# 124: Unveiling the Paradox
Story behind the Passage
Today I watched a short report about the German war and crisis photographer Ursula Meissner. The report was about her decade-long work and the fact that right now all the trips have been canceled due to the pandemic. The interview touched me because Meissner talked about how she started photographing in Afghanistan at the very beginning of her career and how it had not been her plan to go on with this kind of work. But she did, she could not stop. This is how it happened that she became one of the most prominent women photo journalists in a field that supposedly still counts as male-dominated. Yet, as many women know: being underestimated can turn into a great advantage — if you know how to use it. And she did, in spite of the images of destruction and death that you take home with you on the plane. As she said:
“Behind the camera, you can endure anything.”
I knew exactly what she meant, even though I do not have 30 years of professional crisis coverage experience. Whenever I travel to these countries, the places that people do not choose as a holiday destination, I always take the big camera with me (a Nikon). It is like a ritual. I hardly ever leave the hotel room without it. It is like putting on clothes, the most valuable thing I ‘wear.’ After a while, it becomes a symbol: “The woman with the camera,” people keep joking. Sometimes I think it must feel like this to policemen, when they go to work every day and put on their weapon-belt. This must be the moment when they know, they are in their professional role now, the one of the cop. But maybe these are just my thoughts and my projections. Maybe cops do not need any rituals for switching roles. Maybe they do not even need a gun to feel safer. Maybe only photographers need cameras as their “guns.”
Maybe.
I only know that I would love to switch into the role of the photographer again — hop on the plane, close your eyes, and then open them again to see a different world through the lens of the camera. But it is not possible right now and I can hardly imagine what it must feel like for someone whose main job it is to do photo coverages abroad. I am not assuming that Meissner or any of her colleagues go crazy about this (except for the financial disaster). People who have seen the world in all its sad beauty in the most benign places on earth are used to making the best out of any situation. Still, they must be even more nervous to finally travel again.
All this is how I came to remember that I still wanted to write about Susanne Koelbl’s book Behind the Kingdom’s Veil. Koelbl is not a photo journalist but a journalist. And the book does contain pictures of her stay in Saudi Arabia, of course. But the major reason why I came to think of the book today is exactly because of the connection of foreign crisis journalism and, as the most important connection: the look behind. What you see from the photographer is a picture in the end. What you see from the writer is a text. But both would not come into existence if this view behind the obvious would not guide the journalist. It is this hidden part of anything that you then get to read about or see in the images and book pages that result from the work.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, this look behind the kingdom’s veil takes you to many of the places that Western ‘spectators’ usually do not get to see. As often happens, the reason is not even that you cannot go there. Of course, people like Koelbl, because of their experience and personal network, have access to some people that others do not have. But most of the places and people she writes about are not out of reach for the Western visitor (since 2019 Germans can travel to Saudi Arabia without a visa and stay for 90 days). What still keeps them out of sight — and I am repeating myself here — are the pre-fabricated images you have in your mind when thinking about countries like Saudia Arabia or other somewhat ‘contested’ political regimes.
Since I just used “you” above, I wonder who actually reads this book. Is it people who want their stereotypes to be confirmed? Is it people who simply want to learn? Is it people who buy any book that has “veil” in the title because that signals it is about women’s rights? Or are the readers people who understand very well how books are being produced — that neither the title nor the cover tell you much about the content? Is it people who really care about what is “behind”; what is written on every single page and between the lines? I wonder which of these groups I belong to. Maybe I will find out as I write about the selected passage of today.
My Learnings
“Ein Illusionsraum, in dem es sich der Mensch bei Milch und Honig wohlergehen lassen kann, auch wenn das Nährende heute eher aus Häagen-Dazs-Eiscreme und Coca-Cola besteht.“ / „An illusionary space in which one can enjoy milk and honey, although the nourishment nowadays rather consists of Häagen Dazs ice cream and Coke.“ Why would I choose a passage like this — one that is so ‘typical’ of our image of the “new” Arab countries? Are malls not these places where every tourist goes and every expat wife spends her days while her husband works at the embassy?
Yes!
But I did not pick it because I want to write about tourists and expat wives. I want to write malls because Koelbl wrote about them and because she did not live in Riad as a tourist. I want to write about this passage because it depicts this wonderful paradox that Saudi Arabia represents: A country that, in any respect, represents both extremes — modernity and the middle ages, malls and mud houses, desert and high tech. You could go on and on with these binaries. It is up to you to fill them with your imagination. But there is one place where you find almost all paradoxes converging in one place: the malls. And when you live in one of these countries, you do not look at these as paradoxes. You look at them as curious details that tell you something new about the country you are researching.
It is funny to read that Koelbl chose Häagen Dazs icecream and Coke as images here. This is not because these brands are particularly funny but because I also connect many of my mall memories in Arab countries with Häagen Dazs. I think, I saw the brand abroad before I ever saw it in Germany. But to me, the sibling is not Coke, it is Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Somehow, KFC is always around; either in my immediate neighborhood or in my favorite mall. But that is just a tiny detail — the more crispy chicken I see, the more I pay attention to it. The most important thing is that there is something like a souq or a mall close by. Why? Because it is exactly as Koelbl writes — you have to go somewhere sometimes, especially if you are writing all day. And going somewhere where you can watch people is the best place. I think, all writers love watching people. If we really like people?
If malls are “getaways” for non-touristy visitors, why would you even go to Saudi Arabia in the first place? Why would you go to a place where you have to escape in order to see what is behind the veil, knowing very well that you will not get to see behind the veil in public anyways, even if you are a woman? This is exactly where the ability to really see becomes apparent. But it takes practice and you need to pay attention. Sometimes it is just a minor detail that you notice; fancy shoes on a woman or a piece of designer jeans lurking underneath the abaya, that starts a movie in your head. Well, this is what happens to me when I go on my excursions to malls and coffee shops. I have no idea if that happens to Koelbl or Meissner too. But the important thing is that you as a reader get the chance to write your own movie in your head based on the stories in the book — a new one that adds many tiny details to the existing image you might have of Saudi Arabia.
What, alcohol bubbling in the bathroom?
What, women smoking and partying?
What, Saudi men allowing a Western woman to join their after-work desert escape?
As I repeatedly point out, stereotypes cannot be erased — but they can be countered by new facts, new images in your mind. And if these new facts run counter to anything you knew before and expected to see, of course, you end up with paradoxes. This is not a tragedy, this is a wonderful thing. Especially in a country such as the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that seems to be so much “in-between” many things, a transition phase that leaves us in doubt of its direction, getting a close-up into the life of so many different people from all walks of Saudi life, is a privilege.
Oh, the book is not about how women can drive there now and how they are still being oppressed?
Is that your question now?
Are you disappointed because the cover promises you to read what you want to read?
No worries, there is one thing that human nature has arranged in a very pragmatic way. You will only read new things, gain a new perspective at this country full of paradoxes, if you are open for this. If not, you will also find many stories in the book that will completely confirm your personal perspective — whatever that might be. There is no judgement involved. Even then it makes sense to read the book, even then you can very much enjoy it. Oh, did I forget to mention that it is also a very funny book?
But only if you are ready to see the humor behind the veils.
Reflection Questions
1) Would you ever travel to Saudi Arabia?
2) If you were a professional photographer, what would you specialize in?
3) Where do you go when you need a change of scene?