Black markers are everywhere in Saudi

Being a government censor must be a pretty lucrative career in Saudi Arabia. It’s nearly impossible to pass through even one day without coming cross the handiwork of the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the so-called morality police.

I purchased a copy of the US-based Traditional Home Magazine. Nothing offensive there, right? Wrong! Page 34 was totally missing, jagged edges suggesting the page had been ripped out. And on page 67, where the picture of a woman sitting in front of a mirror should have been, there was one big black scribble.

I checked an Italian travel book out of the library. Milan apparently has a lot of offensive artwork, as several pages were blacked out. Same thing with a book on Chinese art. Calligraphy, apparently, is just too provocative for the average viewer.

A recent novel – a work of fiction – entitled “Girls of Riyadh” was forbidden in Kingdom because the portrayal of Saudi women was deemed offensive by censors. The author, a young Saudi dental student, created four 20-something characters and put them in situations encountered by real women every day. The fact that these situations occur isn’t a problem, but writing about them apparently is.

Saudi media outlets and writers are banned from tackling certain topics – anything contrary to the state or its system is a no-no, as is anything deemed to breach “public decency”, a catch-all category as fluid as the Arabian Gulf itself. Bring in a book that portrays the Kingdom in a less-than-favorable manner, and it’s likely to end up on a censor’s bookshelf.

Advertisements seem to be at the black end of the censor’s marker a lot. Store mannequins and poster-sized models might have erect nipples showing through a tank top, but they won’t have faces. Faces – male or female – are pixilated out. The new trend, however, is for models to sport dark sunglasses. How dicey!

Censorship is especially noticeable in stores that sell pool and water toys. The box containing a blow-up air mattress has been censored. The woman on the air mattress was wearing a one-piece swim suit, her ankles and elbows had been obviously visible.

But no store – and no product - is immune. I’ve yet to see a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup without a large sticker affixed. The recipes usually contain pork. Another offensive image to censors.

Barbies have been banned from the Kingdom for a decade or better. The ever-popular dolls were too risqué – their clothing too stylish and revealing, their hard bodies too well-developed.

Some words are even banned. Horrible words like violin, kiss, bliss, party and dance, although the violin is a standard instrument in most Arab bands, Saudis almost always kiss upon greeting one another and dancing is as much a part of wedding ceremonies as dates and fancy dresses. Censors show no favoritism when it comes to heaven and hell though – both words are censored out!

Although American DVDs are readily available throughout the Kingdom, they, too, have been cleansed by censors. We recently watched Miss Congeniality, a film we’d previously enjoyed in the States. American running time – 109 minutes. Saudi running time – 48 minutes. Scenes were cut out willy-nilly, not just ones showing beauty contestants in swimsuits – which was to be expected – but also scenes like the one where Gracie Hart makes beautiful music with a little spit and the rim of crystal stemware.

Of course, the internet is also monitored by the morality police. Search words like breast, witch, folklore or wine will usually send you to the “site blocked” page. Type in anything suggesting sex, pornography or any anatomically correct private part, and the “Site blocked” page will pop up faster than…well any anatomically correct private part! Too many “site blocked” visits and rumor has it you’ll get a visit from the morality police youself.

The why or what of censorship is one of the great unknowns here.

The government shuts down internet sites that push opinions and interpretations other than the hard-line version of Islam practiced in Saudi, yet allows sites that encourage or even facilitate intolerance and hatred to thrive.

Unthinkably violent atrocities – murders, beheadings, mutilation, cannibalism – get through the censors untouched. A man shown beating the crap out of a woman is acceptable, a man kissing a woman, or showing any sort of affection to her at all, is unacceptable.

During Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, Style TV is banned because the runway models are too provocative. Yet the Playboy Channel is available on pay-per-view satellite along with a dozen or more other hard-core porn stations, none of which goes blank during the month.

Thinking about censorship here makes my head hurt. It’s insidious. It’s objectionable. It’s all-encompassing. Sometimes it’s claustrophobic.

And sometimes it’s almost funny.

Whose job is it, for example, to go through magazines page-by-page checking for offensive or banned material or images? And, if the material and images are so offensive – so provocative – then how do the people subjected to them in their jobs avoid temptation? Do they get some sort of worker's compensation or hazard duty pay to compensate for the awful things they've seen?

And how - exactly - does all this censorship happen?

In my head I can see a room filled with men – they would have to be men, of course – protecting Saudi Arabia from all things offensive. In one corner, a group is coloring in legs and arms, chests and faces, while thinking about something very pious, like the Saudi team’s chances in the World Cup or whether the woman was a B cup or C.

Another area is filled with censors eye-balling the backs of canned soup. I imagine few – if any – can read the English recipes, but anything resembling pork - a grilled pork chop or a slice of sausage – is quickly obliterated. So what if it’s a recipe for chicken cacciatore – it’s all white meat to them.

There are special rooms for newspapers and magazines, others set aside for the quiet reading of great works of literature, the almost visceral enjoyment of great pieces of art which must, of course, never be viewed outside the walls of the safe room.

The crème de la crème of censors have a special viewing room all to themselves where first-run western movies are played 24/7. Men with small notebooks and stop watches sip full caffeine soda and munch on buttered popcorn, laughing raucously then jotting down the time of the offensive clip they’ve just enjoyed. I imagine they go home at night and tell their buddies about the great movies they saw that day, bragging – as only censors can – that “you’ve never seen anything like it”.

Ah the life of a Saudi censor.