Interesting Op-Ed in The New York Times on Arab media attitudes. The poll, along with a linked PDF chart of responses (do read it!), points out that Arab journalists see US policy as the greatest negative factor in the region. While Arab journalists detest US policy, a 62% majority still like American people as a whole. But the journalists, as a whole, strongly doubt that the US acts in anything but its own interests. That certainly points out areas in which US Public Diplomacy needs to be doing a better job.
I’m disconcerted by a couple of other figures identified in the poll. While only 48% consider it part of their jobs to support the Palestinian cause—a proper, or at least acceptable role for columnists, not journalists—majorities see themselves in the role of promoting reform, both political and social. That is not the proper role for journalists. Journalists should be reporting what is, not what they would like there to be. Simply put, journalists should not be advocates; they should be objective reporters of fact.
Misreading the Arab Media
LAWRENCE PINTAK, JEREMY GINGES and NICHOLAS FELTON“ARABIC TV does not do our country justice,” President Bush complained in early 2006, calling it a purveyor of “propaganda” that “just isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and it doesn’t give people the impression of what we’re about.”
The president’s statement, along with the decision by the New York Stock Exchange to ban Al Jazeera’s reporters in 2003, is a prime example of how the Arab news media have been demonized since the 9/11 attacks. As a result, America has failed to make use of what is potentially one of its most powerful weapons in the war of ideas against terrorism.
For proof, in the last year we surveyed 601 journalists in 13 Arab countries in North Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The results, to be published in The International Journal of Press/Politics in July, shatter many of the myths upon which American public diplomacy strategy has been based.
Rather than being the enemy, most Arab journalists are potential allies whose agenda broadly tracks the stated goals of United States Middle East policy and who can be a valuable conduit for explaining American policy to their audiences. Many see themselves as agents of political and social change who believe it is their mission to reform the antidemocratic regimes they live under. When asked to name the top 10 missions of Arab journalism, they cited political reform, human rights, poverty and education as the most important issues facing the region, trumping Palestinian statehood and the war in Iraq. Overwhelmingly, they wanted the clergy to stay out of politics. And, aside from the ever-present issue of Israel, they ranked “lack of political change” alongside American policy as the greatest threats to the Arab world.
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Saudi Gazette reports that the government is now implementing monitoring of high-value transactions in gold, gems, and jewelry as part of its anti-terrorism financing efforts. These items provide a convenient way around banking regulations as individuals can carry multiple millions of dollars worth of goods in a pocket.
Measures to curb money laundering Saudi Gazette report
JEDDAH – The Kingdom has decided to take swift measures to nip in the bud potential use of gold, jewelry and precious stones in money laundering trade or to finance terrorism.
Individuals working at the Saudi gold and jewelry market have recently noted that diamond and other precious stones may well be used for “bleaching” of money and for finding inroads into financing terrorism.
A number of tradesmen indicated that jewels are perfect choice for money laundering as they are both lightweight and expensive, Al-Hayat reported on Sunday.
The Ministry of Interior has directed owners of gold and jewelry shops in the Kingdom to alert the financial investigations unit of any suspicious transactions.
A recent Royal Decree facilitated the establishment of anti-money laundering regulation and Financial Investigations Unit was created accordingly, the paper said.
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Well, that was pretty quick! The inter-religious dialogue meeting that had been postponed, is rescheduled for just a few days later. It does appear that the problem was logistics, not the content of the meeting.
Meet on Dialogue Now Set for June 4
P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab NewsJEDDAH, 26 May 2008 — The three-day international Islamic conference on dialogue, which was scheduled to begin at the Muslim World League (MWL) headquarters in Makkah on May 31, has been postponed to June 4, the MWL announced yesterday.
The conference, which will be attended by 500 Islamic scholars from around the world, is likely to be opened by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who has called for interfaith dialogues to promote world peace and communal harmony.
“Many scholars and heads of Islamic centers in non-Muslim countries have expressed their desire to take part in the conference as its discussions focus on their activities and projects,” said Dr. Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of the MWL.
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Writing for Arab News, Mourah Al-Khereiji argues that the Saudi government needs to codify its laws and various punishments given for minor crimes and offenses. She points out how current Saudi practice in sentencing people to hundreds, even thousands of lashes is both uneven in application and goes directly against Sunna. She quotes (apparently a hadith) in which the Prophet is said to have forbidden more than 10 lashes for anything other than major crimes with established punishments.
Government Must Codify Taaziri Punishment Rules
Nourah Abdul Aziz Al-Khereiji, noraaalkheriji@hotmail.comThe discriminatory taaziri (deterrent) punishments — that are not defined by Shariah — include lashes and imprisonment. Our courts issue such punishments in many circumstances. Judges are given the authority to order various punishments such as flogging or imprisonment or rebukes or fines or deportation — in accordance with discretion and the interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah. This is in order to discourage people from committing sins and crimes for which the Shariah ordains no specific punishment.
If the punishments for traffic violations circulated through the Internet — based on the new traffic law, which came into effect at the beginning of this Hijrah year — include three types of taazir punishments for each violation: 20 lashes, fines and imprisonment. It is strange that the traffic department has exceeded the limits set by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) for lashes. “Nobody should be given more than 10 lashes except in hudood punishments ordained by Allah,” the Prophet said.
One can easily observe that there are clear excesses in taaziri punishment, especially when it comes to lashes and excesses are possible in the absence of restrictions or criteria or a codified punishment system. Often taaziri punishments are passed depending on the mood and temperament of the judge in charge and his personal views on matters that contradict Shariah teachings. Thus, different punishments are given for the same offense.
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Too many people want to attend the planned Islamic Conference on inter-religious dialogue, reports Saudi Gazette. Because so many want to attend, the logistics have become complicated and the meeting will be postponed until that can be straightened out. Dr. Abdullah Al-Turki, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, emphasized in his comments on the postponement that the conference is important, if only to avoid the ‘conflict of civilizations’ that some appear to be trying to create.
Islamic Conference for Dialogue put off
MAKKAH – The Muslim World League (MWL) has postponed the 3-day International Islamic Conference for Dialogue, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday.
The conference under the patronage of King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, was scheduled for June 4-6 in Makkah.
Dr. Abdullah Bin Abdulmohsen Al-Turki, MWL Secretary General, said in a press statement that his organization has received requests from scholars, muftis and heads of Islamic centers in countries having Muslim minorities and those living in remote countries to take part in the conference. They all cited the great importance of the conference as the topic was related to their projects, activities and programs, Al-Turki said in a statement. Given the difficulties they faced in travel reservation, the MWL has decided to postpone the conference till the time all logistics are taken care of, Al-Turki explained.
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The knock-on effects of high oil prices are coming back and biting Saudi Arabia, according to this Saudi Gazette article. We sometimes forget that oil isn’t only something that we use to fill our cars’ gas tanks. It’s used in the production and distribution of just about everything we use in daily life, from the clothes on our backs to the food we eat. High oil prices are pushing up the costs of production, directly and indirectly as when alternative fuels like ethanol take food crops out of the food-production cycle to move into the fuel-production cycle.
As the Saudi Riyal is pegged to the US Dollar, a weak Dollar also weakens the Riyal, only adding to the inflationary pressures for things like rents.
RIYADH – Annual inflation in Saudi Arabia accelerated to at least a 27-year high of 10.5 percent last month from 9.6 percent the previous month, fuelled by rents and food prices in the world’s largest oil exporter.
The cost of living index for the largest Arab economy was 115.2 points on April 30 compared with 104.3 points a year earlier, government data showed Saturday.
The rental index – which includes rents, fuel and water – surged 16.9 percent, with rents soaring 20.4 percent, while food and beverages cost surged 16 percent, according to the data.
Like most of its neighbors, Saudi Arabia pegs its riyal currency to the dollar, which has fallen to record lows against the euro and a basket of major currencies this year.
Domestic factors, such as rents, play a role in stoking inflation, but the main driver is the currency situation, said an economist for Standard Chartered bank in Dubai. Last year, Saudi Arabia imported 960,000 tons of rice, making it the world’s sixth-biggest rice importer, according to US Department of Agriculture data.
Where to Sunnis and Shi’ites find a space to interact? In fundamentalist politics, argues Mshari Al-Zaydi in this Asharq Alawsat column. He points to how the Sunni-based Muslim Brotherhood is finding common ground with, and offering support to, Hezbollah, a Shi’a group. He cautions that burying their differences simply to face common enemies might be temporarily useful, but really only leaves the door open to Iranian interference in Arab politics. Interesting reading.
The Iranian Brotherhood!
Mshari Al-ZaydiShould we be surprised by the partiality of the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) Supreme Guide Mahdi Akif towards the Shia Lebanese Hezbollah with regards to the latest crisis in Lebanon?
Did the Jordanian Islamic Action Front, the MB’s political wing, present anything new as it supported Hezbollah’s actions in Beirut and Mount Lebanon since this party is considered a symbol of resistance and the force that disciplines Arab Zionists?
It might seem odd to the average observer that an Islamic Sunni group, described as fundamentalist, supported a Shia group over Sunnis, i.e. the inhabitants of west Beirut.
Is this because of a position that transcends all differences whether color, creed or doctrine? Or are matters not so innocent?
If the MB’s position stems from tolerance and fraternity then why did the brotherhood devote so many pages of its history books to conflicts with those who disagreed with it but belonged to the same sect or were even part of the brotherhood itself?
Where has this ideological and doctrinal tolerance, which has been bestowed so generously upon Khomeini’s Hezbollah and Iran, disappeared to?
The truth is that there is a spiritual relation between the Muslim Brotherhood and Shia Islam that follows the Khomeini system based on the pretext that is always used; to confront the foreign enemy, whether it is Britain, Israel or America.
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Saudi Arabia has donated a half-billion dollars to the UN’s World Food Program to help alleviate the current global food crisis, AP reports. By giving the money to the UN, the Saudis avoid criticism for trying to buy favor on the bodies of starving people, or any other negative cast some would like to give. The money, an unprecedented donation, will be used both for operational expenses and to procure foodstuffs.
Saudi Arabia makes unprecedented US$ 500M contribution to UN for food crisis
EDITH M. LEDERERUNITED NATIONS – Saudi Arabia has made an unprecedented contribution of US$500 million to the U.N. World Food Program to respond to rising food and fuel prices that threatened emergency aid to millions of needy people, the United Nations announced Friday.
The contribution was by far the largest response to the U.N. food agency’s emergency appeal for US$755 million to cover its increased costs.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “warmly welcomes the offer of the landmark contribution” from Saudi Arabia, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. “The secretary-general notes that this contribution of an unprecedented size and generosity comes not a moment too soon, given the needs of millions of people dependent on food rations.”
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Al-Qaeda doesn’t at all like the idea of inter-religious dialogue, according to the AFP article. In a new video communiqué, Abu Yahya al-Libi condemned the call for such a dialogue made by Saudi King Abdullah and tried to stoke fears that it would lead to ‘churches in Arabia’. That would hardly be the end of the world, though it might be a step toward the end of Al-Qaeda’s fanciful world.
Qaeda slams Saudi calls for religion rapprochment
A senior Al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan, Abu Yahya al-Libi, yesterday slammed calls for closer ties between religions made by the Saudi monarch, warning in a video statement that it would bring churches to the heart of Islam.
Without naming King Abdullah, Libi warned: “If you don’t face up today like heroes to this mischievous tyrant, and let deviant ulemas (Muslim scholars) justify his stupidity, soon would be the day when you see church bells ringing in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.” The term is usually used by militants to refer to Saudi Arabia.
Apparently referring to a proposal made by King Abdullah last month to hold inter-faith talks between Muslims, Christians and Jews – in a first for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom – Libi charged: “The guardian of monotheism, as claimed by the sycophantic ulemas, raises the banner of fraternity between religions, and talks at random about what he does not know.”
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The practice of locking wifes and families in the house when a husband goes off to work or prayer is pretty shocking to most people. But it’s not illegal in Saudi Arabia—though clearly a hazard in case of emergency. The ‘It’s for their own safety’ explanation has the sort of false ring that one hears in the many laws in the West being promulgated because ‘It’s for the children!’: an excuse that looks good to others but serves other motivations.
Keyed Up Women Object to Being Locked In
Arjuwan Lakkdawala, Arab NewsJEDDAH, 23 May 2008 — For 30-year-old housewife Marwa, imprisonment starts every day when her husband goes to work. He keeps her locked inside. Marwa says she doesn’t even have an escape route, which would be tragic in the event of a fire.
“My husband says he’s worried I might be fooled by some thieves into opening the door,” she said. “He says it’s for my own safety.”
According to Saudi Civil Defense spokesman Gen. Tamer Al-Harthy, this is not a unique situation. “Every months we encounter two or three cases where there are people locked inside a house,” he said.
“These people can’t escape even through the window because most homes have iron security bars.”
In case of a fire even a minute’s delay could be the difference between life and death, said the Civil Defense spokesman. “We urge against locking family or servants inside the homes.”
… Police official AbuBakr Ebrahim Al-Abdaly, of Jeddah’s Al-Balad police station, says there are no laws against locking people inside their homes if they consent to it.
“If the wife consents willingly then the law cannot interfere,” he said. “But if she is being threatened or beaten, or locked by force then it is against the law. And it should be reported to the police.”
Nevertheless, for reasons that are obvious to most (if not the husbands who practice locking family in their homes with no escape): police discourage this practice.
Young people follow trends, according to this Asharq Alawsat article, even if they don’t know what might lay behind them. Thus, Saudi youths, emulating people they see on TV—footballers, rock stars, etc.—have taken up wearing red threads or bracelets, no realizing that the roots of the practice lie in some Jewish Kabbalism beliefs. I’m a bit surprised at how low-level the complaints are, perhaps a factor of whom the paper chose to interview…
Kabbalah-Inspired Fashion Reaches Saudi Youth
Iman al KhaddafDammam, Asharq Al-Awsat- Today it is common to see large numbers of young Saudi men sporting a piece of red string around their wrists. This trend has spread all over the world in recent years especially since A-list celebrities and football players were spotted wearing the red string bracelet that is believed to ward off the evil eye. However, the cultural connotations of this trend that include a religious or ideological belief in the Jewish sect known as Kabbalah are a cause for concern amongst some Saudi experts who are against what they consider a form of “cultural invasion”.
The wearing of the red string is practiced by followers of the Kabbalah, a school of thought that focuses on the mystical aspects of Judaism.
A number of Arabic websites have warned against this trend that is gaining popularity amongst secondary school students in Saudi Arabia.
Dr Abdullah al Yusuf, professor of sociology at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, told Asharq Al-Awsat that any imported foreign trend will have an influence on the society to which it has been introduced and that the consequences of such a trend are considered a form of cultural invasion as new behaviors are adopted. He added that young people in general are attracted to eccentric concepts and like to follow new trends.
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The Saudi-US Relations Information Service (SUSRIS) runs an interesting interview with Jon Alterman from the Center for Strategic & International Studis (CSIS) on state of relations between the two countries. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a sample…
Understanding Saudi-US Relations: A Conversation with Jon Alterman
Jon B. Alterman: What’s striking is just how rich the US-Saudi relationship is. It’s not just an energy relationship. It’s not just a security relationship. It has to do with virtually everything the U.S. does in the Middle East. The relationship has gone from being a comfortable relationship to one with considerable sensitivities on both sides, and many more sensitivities in public than officials have in private.
Saudi Arabia has become more important to the United States, but with that importance comes a complexity in the relationship that both governments continue to struggle with.
SUSRIS: In what terms has the relationship become more important?
Alterman: I think it’s partly an issue of growing Saudi capacity — that Saudi Arabia diplomatic role in the region is much greater than it’s been in the past. Saudi Arabia has extended its influence in any number of efforts in the region. It’s also that the relationship between some forces in Saudi Arabia and many of the problems the US sees in the region. This has meant that the need for cooperation between people, not just at the ministerial level, but at the working level in the United States and Saudi Arabia to work together, to set common goals, to work in a sustained fashion has increased tremendously over the last decade. That’s all going to go in one direction — it’s going to continue to increase. Saudi Arabia is being pressed to do more complicated things — the US is asking Saudi Arabia to do more complicated things. There’s often a great deal of common purpose at the senior level, but making that filter down to the working level is sometimes harder to do.
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