Kings and Camels E-Book

Grant C. Butler

• Herausgeber: Garnet Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

First published in 1960, "Kings and Camels" is a straightforward account of how an American went to work in Saudi Arabia and came home to America to realize how little the average American appreciated the strategic importance of the area and, more crucially still, how little he understood the people in the area. Butler presents his material in the form of an informal account of his personal experiences in the Middle East, both while he lived there, working for the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), and as a successful lecturer and writer who has returned to the area often. The book goes behind the scenes in the Arab world, and into private audience with the legendary Ibn Saud. It explains Islam, the religion of the Arabs. It introduces the reader to the desert Bedouin, and the Arab of the cities. It focuses on human interest, on the Americans who lived and worked in Saudi Arabia. Above all, the book's emphasis is on the cultivation of understanding between the American and Arab peoples. It points out how vital such understanding is to Saudi Arabia, to the Arabs themselves, and to Americans.

Leseprobe

KINGS

AND

CAMELS

AN AMERICAN

IN SAUDI ARABIA

GRANT C . BUTLER

KINGS AND CAMELS

An American in Saudi Arabia

First published in 1960 by the Devin-Adair Company, New York.

This edition published in 2008 by Garnet Publishing, in association with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives.

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Copyright © Grant C. Butler, 1960, 2008

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-85964-341-9

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by Samantha Barden

Jacket design by David Rose

Printed by Biddles, UK

To Sami Hussein, whose love of America and things American inspired the writing of this book

CONTENTS

Praise for the First Edition

About the Author

Foreword

1   An Arab Named Sami Hussein

2   Islam, the Religion of Mohammed

3   Aramco, the Meeting of the Twain

4   The Bedouin of the Desert

5   The Modern Arab

6   Lion of the Desert, Ibn Saud

7   Training for Arabs and Americans

8   Vacation in Africa

9   America’s Awakening to the Arab World

10   Arab Nationalism, Zionism, and Communism

11   The Arab Refugees

12   An American Named Sami Hussein

Selected Bibliography

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION

Grant C. Butler has made a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the Middle East in dealing with the people themselves. This readable book makes Middle Eastern people come to life. It increases the area of human understanding so essential to peace and stability in the world.

HON. HAROLD B. MINOR

President, American Friends of the Middle East

Former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon

Kings and Camels is an example of the superior reporting which can illuminate the most dificult political and social problems. It is exciting, lucid and perceptive. This book provides a badly needed balance in necessary information about the Arab Middle East. . . .

ROBERT R. KIRSCH

Literary Editor,

Los Angeles Times

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Grant C. Butler began his writing career as a sports reporter on the Chicago Herald-American in 1939. During World War II he was a combat radio reporter for the Ninth Air Force in Europe. He worked in Saudi Arabia from 1948 to 1951, where he headed the Field Public Relations Division for ARAMCO. He traveled extensively in the Arab countries, and his articles and short stories on the Middle East appeared in national magazines and newspapers. He gave over a thousand lectures and earned several awards for contributing to “better American-Arab understanding.”

FOREWORD

(Major General Russell L. Maxwell headed the first American Military Mission to the Middle East during World War II. He was the first Commander of United States Army Forces in that area, with headquarters in Cairo. He later became Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, under Generals Marshall and Eisenhower. He holds the DSM and Legion of Honor among other decorations.)

I met the author of this book for the first time in the spring of 1943, shortly after my return from the Middle East. He was a young second lieutenant fresh out of Officer Candidate School and fired with that enthusiasm for his first assignment which usually marks the OCS graduate.

For a commandant of a camp training more than 30,000 men to remember the work of one second lieutenant in the public relations department is perhaps in itself a compliment to the man. But Grant Butler made an impression. He was intensely interested in his radio work and developed a series of recruiting programs which brought credit to our camp and the Army itself.

It was during the period before he left for Europe to join the Ninth Air Force that he became interested in the Middle East, probably because I told him briefly about some of my experiences there. Little did I expect to find him fifteen years later devoting almost his entire time and effort to writing and lecturing on the Arab world.

I have watched his career with more than passing interest since he left me in 1946. He had served me in a position equivalent to aidede-camp in Washington after his return from Germany. When he went to Saudi Arabia in 1948 with Aramco I knew that his interest in the Arab world was heightening. His letters began to reflect deep concern over many of the problems which have since faced our policymakers in Washington.

Several years ago I drove to Twenty Nine Palms, California, a desert community about 150 miles from Los Angeles, to hear Grant Butler give a lecture on Saudi Arabia. It was a hot day, and I did not look forward to sitting in a woman’s club for an hour or more, even if my former aide was the speaker. But it was the only opportunity I would have that season to hear him.

The reaction to the lecture that afternoon was amazing. Perhaps it was more of a reaction to the sincerity, the warmth, the appeal of the lecturer, but the sustained applause of the hundred or more women packed into that clubhouse was striking evidence that Americans wanted to know the facts about the Arabs, that they were tired of half truths and propaganda and welcomed an objective, clear and simple report on Saudi Arabia.

I remember his display of Arab dolls, depicting costumes of the Middle East. The dolls had been made by Arab refugee women, and he used them to stimulate interest in the refugee problem. It would be dificult to guess how much money was donated to organizations aiding the Arab refugees as a result of his lectures, but I know of several organizations which gained many members as a result of his more than 1,000 lectures on the Arab world.

The clarity and sincerity which marked his articles in the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor and other publications was doubly apparent on the lecture platform and I believe it is carried through in this book.

Kings and Camels is a straightforward account of how an American went to work in Saudi Arabia and came home to America to realize how little the average American appreciated the strategic importance of the area and, more important, how little he understood the people in the area. The book’s emphasis is upon the cultivation of understanding between the American and Arab peoples. It points out how vital such understanding is to Saudi Arabia, to the Arabs themselves, and to Americans.

Grant Butler presents his material in the form of an informal account of his personal experiences in the Middle East, both while he lived there, working for an American oil company, and as a successful lecturer and writer who has returned to the area often. He focuses upon human interest rather than issues.

Fortunately more and more people today are realizing that a discussion of the Arab refugee problem, the state of Israel, Zionism, Arab nationalism, and communism does not have to be carried on with the threat of anti-Semitism hanging over the head of anyone who dares to criticize Israel or to reflect a point of view which is friendly to the Arab and his cause.

Americans believe in fair play, and fair play does not constitute continual presentation of one point of view to the exclusion of others. Therefore, Kings and Camels to me seems a timely and informative book, an honest, interesting and sometimes fascinating account of one American’s look at the Arabs. It is above all else an expression of hope for a mutually rewarding friendship between peoples who have, as the author shows, a great deal in common.

RUSSELL L. MAXWELL

Major General U.S. Army

(Retired)

Washington D.C.

June 16, 1959

1

AN ARAB NAMED SAMI HUSSEIN

I had returned from another trip to the Middle East in the summer of 1959 when I finally decided to write this book. The decision was not made without considerable soul searching. I knew that any book which reflected a point of view friendly to the Arabs was bound to encounter difficulties. It would provoke bitter retaliation from those who wished to portray the Arabs as a backward and fanatical people.

Several years before, I had talked with the vice-president of a large publishing firm in New York. He had seen my outline of the proposed book, read several chapters, and was quite enthusiastic about it. “There’s only one thing,” he had added. “You’d have to eliminate that chapter on the Arab refugees and leave out any discussion of Zionism. We couldn’t take a chance on a boycott of our other books.”