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McPete Sez Frederick's of Riyadh
The religious police were reputed to look angry and have long, scraggly
beards, and to clean their teeth with a tree root called miswak. They had
been so out of control lately that Prince Naif, the interior minister,
cautioned them last week to show tolerance, respect the sanctity of private
homes and stop spying on people. This kingdom is a thicket of unfathomable extremes. Frederick's of
Hollywood-style lingerie shops abound, even though female sexuality is
considered so threatening that the mere sight of a woman's ankle will cause
civilization to crumble. As one cleric put it, women can become "the
most dangerous weapon of destruction" for Islamic nations. Saudi Arabia has some remarkable women, but you won't find them helping
to run the country; the toilet seats at the Foreign Ministry are routinely
left up. On Wednesday at 11:30 p.m., I walked to the mall connected to my hotel to
verify that there is a "women only" lingerie section in Harvey
Nichols. (The first wife of Muhammad, who did not seem to mind
high-achieving women, was a merchant; during Ramadan, trade is encouraged
and stores stay open past midnight.) My dinner companion, Adel al-Jubeir, went with me. The smooth
Georgetown-educated spokesman for the Saudis has been the kingdom's point
man on the Sunday talk shows, trying to repair its friendship with America
after 9/11. The three-story mall was so chockablock with designer stilettos,
bondage boots, transparent blouses and glittering gowns with plunging
necklines that it would have made Las Vegas blush. I felt drab, dressed in black to suit Saudi standards with a scarf over
my hair, a long skirt, a sweater over a T-shirt and flats. An earlier outing
with a pink skirt had caused my Ministry of Information minder to bark:
"Get your abaya! They'll kill you!" I made some notes on Harvey Nichols's lingerie apartheid — racks of
sheer zebra and leopard Dolce & Gabbana nighties and lacy Donna Karan
items — and Mr. Jubeir and I headed back to the hotel. Suddenly, four men
bore down on us, two in white robes, one in a brown policeman's uniform and
one in a floor-length brown A-line skirt (not a good look). They pointed to
my neck and hips, and the embarrassed diplomat explained that I had been
busted by the vice squad. "They say they can see the outline of your body," he
translated. "They say they welcome you to the mall, which is a sign of
our modernity, but that we are also proud of our tradition and faith, and
you must respect that." The police took my passport and began making
notes about the crime, oblivious to the irony of detaining me in front of
the window of another lingerie shop displaying a short lacy red slip. I figured they'd shrink away upon learning that Mr. Jubeir's boss was
Crown Prince Abdullah. But they didn't. I thought I'd catch a break because
I'm an American Catholic, not a Muslim. I didn't. Apparently, the mutawwa
are not on board with the Saudis' multimillion-dollar charm offensive to
persuade America that the kingdom is not a hotbed of hostile religious
zealots. Mr. Jubeir asked whether I'd "placate" the mutawwa by putting
on an abaya from a nearby shop. I'd had to wear one of the macabre, hot
black shrouds that day to see the crown prince, and I was loath to get
shrouded up again to walk a few yards. After the men argued for 15 minutes, I fretted that I was in one of those
movies where an American makes one mistake in a repressive country and ends
up rotting in a dungeon. I missed John Ashcroft desperately. The Saudis,
after all, have been fighting with the U.N. Committee Against Torture so
they can keep using flogging and amputation of limbs as disciplinary
measures. Finally, the mutawwa agreed to let me go, appeased by the promise that I
would soon be leaving Saudi Arabia. A relieved scofflaw, I was left to
ponder a country at a turning point, a society engaged in a momentous
struggle for its future, torn between secret police and secret
undergarments.
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IYADH,
Saudi Arabia — I had been wanting to catch a glimpse of the mutawwa, the
bully boys from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice who go around harassing and arresting Saudis in the name of Islam. But
since I grew up with "I Dream of Jeannie" and tales of Aladdin's
lamp, I should have known that Arabia is not the place to make wishes
lightly.