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.
