Build me a Home in da Vinci's City

As you have probably learned from a previous blog post, I go to the gym and to the pool here in Riyadh so that I can stay sane. It's a pasttime that is good for my body and well as my mind, and I enjoy it. However, it seems that Riyadh truly has it in for me and wishes only for me to be miserable. Now, I am being blocked by something that I cannot just move away:

CONSTRUCTION.

In the compound I live in, there is CONSTANT construction going on. When will it cease? I wish I could take pictures and show you how much construction is going on near my villa, but I fear that'll be too risky. Please, just believe me when I say that the amount of construction in the proximity of my home has reached a new high!

For me to get to the gym, I used to have two options:

1. Walk on a sidewalk that made me walk around the back of the gym, near to some aloe plants and through a strange metal barrier that looks like it belongs near a stadium, not a gym. It's fast and usually people-free. It also has a large stretch of shade, which is better on certain unbearably hot, sunny days (i.e. every other day).

2. Walk past some tennis courts and over some ground covered in macadam to the livelier area of the compound. I'd go past the coffee shop and souvenir store, and right past the basketball court up to the gym. There are usually lots of people roaming around, and it's easy for me to stop at the supermarket for a pre- or post- gym Red Bull. I prefer this route.

Now, both of these options are basically gone. Let me tell you what has happened to each of them:

1. While I used to be able to just walk across my stone and sand-covered "lawn" to reach the sidewalk, there is absolutely no way across now. There are deep, big trenches being dug all around the sidewalk, blocking anyone's path. There used to be a slab of concrete that made a little bridge across the trenches, but now that slab has disappeared and instead the trenches are even deeper. There are piles and piles of dirt and sand on each side of the trench, making it pretty impossible for me to just jump over the wide gap. If I want to get back onto this path to the gym, I need to walk around all the trenches, which adds another couple of minutes to the walk. I also have to cut through someone else's "yard".

2. That macadam-covered ground is suddenly IMPOSSIBLE to get through. It is now covered with piles upon piles of tiny rocks. I don't know where they plan on spreading those piles, because I am telling you the piles are ENDLESS. I can't walk through them or around them, and walking on them is out of the question. First of all, someone would get mad; secondly, they made some poor labourer make those piles so I am not going to mess it up; and finally, have you ever TRIED walking on macadam piles? It's horrible! God forbid you decide to wear sandals that day because it will not work.

So now, what do I do? I have had to take path number 1 for a while now because path number 2 was a little bit longer, with a detour around an apartment building. Also, path number 1 at least has a shady area whereas path number 2 does not. As annoyed as I have become, I dealt with the change in routine and decided to just deal with it if I wanted to get to the gym.

However, I guess I will have to change everything and take that path number 2 detour around the building instead. Of course, my enemy named Construction gets in the way AGAIN!

Now, when I am walking on path number 1, underneath the shade, I walk through - guess what - more construction. There are now ropes and extension cords and metal scaffolding stopping me from walking in the shade. On my way to the pool today I had to walk around all of this, and guess what I met in my way? More trenches!! I had to make a long detour around everything in the sun, and walk right on the road. There was no sidewalk for me to use until later.

I made it there and back to my villa, but dear Lord, what is with all of this work? And it is not only the amount of work going on, or where it is, but when! There are workers outside during the hottest hours of the day. It's kind of sad because the hot sun hitting their face cannot be nice. At the same time, all of this is quite frustrating because I want to let them do their work, but it is because of their work that I cannot do simple things like go outside to the gym! Their contractors are really full of crap. Who makes people work during the hottest hours of the day?

I don't just see people working on construction in my compound. No, all over the city of Riyadh I see that evil construction. I see new buildings starting up everywhere, but I see that others are in the process of being built for years and years. Some of these buildings are never finished, either! And yet, still, new buildings keep being started. I have been here every summer for three years and still, there are some things that are not finished. Others have come to a complete standstill and who knows when or if they'll be started again.

What is the point of all this? If they cannot finish one building, why even try to build another? The sight of unfinished, grey concrete with lots of scaffolding isn't exactly appealing to the eye. And they are thinking of tourism in the Kingdom! They'd better start completing the city first!

I'd like to rename Riyadh. It's now, to me, the Unfinished City, a city where things start but never end, especially buildings. If they want to get tourism really going here in Saudi Arabia, maybe they should start thinking of advertising Riyadh as comparable to Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork. He never finished anything, either*!

Leonardo da Vinci, Adoration of the Magi - another work that is unfinished!

*Okay, he finished some stuff, but not that many!

Blade of the Eagle, Eagle of my Heart: Part II

In my last entry, I talked about video games, art, and Assassin's Creed. Today I am going to focus more on Assassin's Creed than on ideas about art. Instead, I am going to think a bit more about what Assassin's Creed might be doing to the perceptions people have about Arabs and Muslims.


What we see, especially in Western media, is a demonisation of a whole religion and race that started before but especially since September 11, 2001. A whole people, which includes several subgroups, are put under the umbrella of being a "security threat". This demonisation has spread to races like the peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and beyond. All of them have been labelled as terrorists; dangerous to the wellbeing of Europe and the United States in particular. What does it then mean to have a game set in a time of Islamic prosperity and have a protagonist, who you control, that has ties to Muslims and Arab people?

It means that either the races and religions portrayed in Assassin's Creed are either going to be sympathised with or demonised to an even greater extent. While experiencing the game as I know it, and paying attention to things like speech and design, I have come to the conclusion that this game bridges a gap between religions and races. It does include watered-down versions of stereotypes, but in the end I do not feel that Muslims, Arabs, or other races and religions are specifically preferred. This is generally a good thing within the game. But what does Assassin's Creed to do the Arab/Muslim community, who are a minority in video games?

This is extremely important. To have a game that actually shows a minority as actual people with noble (and not so noble) aims is a way of saying that yes, this minority group is definitely capable of being seen and thought of in the same way as any other group of people. Aren't we able to understand Altaïr, the half-Muslim and half-Christian hero? Don't we feel a little warmth, at times, towards our Al-Mualim or the other assassins that we meet?

One of the most positive things about the game for people of Islamic or Arab heritage is when the game actually takes place. The time period that was chosen is one that many Muslims or Arabs recognise as a time of knowledge and prosperity. Then, Islam did not have the same meaning as it does now. Rarely are the scientific, literary, and other academic accomplishments of the Islamic medieval period exposed nowadays, and it is a pity. It is a nice reminder to those who know, and a nice eye-opener for those who don't, that there was a time when the Islamic world was at the forefront of the scholarly world. It brings a little pride to my heart, I must say.

The more controversial side to Assassin's Creed probably comes from our Altaïr, the hero.

Altaïr (or Desmond Miles) is treated as any other protagonist would be - what we see of him is that he is  physically attractive, he wears a cool outfit, and he is totally badass when it comes to fighting. He is strong, mysterious, and dark - things that are desirable to the young video game audiences of today. He is similar to the Prince of Persia but in a different time and place, with similar agility, foreign looks and nimble fighting style. He is reminiscent of other video game heroes with their strength and goodness of heart no matter what "side" they are on. And you, the person playing the game, is on the side of the assassin's guild, on the side of other darker-skinned, ethnically non-Europeans.

Of course, any issues that lie with Altaïr is not cosmetic. At least he isn't totally white - he looks the part, and although his accent is indeed American there is not much to argue about on that front (Some things will not change. If it was not an American accent spoken in that specific clipped manner, it'd be a British accent of some variant.). What we need to think about is Islamic or Arab culture. How does it manifest in our Altaïr?

Well, I am sorry to say that it manifests under the persona of a "noble assassin"; the guy who makes an effort to only kill those who deserve to be killed, but the one who is at the same time exceedingly deadly and feared. If you really think about it, isn't Altaïr the guy who you don't want at the airport? Isn't he still the guy who would get arrested in a second by security? Well, he is. I think that is kind of the point. He is exactly what security fears. We see the guy who looks and acts like he could kill a busload of people but instead we are actually pretending to be him and are given reasons for our actions.

But Altaïr does not crash a plane into tall buildings. Instead, he sneaks around, slitting the throats of wrongdoers. You see, you aren't a terrorist - you're a good terrorist! And you aren't a suicide bomber, but you'd be glad to do that leap of faith off a tall building because you do not fear death! Don't all Arabs or even half-Muslims now wish to be martyrs? You must have been brought up to deal with all of this pressure and fear. Isn't that just romanticising that which many Westerners are afraid of, so that maybe they can find some solace in this one noble man?

I worried and wondered about that for a long time. I mean, really, the only sort of Muslim protagonist who is engaged in a war of religion and power and well, he's a killer! But a good killer and that makes him a hero. That doesn't exactly ease my soul and make me feel safe and strong for the depiction of Muslims (or even half-Muslims) in the media. But then, I realised something - this might be as good as it is going to get. Desmond Miles and Altaïr may be the only guys of any Muslim heritage that make it into a good video game without becoming horribly twisted and satirised versions of a whole religion. In my point of view, this isn't so bad after all.


It is easy to be defensive and analytical about any characters of Muslim heritage in media because we are treated like garbage 90% of the time. We are either exoticised to such a great extent that it is unrecognisable, or we are pure evil. The women are beautiful and usually played by white women with tans. The Arab men are usually played by any race but Arab. When they are written about, either by novelists or screenwriters, they are bombers and terrorists, but rarely are they just normal people. Muslims can apparently never be normal people with ordinary lives.

Desmond Miles and Altaïr are not regular men who just happen to have ties to Islam, especially since they are heroes of a video game, but they might be the closest we Muslims (or Arabs) are going to get for now. We might as well be happy...right?