh, the hospital administration issued memos, and threatened suspension to anyone who demonstrated aversion toward the Westerners.

The administrators, translators, some religious authorities, and government delegates went from unit to unit, spoke to the Arabic staff in their native tongue, and gave their condolences to those of us who were non-Arab.

They then went into every patient’s room, telling them that if they didn’t cooperate, and show respect to the guest nurses and doctors, offer condolences to those affected by 9-11, they would be sent home without medical attention. In less than twenty-four hours, things were back to normal, but for a Westerner, it was still dangerous to go out in public.

Minutes prior to 9-11, every Western television channel streaming onto the compound was blocked. Our Internet was down and the phones cut off. There was no way for those of us who lived on the King Faisal Compound to communicate with the outside world.

The interruption in communication was extremely brief. It didn’t take long for everyone to learn what was happening because news like that spreads fast, and when the Saudis understood that, the communication systems were back in place--and in short order.

Ramadan in that year was soon to follow 9-11. I remember being dumfounded when I heard the Arabs curse Westerners, Jesus and Christianity. From the Mosques, the clerics shouted cries of condemnation and the falsities of worshiping Christian gods. (Some Saudis believe all Westerners are Christians. It is hard for some to understand that a country can have a variety of faiths, and for one to be agnostic or atheist is incomprehensible).

They preached that condoning Christianity would bring harm, pestilence, disease, shame and doom to the holy land of Islam. They blamed the advent of HIV and AIDS, meningitis and cancer on the foreign worker and Western culture.

It was during this, the ‘benevolent’ season of Ramadan, that hatred was spread most vehemently. Americans were cursed more than other guest workers were, and even though I didn’t understand all the words the matawas and sheiks moralized, I could understand the gist of it, and it chilled me to the bone.

The angry, hateful words were spewed every day, five times a day, from the rooftops of every mosque, on every street corner and every cross road, and for twenty-four hours a day on the television, broadcast throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was one of the most frightening, and disturbing events I have ever witnessed.

The Americans and other Westerners, still raw and dazed from the realization they were victims of an historical terror plot, an event etched on their memory forever, cautiously went about their business.

Arabs from other nations extended genuine concern for the tragedy. Their hearts ached, and true empathy for the plight of Americans was expressed. Unlike their benevolent Arab brethren, for many of the Saudi Arabs, 9-11 was cause to celebrate.