Observations On Arabs

Here's a very interesting article by Stephen Browne. He lived in Saudi Arabia for a year, and posted his Observations on Arabs. Here's a summary (he expounds on all of these points):

1. They don't think the same way we do.
2. When you meet them in just the right circumstances, they are a very likable people.
3. Their values are fundamentally different from ours, their self-esteem is derived from a different source.
4. Not only can they not build the infrastructure of a modern society, they can't maintain it either.
5. They do not think of obligations as running both ways.
6. In warfare, we think they are sneaky cowards, they think we are hypocrites.
7. In rhetoric, they don't mean to be taken seriously and they don't understand when we do.
8. They don't place the same value on an abstract conception of Truth as we do, they routinely believe things of breathtaking absurdity.
9. They do not have the same notion of cause and effect as we do.
10. We take for granted that we are a dominant civilization still on the way up. They are acutely aware that they are a civilization on the skids.
11. We think that everybody has a right to their own point of view, they think that that idea is not only self-evidently absurd, but evil
12. Our civilization is destroying theirs. We cannot share a world in peace. They understand this; we have yet to learn it.