Can Freedom & Safety Coexist?

The answer depends on whom you ask, or what we believe, or where we live.

I spent New Year's Eve in the city of Dubai, the most glamorous of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates, where excellence, quality, and comfort is always on display. I rang in the new year watching a spectacular display of fireworks and a drone show over The Atlantis at the Palm Jumeirah Islands.

This was the first time I had arrived in the country on an American passport, and being granted a visa on-arrival was a privilege I did not have before. But as soon as I stepped outside, I was just another brown man on the streets of Dubai, soon to be lost in the crowd.

The UAE is among the top 5 ranked safest countries in the Middle East due to their low crime rate attributed to strict laws, a stable economy, and a diverse population of expatriates from around the world making tax-free money. According to my family, friends, and even some strangers I met there, America is still the wild, wild west. The lack of gun control and rising racial tensions are all they see, besides the obvious infatuation with Hollywood movies, of course. I was constantly reminded of the fact that Dubai is safe, America is not.

In Dubai, malls and shopping centers are open late, especially during the holidays, and shopping is usually a late night activity. It helps that Dubai has a very robust public transportation network. The Dubai Metro, one of the best in the world, allows its residents to roam the city with ease, without any concern for safety. I saw late-shift working women traveling alone, families with young kids, youngsters in packs, hopping on and off the metro well past midnight. Then they would take a connecting bus or hire taxis towards home in a neighboring city where rent is comparatively cheaper.

This was however not the case where I grew up in the Middle East. My dad, an expat, worked in Bahrain for about 5 years before relocating to Saudi Arabia in the late 70s. I spent 9 years of my school years in The Kingdom, from 1985 to 1994, with a 2-year hiatus in between to dodge Saddam’s skud attacks.

It was a luxurious life for a naive kid like me, living a protected life. But I wouldn't call it safe. Unbeknownst to me, there existed an evil that revealed itself gradually in my teenage years.

You see, in the 90s Saudi Arabia, we were taught to keep our documents with us at all times, a thick collection of photocopies of my Dad’s passport and the residence visa permit (the Iqama). Whenever we stepped out of the comfort of our air-conditioned apartments, even it was for a short walk to nearby convenience stores, we would carry these documents with us for verification purposes. It was a strange land where the Arab men always had the final say.

I once witnessed a man tied to a streetlight pole on the footpath of a bustling night market, being flogged by uniformed policemen while shoppers moved about with their families and shopping bags. My dad explained to me that the sounds of men cheering outside a mosque in a crowded neighborhood, was the stoning of women for their crimes. I distinctly remember the vehement hand gestures of a bearded man in a white robe, as they pulled up next to our car at a traffic light stop, ordering my mom to remove her bindi until she obeyed. These religious cops, the Muthaveen, the upholders of morality in The Kingdom, were frequently seen in our Indian Embassy School escorted by school authorities as they inspected how staff and students dressed and mingled with one another.

Once, I almost witnessed a public beheading outside an Islamic Center as I was riding my BMX over to my friend’s house. My friends and I were almost kidnapped by four Arab men in a white Toyota Corolla. We were 10.

The shock value of these incidents always faded away as we returned to our restricted expat lives, oblivious to the various cases of assault and abuse kept hidden from public scrutiny.

This was the time when King Fahd from the House of Saud ruled the land. Everyone knew the King, from the posters plastered alongside highway billboards, on the walls of every shop, framed at every place of business — watching us, demanding our respect, instilling fear so we never fell of line.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an islamic state, has a judicial system based on Shari'ah law, for criminal and civil cases. While many countries adopt this law, some countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan implement its strictest form of punishment.

Those who committed petty crimes such as public intoxication, harassment and extramarital sex were punished by flogging, usually carried out in public. Theft was punishable more severely, such as chopping off your right hand. Those who dare to commit adultery, especially women, were sentenced to death by stoning. This was the Saudi Arabia I grew up in.

Saudi Arabia has seen change over the past 9 years under King Salman’s rule. His enigmatic, well-spoken, media-friendly son, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (aka MBS) has set out to modernize Saudi and morph it into an appealing tourist destination by 2030. He brought about early social reforms in the country, such as allowing women the right to drive, and by reigning in the unchecked powers of religious policing. Most recently, he abolished flogging as a form of punishment and released political activists from decades of imprisonment. MBS wants to create an image of a less conservative Saudi Arabia on the global stage. But is that enough?

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA), a state-owned news agency entrusted to report on executions, reported 196 mass executions in 2022, and over 170 in 2023 by closing off the year with 4 executions on NYE. Human rights advocates are concerned that the actual numbers could be much higher. Last year, a 54-year-old Saudi school teacher was sentenced to death for his peaceful yet critiquing tweets against the government under the charges of cyberterrorism.

FreedomHouse is a long-standing American non-profit organization which tracks and reports on “Freedom in the world”. Each year they reassess the score awarded to 210 countries. These scores are derived out of global democratic ideals intended to hold governments accountable to their people. So it comes as no surprise that they have classified Saudi Arabia as “NOT FREE” since 2015. In comparison, they have classified Dubai and India as “PARTIALLY FREE” while the Americas, Europe, and Australia are all awarded the “FREE” status. Click here for an interactive map and see how they have classified your country of choice.

This is where the story gets complicated for me.

"Freedom" - Picture of Mel Gibson (William Wallace - Braveheart) made out of broken tiles - by Ivan Ulmann

There is a strong narrative around the world, and among 50% of Americans, that the increasing incidents of mass shootings in North America are a result of the lack of stricter gun control. Over the past 8 years, the freedom of expression in this country has become a politically charged topic, resulting in dire consequences when powerful voices incite radical thinking. What if this is the true cost of freedom.

Would we rather be “free” in a country where we have the right to redefine the very definition of freedom?

Or, would a “partially free” country, like the UAE, be better positioned to safeguard our freedom by controlling some aspects of our life?

Or, is freedom merely a choice given to the few who behave in accordance to the authoritarian rules of the “not free” monarchy’s?

Let me know what you think in the comments below.