Expats: Travels in Arabia, from Tripoli to Teheran

Rating:
Summary: Poignant and Enlightened
Review: Christopher Dickey has written an impressive book on the lives of the non-Arab expatriates living throughout the Middle East. Mr. Dickey provides a very lucid account of the experiences of several westerners living (or passing through) different countries of the middle east, in the process shedding light both on the indigenous cultures as well as the one they create for themselves once there.

The only reservation I have about the book (and it does not take away from its overall merits) is that Mr. Dickey's singular window into the lives of non-Arab expats is not matched by any similar insights into the lives of Arab expatriates. This glosses over the rainbow of cultures which exist in most of the Gulf countries, and often impede many westerners from being able to appreciate the diversity that awaits them.

Overall, an easy, engrossing read... with wonderful anecdotes and a singular view into a group of people which most people are not even aware exist.

Rating:
Summary: Fine insights and sensitivity to expatriate atmospherics
Review: Greetings to all.

Mr. Dickey's book is equally insightful and even more useful now in 1998 than when first published about the cultural atmospherics and (diversified) adjustments of expatriates in major countries of the Middle East.

Based on his travels in the region, Mr. Dickey developed many discerning insights from his meeting and interviewing a widely-representative range of expatriates (singletons and families).

I had read his book before I served at American embassies in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council during and after the last Gulf War. His book's treatment of the resident expatriates (the shakiest and flakiest had left Saudi Arabia and adjacent countries) was very helpful and accurate.

A bonus of this book is the inclusion of the views and opinions of Arab employers and other contacts who discuss - with remarkable poignancy - the expatriates and how the various societies perceive and adjust (as they can) to one another.

Highly recommended as an easy-to-read book for sensitizing oneself on many of the cultural, emotional and practical matters of the region.

Good preparation about what to know, who is where and doing what, where to look, and how to think about living and thriving there (and also why some expats do not thrive or survive).

Excellent companion to Gordon Robison's paperback entitled "Arab Gulf States" (2d Edition, 1996), published by Lonely Planet Press and also available at Amazon.com.

Rating:
Summary: Sensitive look at who's in Arabia besides Arabs
Review: This is a series of essays, some previously published in magazines like Vanity Fair, by Newsweek journalist Dickey.

The author gracefully paints both romance and reality; certainly the west's long-running orientalist fantasies still exist in the heart of anyone who has wanted to visit that part of the world. Dickey simply acknowledges these and strives to give insightful reports of the volatile politics and diverse societies (mostly those of foreigners) in the vast region covered. There is a guileless sense of truth on these pages that stays with the reader.

There are very good chapters about Arabs themselves: a censured writer in Cairo, e.g., Dickey's record of stunned Iranians voicing their dismay in reaction to a particularly heinous American military blunder.

Dickey offers occasional history lessons (the chapter on Oman's leadership), humor (the witty chapter about British expats in Dubai), and poignant human interest (many chapters touch upon the innocent lives scarred or ended by various military acts).

I picked this up thinking I was getting a light book about western expats, but that is a very small part of Dickey's focus. He writes of Filipino tanker crews facing mortal danger with a smile and a shrug, a Russian businessmen in a bad suit and the UN's splendidly stylish Turkish PR man, a self-important French Canadian aid worker. Dickey's contacts are many and vivid.

The book is resolutely but subtly anti-war. It will be impossible for a reader to generalize about Arabs after reading Dickey's book.

A great book to give to anyone going to an Arab country, either as expat or visitor.