 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
My Desert Kingdom
By Jill Koolmees
Bantam $24.95
 Despite appearances, this is no Arabian nights memoir about camel-riding Bedouins and Cadillac-driving oil sheikhs, rather an account of the kingdom that makes news through terrorist bombings and the murder of western workers, most recently the US oilman and a BBC journalist whose corpse was dragged behind a car.
Koolmees, a teacher from Melbourne, penned the book after the Al Qaida attacks on the US, having earlier joined husband Geoff when he accepted a well-paid lecturing position at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM).
'Our compound, about a kilometre away [from KFUPM] at the far end of the campus, was built to house the families of the university's lesser academics. It was named, with no intended irony, Ferdaws, or Paradise.'
Their life would be anything but paradisaical, although it did provide intriguing, if concerning, insights into what appears to be one of the planet's most dysfunctional nations.
Along with (because of?) the country's oil wealth, Saudis have 'inherited all the degenerative diseases of the developed world,' including a national diabetes rate of 17 per cent, up from 2 per cent in 1970. They have grown fat and lazy through the pampering of many servants. Three decades ago, one source told the author, Saudi males were "men at fifteen. Now they're still children at twenty."
Largely restricted to the eastern city of Dhahran, they socialised with other expats and attended parties where the focus seemed to be on comparing illicit homemade liquors.
Then Jill befriended some Saudi women, attending a females-only disco and doing part-time teaching that was more of a learning experience for her than the students.
When asked how they felt about their country, the group replied, "We hate it here. It's a terrible place for women."
Despite the riches, around 27 per cent of Saudi men are unemployed - no wonder it is a terrorist recruiting haven - with the figure rising to 95 per cent for women, most of whom cannot leave home to work.
'Every year another batch of young graduates comes flooding onto the labour market. With half the population under eighteen years of age, and with the birth rate as high as it is (an average of 6.25 live births per woman) the unemployment problem is a time bomb.'
Koolmees has produced a valuable snapshot of a society poised on the sharpened edge of a scimitar, revealing enthusiasm for the desertscapes and historical ruins they could visit, and respect for the poorer foreign workers from nations such as Indonesia and Bangladesh.
- Thanks to Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore for supporting this column.
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