Nathan Deuel draws my attention to a piece he wrote for the UAE’s The National paper, here republished on the True/Slant website. He notes that the Jeddah floods appear to have been a major development in the quest for accountability and personal responsibility in Saudi Arabia. I definitely agree. I agree, too, that if there is to be reform in Saudi Arabia, this cannot be a sole instance, a demonstration. It needs to be the element that pushes people to demand that their officials treat them with due respect.

Down in the floods, something in Saudi Arabia may have changed
Nathan Deuel

On the first day of Hajj, rain blanketed Saudi Arabia’s vast western coast. As my wife assembled her radio gear in preparation for the next day’s news brief about the storm’s effect on the pilgrimage, I quickly scanned the news online: it was already the heaviest rain Jeddah had seen in a quarter-century, and the city of four million was flooding; four were already reported dead. By the time we woke up the next morning, the death toll had risen to 77.

Blame for Jeddah’s flood disaster can easily be traced. Nearly 30 years ago, the city was issued funds to build a new sewer and drainage system, but according to a story by Lawrence Wright published in The New Yorker, the government official in charge of the project diverted some of the money to personal projects, including a mansion in San Francisco and a palace in Jeddah equipped with a bowling alley. When the misspending was discovered, the Saudi government gave the official a jail sentence and a fine, but he ended up being pardoned — because, a local journalist told Wright, his brother was a private secretary to the king.

So often the news that makes it out of Saudi is ghastly. Earlier this year, a man was beheaded for murder, then had his head sewn back onto his corpse, and was then crucified and hung in public for several hours. These nightmarish headlines top news sites for an hour or two, after which the stories — and the country’s vexing, more fundamental problems — remain ignored or overlooked.
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That’s what the Governor of Mecca, Pr. Khaled Al-Faisal is calling for. In the aftermath of the floods that killed over 100 in Jeddah back in November, Saudi nationals are starting to publicly demand accountability of their officials. While many had griped and complained before, they always did it in private or in the company of a few friends they could trust not to go brunting it about. Now, with a catastrophic failure of infrastructure, they’re taking their complaints to public fora, including the Saudi media. There’s at least one senior official who understands what they’re saying—actually, there are more, but they tend to keep their comments general, perhaps overly general.

It is time, however, for Saudis to demand accountability, not only of government officials, but for themselves as well. It is individuals accepting responsibility for their own actions that leads to a civil and functioning society.

Governor tells officials to be more responsible
Muhammad Al-Sulami | Arab News

JEDDAH: Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal urged government officials in Jeddah on Saturday to develop a culture of responsibility.

“This country has been successful in confronting challenges. This has helped us in developing a culture of saying ‘I’m responsible,’” he said.

Addressing a workshop on preventing the dangers posed by floods and rain in east Jeddah, Prince Khaled urged officials to move from being pessimistic to being confident and optimistic.

Officials from several government departments — including the governorate, the Jeddah municipality, the Civil Defense, the Transport Department and the Saudi Geological Survey — took part in the workshop which was also attended by experts from King Abdulaziz University.
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Here’s an odd little Reuters piece, running on the The New York Times website. It’s about a diplomatic kerfuffle between Israel and Saudi Arabia. On the scale of things, this is pretty much in the tea cup range, but notable anyway. Read the whole story for the details.

I wonder if there are any photos of the handshake. If there are, I’m sure some Saudi antagonists will try to score political points with it.

Israeli, Saudi Handshake Settles Seating Spat

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – A handshake between an Israeli politician and a Saudi prince settled an unusual public diplomatic spat on Saturday about the seating arrangements at an international security conference.

To applause from the audience at the Munich Security Conference, a global gathering of defence, security and diplomatic chiefs, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal smiled and shook hands in a display of diplomatic good manners.

“There is a chance,” Ayalon said, apparently referring to prospects for a more peaceful region. “I am very glad.”

Ayalon had accused Turki, a former Saudi intelligence chief and envoy to Washington and London, of orchestrating a decision to keep him off a panel involving other regional powers meant to discuss the security of the Middle East.
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Arab News translates an article from the Arabic daily Al-Madinah in which the author calls for Saudis to become more aware of the rights they have. Learning what rights one has is not a one-off thing. It’s something that must be constantly monitored, constantly refreshed. It’s not just a Saudi problem, either.

In the US, police departments in various parts of the country are not aware (or choose to not be aware) of citizen rights on many issues, including those guaranteed by the US Constitution. One issue currently in the air in the US is how police officers tend not to like it when citizens record police actions taking place in public.

Know your rights
Saad Al-Rifaie | Al-Madinah

Have you ever been stopped by a security officer without knowing the reason? Do you know what you should and should not do in that situation? Have you ever been bewildered by a lost job right and did not know the proper procedures for reprieve? Have you ever been subjected to financial or commercial fraud and did not know where to complain?

What prompted me to ask these questions was the absence of what could be called the “culture of rights.” Not many people in our country are fully aware of their rights and duties. People only know to go to the police whenever they have a problem.

The citizens grow up respecting the police uniform because policemen deserve all the respect as guardians of public safety and national security.

But everyone — cops, professionals, officials and citizens — reside inside the general culture and are liable to make mistakes because the concept of rights and duties is not crystal clear.
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Eighty per cent of women’s businesses in Saudi Arabia fail in their first year, reports Saudi Gazette. This is not due to women’s incompetence, the piece says, but rather to the unequal burden women’s businesses must bear in working through legally-mandated regulation and procedures. It’s almost as if someone wanted such businesses to fail…

Most businesses run by women fail in first year
Saudi Gazette report

AL-KHOBAR – Eighty percent of women-run businesses fail within the first year due to complications posed by regulatory formalities and procedures, a gathering organized by the Council of Young Businesswomen at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Dammam heard last week.

Al-Madina newspaper reported that the businesswomen’s meeting heard that the majority of their business initiatives were destined for failure from their very inception due to “lengthy procedures” to obtain bank loans with which to start their businesses, “interminable conditions” required by municipalities before granting permits, and a lack of services for businesswomen from the relevant agencies.

The gathering discussed with specialists the nature of the difficulties impeding the progress of women-run businesses ahead of the Young Businesswomen Forum which on March 29 where their proposals will be presented.

Saudi Gazette runs an absolutely fascinating piece on Sheikh Ahmed bin Adbul Aziz bin Baz, son of the famous/notorious former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. The article is based on a lengthy discussion Sheikh Ahmed held with Al-Arabiya TV. In it, he cedes no ground on his Islamic orthodoxy, but points out that Islam is indeed a flexible religion, that it is not stuck in the 7th C., and that fatwas must be understood to speak to specific times, places, and conditions. Do read the entire article.

Change and reform don’t come without a price – Bin Baz’s son

Sheikh Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz Bin Baz is the son of the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, one of the most notable muftis in the Kingdom’s history.

Sheikh Ahmad has been accused of many things since airing his views on a wide range of topics in articles in the Saudi press over the past eight years, with his detractors labeling him a “lackey of the liberals” and a “fame seeker,” particularly for his opinions on thorny topics made public in newspaper articles over the last few years.

In a lengthy interview with the Al-Arabiya news network published on its website recently, Sheikh Ahmad spoke candidly on subjects ranging from his father’s fatwas, women driving, the role of religious authorities in the Kingdom, and the nature of the relation of the Islamic state to the rest of the world.
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Because the topic proved so interesting to readers, I’m looking around for more on the conflicts in Europe on the subject of Islam and ‘Islamization’. Below is a piece from the German website Qantara. The writer takes a look at who the critics of Islam are and what their motives might be. He notes a category that is often missed: the ex-Muslim critic of Islam. I think the piece is worth reading.

The New Cold War
Stefan Weidner

Germany’s debates on Islam are becoming ever more caustic and confusing. Islamic Studies expert Stefan Weidner explains the background to the debates, to help neutral observers to find their way around

Sometimes it helps to think back. For example to 1983. The frontlines of West German opinion had been entrenched for decades. How to deal with Socialist countries, how abominable Communism was – these were non-negotiable matters of faith. Disassociation seemed more important than conciliation, nuances were easily overheard.

The discussions on German opinion pages and internet forums over the past few weeks are fatally reminiscent of this situation. The subject of the new op-ed cold war is Islam. And now the troops are settling in: the time for finding the truth and preparing arguments appears to be over, the time has come to dig the trenches for the coming media warfare.
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Well, not always, apparently…

Diplomat Whose Name Is Dirty Word in Arabic
Rejected as Saudi Ambassador

A high-ranking Pakistani diplomat reportedly cannot be appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia because in Arabic his name translates into a phrase more appropriate for a porn star, referring to the size of male genitals, Foreign Policy reported.

The Arabic translation of Akbar Zeb to “biggest d**k” has overwhelmed Saudi officials who have refused to allow his post there.

Zeb has run into this problem before when Pakistan tried to appoint him as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, where he was rejected for the same reason, according to Foreign Policy.

This is not dissimilar to a certain Saudi trading company, bearing the founder’s and his sons’ name, which translates very badly into the Moroccan dialect. The honorable (in Saudi) name seems to translate as ‘flaming homosexual’ in Maghrebi argot.

Both Asharq Alawsat and Arab News runs pieces that question whether the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have got their eyes on the proper target of their attention. Both note that the Saudi religious police seem to pay attention to minutia while missing the larger and more danger issues.

It’s interesting that the critics make it clear that they follow Islamic practice strenuously. They point out, though, that the Haya seems to not understand what the real problems are.

In Arab News, the Chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry takes the Commission to task for railing about men and women working side by side. Meanwhile, they seem to be unaware of the depth of problems like corruption. I suspect that learning to identify corruption is just outside the training the religious police receive. It’s far harder to recognize, far harder to investigate. Could the Commission just be lazy?

JCCI chief to imams: Focus on corruption, not women
P.K. Abdul Ghafour | Arab News

JEDDAH: Veteran Saudi businessman and Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Chairman Saleh Kamil has lambasted religious leaders for making the mingling of the sexes a big issue, adding that Islam has not prohibited unrelated men and women from interacting but rather prohibits them from going into secluded places together.

“Islam has not banned the mingling of sexes,” Kamil said in comments published by Al-Madinah Arabic daily on Wednesday. “It bans a man and woman (who are unrelated) being alone in a place. We have been witnessing men and women doing tawaf around the Holy Kaaba together and this has been taking place since the time of the Prophet (pbuh).”

He urged them to speak against issues that concern the public, such as corruption, bribery and injustice. However, Kamil insisted that women coming to the chamber should wear proper Islamic dress (hijab).
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In Asharq Alawsat, Muhammad Diyab writes that by confusing ’sorcery’ and ‘black magic’ with corruption, the Commission both heightens their apparent strength of, while doing nothing to actually confront corruption and fraud.

In Order Not To Corrupt the Lives of Others
Muhammad Diyab

Rarely does a day go by that we do not read a news article in a Saudi newspaper about the arrest of an individual or a group allegedly practicing black magic by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice [CPVPV]. It is correct that this institution is confronting the fraud and deception of those who claim to be able to be able to practice black magic, but the large number of individuals arrested on this charge causes one to wonder;

Why have we become the target of such gangs that specialize in deception and fraud?

The answer to this question can be seen in that the arrest of those allegedly practicing black magic is useless unless this is accompanied by negating the reasons for the ignorance that causes some people to resort to believing those who claim to practice black magic. Unfortunately it is this ignorance that caused these gangs to appear and spread corruption in the first place. This may require clarification and the issuance of examples previously published in some Saudi newspapers. For example, there was the news of the insane businessman who was defrauded by an alleged black magic practitioner who claimed that he could arrange the businessman’s marriage to the daughter of a djinn King, and that the businessman would be rewarded with 10 billion riyals during his first year of marriage. The businessman paid this black magic practitioner a dowry of one million and one hundred thousand riyals. There was also the news about a businessman who paid 210 million riyals to a gang of fraudsters and conmen [posing as black magicians] in order to obtain a high-ranking economic post. The security authorities were only able to retrieve 10 million riyals out of a total of 210 million riyals paid by this insane businessman.
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They say that jealousy is a ‘green-eyed monster’. I wonder what color of eyes paranoia and conspiracy-mindedness have? Asharq Alawsat runs a piece on how residents of various Lebanese coastal areas think international operations to recover the remain of those killed in the Jan. 25 crash of an Ethiopian Air plane are actually using that operation as an excuse to spy on Lebanon. I’m sure the Arab world, at some point, had a scholar who came up with the equivalent of Ockam’s Razor, the law of parsimony. Whoever he might have been, his lessons have been entirely forgotten.

Plane Victims’ Families Accuse US of Spying
Sawsan al-Abtah

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- A tense atmosphere prevailed in Lebanon yesterday after a US warship and the “Ocean Alert” ship failed to locate the black box on the eighth day of the ill-fated Ethiopian plane which crashed in a storm, with all 90 people on board presumed dead.

Anger flared up after a body and some limbs floated off Al-Naimah coast yesterday with many observers claiming that the foreign ships were wasting time or were not doing their work as required but instead were waiting for the bodies to float ashore by themselves. Some even considered the Western ships to be exploiting this chance to photograph the coast and depths which Hezbollah overlooks, especially as this sea area could be a possible site in any future battle between the party and Israel, and this is a golden opportunity for the Americans.

A commentator in the south says: “Even if they found the plane, they would not announce it and would continue their search. They will not leave anything but photograph it. They will not have a second chance to photograph this coast from where the Hezbollah missile was fired at the Israeli gunboat in 2006. They are operating alone without the presence of any Lebanese officer with them aboard the ship.”
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Interesting… The European Court of Human Rights has declared that it is a violation of human right for a government to require religious identification on government ID cards. Religion (or at least an indication of Muslim/Non-Muslim) is obligatory on Saudi forms, from iqamas to visa applications. Of course, Saudi Arabia is not part of Europe and this ruling does not affect it, but the ruling does suggest how the issue is being seen.

Indication of Religion on ID Cards in Breach of Convention

People wonder why it takes so very long for anything to change in Saudi Arabia. This Saudi Gazette/Okaz article gives an example of why.

Some Saudis simply do not want change. They will throw up reasons and excuses in order to prevent anything from approaching the ’slippery slope’ of reform.

I find it interesting that this piece includes the names of most of the participants in this conflict. Are Saudi Gazette/Okaz pushing the envelope of ‘naming and shaming’ here? One of the parties filed a police complaint, so it is a legal matter. And and least one person is going to be the recipient of public repudiation (I’m betting both sides do.).

Literary club members in legal row over woman’s lecture
By Ali Saman

BAHA – Two leading members of the Baha Literary Club are involved in a legal row over broadcasting a woman’s lecture, with one accusing the other of trying to see the “beauty” of the women, sitting in a separate hall, on closed circuit television.

Ahmad Hamid Al-Mass’ad, Chairman of the Baha Literary Club, has accused a club member, Dr. Ali Muhammad Al-Rubai, of trying to get organizers to have a woman’s lecture broadcast live, with pictures, to the men’s side of the Al-Khansa Hall. He has registered a complaint with the police in this regard.

The accusations had been rejected by Al-Rubai, who now intends to lodge a complaint against the chairman, by taking the matter to Dr. Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, and the chairman of the Human Rights Commission, in an attempt to clear his name. Significantly, Al-Rubai also has the support of the woman lecturer, her husband and other club members.
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UPDATE: Saudi Gazette/Okaz run a story with new information on this case. The complainant, apparently, is denying that he issued a complaint, but his staff isn’t supporting that denial…

Witness to testify over video of woman’s lecture