Ethnic background

One might be forgiven for thinking Saudi’s would all look like Anthony Quinn (from the film  “Lawrence of Arabia”) having a very dark complexion with a thin face, piercing dark eyes and a prominent hooked nose.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Whilst there are some with those features many would go unnoticed in the west when wearing western clothing.  Some have such a pale complexion they look Caucasian.  The reverse is also true with some having very dark African features.  The latter probably shouldn’t be surprising as they’re probably the descendants of slaves.  So Saudi’s are very similar to Europeans, being a very mixed bunch.

The Arabs were great slavers ranging around the Horn of Africa and halfway down the east coast with a major base in Zanzibar.  They also traded across North Africa and down across the Sahara Desert to northern Nigeria.  Arab ‘pirates’ from the Barbary Coast states captured and enslaved thousands of Christians, ransoming many of them.  The British government didn’t pay ransoms and many English Parishes found themselves raising money to free their citizens.

Most of the Africans I have seen in Riyadh appear to work in very low paid (and low skilled) ‘security’ jobs sitting in a small booth, opening and closing a boom gate at the entrance to factories, hotels and major office buildings.  They look very bored and rather ineffectual.  I have noted my compound doesn’t employ them.  The compound security staff looks to be recruited from the Philippines and the Indian sub-continent.