No Renewal of Contract for Male Employees Aged 60
JEDDAH, 23 March 2006 — A male employee’s work contract will automatically be canceled when he reaches the age of 60; the age for women is 55. This is in line with the new Labor Law scheduled to be implemented from the 13th of next month, the Arabic daily Al-Watan reported yesterday.
The suspension of Article 75 pertaining to the provision of a worker’s termination is a special feature of the new law. Those who are working in the field of sport clubs such as players are, however, exempt from the provision.
Ali Al-Ghamdi, chairman of the primary committee for workers’ problems in Makkah, said the implementation of the new work regulations would also be accompanied by the conversion of the judicial committees to judicial commissions.
The Saudi government is changing quite a few regulations pertaining to expat workers. Some–as the age limits, or training requirements for young Saudis–seems aimed at simply getting expats out of the country to increase the “Saudization” of the workforce. Others, like expanded and defined holidays, are aimed to establish equitable working conditions.
With 245 regulations now being written up formally, things are getting better for expat workers, though not entirely cost-free.
A Southern Woman Reflects and Remembers
Hayat Kharbash, Arab NewsABHA, 23 March 2006 — Before sunrise, she opens her little shop and prepares Arabic coffee. She prays for a profitable working day and that the Thulatha Public Market will be thronged with customers for her and other shopkeepers.
The market is located in the heart of Abha and Gumasha Mastoor, 75, sits in front of her store on a wooden chair every day. She works along with a number of other businesswomen. When customers arrive, she serves them Arabic coffee and in fact, her shop is known as the “Arabic Coffee Shop.â€
Gumasha supports a family of four and she relies on selling traditional products, clothes and leather to do so. She has no one to help her and in addition, she supports a 20-year-old handicapped daughter.
This is a very nice piece from the Arab News that looks at a Saudi woman whose entrepreneurial skills support her and her family.
The writer notes something a bit unusual about her:
Gumasha sits unveiled outside her shop, and indeed, many of the other women are also unveiled. They never wore a veil, even when they were young. “Covering our faces is not part of our tradition,†said Gumasha.
The story kills two birds with one stone, and both for a Saudi audience. First, that it’s simply not true that a Muslim woman must veil, that at least in the Asir region, it’s only recently that women have taken up veiling. Second, that Saudi women are quite capable of working, that it’s not anything strange to them.
The point of the story, of course, is that the stereotypes of Saudi women, even those held by Saudi men, are in need of serious revision.
Oh, the Stories That Matchmakers Can Tell
Hasan Hatrash, Arab NewsJEDDAH, 22 March 2006 — You know the stock-market bug has penetrated deep into society when you hear a story like the one told by Ahmad Al-Omari about a young groom that paid his dowry by electronically transferring SR30,000 worth of shares from his stock portfolio to the one belonging to his bride-to-be.
This is just one of many of society’s benchmark indicators that can be observed when one is a professional matchmaker like Al-Omari, who is engaged, if you will, in the process of finding compatible couples.
This is a very good article from Arab News about the role of the contemporary matchmaker in a traditionalist society. As a human interest story, it’s hard to beat!
Saudi Arabia’s first film blazes taboo-breaking trail
DUBAI (AFP) – A trailblazing Saudi film featuring the country’s first silver screen actress will be shown this summer everywhere in the Middle East — except in the ultra-conservative kingdom where cinemas are banned.
“Keif al-Hal” (How Are You?) is the first produced by Saudi-owned Arab entertainment company Rotana owned by reform-minded Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
The movie is a comedy-drama which its makers say embodies the tension between moderates and religious extremists
In addition to “500 km,” about which I wrote yesterday, the first feature-length Saudi film, “Keif al-Hal,” is getting some publicity. This article from the French news agency AFP is worth a glance. It carries comments by some of the Saudis involved in the film about the state of the arts and reform in the country.
Saudi Arabia frees activist held over Web article
Reuters news agency reports that a Saudi cleric, Mohsen al-Awajy, who was arrested about two weeks ago for writing that the Saudi government–and particularly the Minister of Labor–were a clique intent on injecting liberal values into the country, was released from jail.
The most interesting stuff–like what he promised, if anything, to be released–isn’t available in this report. Perhaps Saudi media will have more later.
Riyadh, 22 March (AKI) – The Saudi authorities detained three terror suspects late Tuesday following a security sweep in the kingdom, the regional daily Khaleej Times reports. In a press statement, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Torki said the men were detained in Khobar, a town in eastern Saudi Arabia, during a police operation in various cities. The three surrendered to the security authorities who had earlier laid siege to their house located next to an elementary school, al-Torki said.
This brief article from the Italian news agency AKI, notes that these arrests are in addition to the five detained early this week in the Eastern Province.
The Future of Islam: Possible Paths
By Karima SbitriLondon, Asharq Al-Awsat – “As Muslims in the west and in the name of faithfulness to a universal message, we need to find a solution to the multiple crises that we are in,” argues Tariq Ramadan during a public debate entitled ‘The Future of Islam: Possible Paths,’ which featured the prominent Swiss author of Egyptian origin, one of today’s most important innovators of the 21st century according to Time magazine, and dubbed by others as the “Muslim Martin Luther.” What are these crises? Is it that Muslims are struggling to juggle the responsibility of defending Islam whilst deadly acts of terrorism are carried out in the name of this faith? Is it the complexity of leading an Islamic lifestyle in a secular society? More importantly, how should western Muslims deal with such crises and what are the solutions. Joining Dr Ramadan in discussing the future of Islam at the London School of Economics was writer, broadcaster and critic Ziauddin Sardar, who has authored a number of Islamic and cultural books and often contributes to British newspaper, the Observer.
The discussion explores the notion of Ijtihad, “the reading of the scriptural sources, when the text is not obvious, where there is latitude for interpretation or when the text has not been backed by prophetic tradition.” As part of the solution to our “multiple crises,” firstly, Ramadan addresses the issue of interpretation of scriptural sources in that what is necessary nowadays is a better interpretation of Islamic terminology. He states, “we now have people accepting that Shariaa, the set of laws, or penal code, is not something that was understood at the beginning of Islamic Sciences,” thus part of the problem is that we do not know the roots of our tradition and terminology and this is of major importance for the Muslims’ escape from the current dilemma.
Very interesting piece on Tariq Ramadan in today’s Asharq Alawsat. Ramadan points to the lack of context in discussions about Islamic law. This lack, he believes, prevents Muslims from understanding the purpose and point of the various laws. He also laments that interpretation of Islam–by the Quran, a duty and right of the entire Muslim umma–has been taken over by a narrow group of religious scholars who impose their own views on the entire Muslim community.
Ramadan is not seen favorably in the US. He was denied a visa to enter the US to lecture at Notre Dame University several years ago due to his alleged support of terrorist organizations. Maybe that’s to the good. If the US won’t let him in, maybe some will see this as legitimizing his speech more than would otherwise be the case.
In any event, this article is definitely worth reading.
Yesterday, Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, gave a major foreign policy speech. It was, essentially, about the war against terror. American President George Bush had a press conference yesterday in which he defended his positions on the war against terror, particularly as manifest in the war in Iraq. The two should be read together.
In terms of eloquence, there’s no question that Blair beat Bush, hands down. But a speech and a press conference are different venues, each with its rules and expectations of rhetoric. Bush’s press conference has received, and will continue to receive, global press coverage. Blair’s speech may well be lost in the chatter. It most certainly should not be lost. It should become a focus for those honestly concerned about the fate of the world.
Blair points out that the war against terror actually is a war about the nature of civilization:
This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds of its adherents, are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core. By this I don’t mean telling them terrorism is wrong. I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive; and then since only by Muslims can this be done: standing up for and supporting those within Islam who will tell them all of this but more, namely that the extremist view of Islam is not just theologically backward but completely contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Koran.
But in order to do this, we must reject the thought that somehow we are the authors of our own distress; that if only we altered this decision or that, the extremism would fade away. The only way to win is: to recognise this phenomenon is a global ideology; to see all areas, in which it operates, as linked; and to defeat it by values and ideas set in opposition to those of the terrorists.
The roots of global terrorism and extremism are indeed deep. They reach right down through decades of alienation, victimhood and political oppression in the Arab and Muslim world. Yet this is not and never has been inevitable. The most remarkable thing about reading the Koran – in so far as it can be truly translated from the original Arabic – is to understand how progressive it is. I speak with great diffidence and humility as a member of another faith. I am not qualified to make any judgements. But as an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, rather as reformers attempted with the Christian Church centuries later. It is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and way ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance.
Under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands was breathtaking. Over centuries it founded an Empire, leading the world in discovery, art and culture. The standard bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian.
This is not the place to digress into a history of what subsequently happened. But by the early 20th century, after renaissance, reformation and enlightenment had swept over the Western world, the Muslim and Arab world was uncertain, insecure and on the defensive. Some countries like Turkey went for a muscular move to secularism. Others found themselves caught between colonisation, nascent nationalism, political oppression and religious radicalism. Muslims began to see the sorry state of Muslim countries as symptomatic of the sorry state of Islam. Political radicals became religious radicals and vice versa. Those in power tried to accommodate the resurgent Islamic radicalism by incorporating some of its leaders and some of its ideology. The result was nearly always disastrous. The religious radicalism was made respectable; the political radicalism suppressed and so in the minds of many, the cause of the two came together to symbolise the need for change. So many came to believe that the way of restoring the confidence and stability of Islam was the combination of religious extremism and populist politics.
The true enemies became “the West” and those Islamic leaders who co-operated with them.
The extremism may have started through religious doctrine and thought. But soon, in offshoots of the Muslim brotherhood, supported by Wahabi extremists and taught in some of the Madrassas of the Middle East and Asia, an ideology was born and exported around the world…
The different aspects of this terrorism are linked. The struggle against terrorism in Madrid or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PIJ in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq. The murder of the innocent in Beslan is part of the same ideology that takes innocent lives in Saudi Arabia, the Yemen or Libya. And when Iran gives support to such terrorism, it becomes part of the same battle with the same ideology at its heart.
There is much in this speech to think about. It is very clear, though, that the demonization of the West is a tactic used by the extremists to delegitimize those who aspire to democratic values.
I strongly urge you to read the entire piece, linked above.
‘Cinema 500 km’ — a Film About Watching a Film
Raid Qusti, Arab NewsRIYADH, 22 March 2006: In the only country in the world without movie theaters, watching box office films on the big screen is an unusual pleasure for movie lovers in the Kingdom. It also involves a long journey to another country.
This journey inspired a Saudi director to make his cinematic debut with “Cinema 500 km,†a film that ironically won’t be shown publicly in Saudi Arabia.
Raid Qusti, Riyadh Bureau Cheif for the Arab News and an insightful reporter on Saudi social issues, has a nice piece about a short Saudi documentary.
I mentioned this film, “500 km” earlier in talking about another Saudi film. But this article is worth a glance. It even posits the re-opening of cinemas in the Kingdom.
Islamic Televangelist Risks Popularity
CAIRO, Egypt, AP – Islamic televangelist Amr Khaled is young, smiling, teaches love and mercy, and is so popular he’s credited with inspiring thousands of women to take the veil.
Now he’s putting his popularity on the line by trying a new role, as a bridge between Islam and the West at a time when many are talking about a clash of civilizations.
In the process, Khaled is telling the faithful something they’re not used to hearing from clerics — that Muslims aren’t blameless in the tensions, that the West is not always bad and that dialogue is better than confrontation.
“A young Muslim goes to Europe with a forged visa, takes unemployment insurance there, then goes on TV and says, ‘We’re going to expel you from Britain, take your land, money and women,’” Khaled said recently on his weekly program on the Saudi satellite TV channel Iqraa, trying to explain the mistrust of Muslims in Europe. “It’s a rare example, but it exists.”
This article, published in the Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat takes a look at Amr Khaled, an Egyptian preacher who has a regular program on the Saudi-owned Iqra, religious satellite TV network. Clearly the paper approves of his message. {Note: This AP article also appeared in American media.]
Khaled reached some level of fame when he went to Denmark following the cartoon flap to take part in a dialogue between Danes and Muslims. His attendance drew considerable opposition from the Yusef Qaradawi, known for his harsh and contradictory statements about Islam.
Khaled seems to be preaching a different form of Islamism which, as Marie-Elisabeth Maigre spells out in her “Islam in Business” blog, is distinguished by being:
1- Morally conservative
2- Economically liberal (willing to influence consumption patterns; using media and new communications)
3- Politically disengaged, rather conservative, but aiming at good relationships with every government. Their “hidden†agenda – if one – is democracy, not Caliphate and Sharia.
4- Socially and culturally active/innovative
Amr Khaled has become something of a “super-star” televangelist for Islam, attracting wide audiences from around the world. He does seem to represent a “middle way” in Islam that seeks to avoid confrontation while still remaining true to Islamic values.
Because he does not have a certificate in Islamic fiqh, jurisprudence, many conservatives reject him as uneducated and unqualified to speak on Islam. He claims only to be a preacher. His growing audiences of young Muslim men and women clearly like what he has to say.
US Keen on Partnership for Women Empowerment: Walsh
Maha Akeel, Arab NewsJEDDAH, 21 March 2006 — The United States is interested in building bridges of communication and partnership with Saudi women to help them achieve their objectives, according to an official from the Department of State.
At a roundtable discussion with a number of female journalists on Sunday, Erin Walsh, senior adviser at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said that she has been meeting with people in charity agencies, private schools and other organizations and talking about different areas for collaborative work.
Good article in the Arab News noting the visit of Erin Walsh, a senior advisor in the NEA office of State Department, in preparation for the upcoming meeting of the US-Saudi Strategic Dialogue.
In the article, Walsh focuses on the Middle East Partnership Initiative, pointing out several of the programs already in place, as well as the structural difficulties involved in including Saudi Arabia (generally, the lack of appropriate NGOs).
At least part of State Dept. has its eye on the ball when it comes to working toward the development of Civic Societies. Read the whole thing.
Here’s an interesting piece from The New York Times about international efforts to stop polio through vaccination. The program, funded by many private and public organizations around the world, has vaccinated billions of people. But unless enough people are vaccinated, hot spots of the disease threaten to become the source of renewed global infections.
This article focuses on why different groups reject vaccination, looking deeply at Nigeria where rumors that the vaccine was designed to transmit AIDS or to sterilize Muslim girls called a halt to the program for several years in the Muslim north of the country. The Saudi angle is that Saudi Arabia sent religious scholars to convince their Nigerian counterparts that there was nothing wrong with the vaccines, that they were legitimate Islamically and that there was nothing in them to interfere with reproduction.
It’s nice to see an American media report showing a positive aspect of Saudi religious influence for a change.