More self-contrarianism about the Saudis

More self-contrarianism about the Saudis - Having recently raised the question of whether we should conquer Saudi Arabia and steal its oil, I want to point out something else positive about that country and Islam in general - a higher degree of racial tolerance than one would expect from such a benighted part of the world.

Not being invited to too many parties on Embassy Row, I only recently got my first look at Prince Bandar, the notoriously genial Saudi ambassador to the U.S., probably the most successful ambassador of his era. (I did, however, once talk to the guys who installed the James Bond-style security system for his 55,000 sq. ft. mansion above Aspen. In case you're planning to truckbomb his ski house, one word of advice: Don't. You'd be dead before you got 50 feet up the driveway.)

A recent Newsweek ran a photo of Bandar and Colin Powell. They could well be brothers. Since Powell has some Jewish ancestors, he has some Semitic in him too.

Prince Bandar would almost certainly be considered "black" if he was an America (he's at least as black as, say, rapper Ice-T.) The Prince is the illegitimate daughter of a Saudi prince and a "servant" girl. (Since black slavery wasn't outlawed in Arabia until 1962, I'd presume she may have been a slave girl.) I always thought it was ridiculous that when Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca only two years after the abolition of Saudi slavery, he came back with a vision of racial harmony.

Yet ... Malcolm was on to something. Much of the strength of Islam stems from its universalism. In an ancient part of the world that seems permanently subdivided into hostile clans, it offers a higher philosophy than ethnic nepotism. That was part of the early appeal of the Taliban - the belief that Koranic students would raise Afghanistan above warlordism. Sadly, it turned out there were even worse things than warlordism. - 12/4/01