Good piece from the Arabic daily Al-Watan (translated by Arab News) on how foiling corruption is a great thing, but of limited usefulness if the miscreants go unnamed.
There is a tendency in Saudi Arabia—as in most other Arab countries—to not air dirty laundry in public, even other people’s dirty laundry. Thus, we hear about crimes, but never about who committed them. As the writer suggests, the crimes might be being committed by ghosts. It was quite a shock, in fact, when the Saudi Ministry of Interior released names and photos of Al-Qaeda terrorists within the Kingdom in 2003, creating the first public ‘Most Wanted’ lists.
If government acknowledges that crimes against the public have been committed, it does have a duty to inform the public that there are dangerous people about. It’s not enough to arrest them as the vagaries of the Saudi courts could very well mean that these people are out of jail and again committing crimes and the public has no warning whatsoever.
Shame is a powerful tool in Arab culture. Governments and media should use it, when appropriate, to reach ends in the service of society.
The minister does not want a scandal
Muhammad Al-Salihi — Al-WatanI WILL be true to you. I did not feel the happiness that the minister of health expected citizens would feel when he revealed that his ministry had foiled a case of bribery targeting his office. I did not feel his actions were heroic or significant. The ministry kept the name of the company that was bribing it a secret, as if to protect it from defamation and scandal.
The minister’s statement published in the media puzzled me. We are now faced with corrupt companies whose identity we do not know. This is due to the habit of some of us who endeavor not to publicize corrupt organizations.
Admitting that his ministry has busted 10 similar cases before, the minister declined to make any reference to the name of the company that tried to bribe his secretary. He refused to identify the culprits, but only indicated that his ministry would pursue them.
Please do not ask me who these people are. I do not even know whether they are ghosts or human? I only know that they tried to bribe our ministries.
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August:17:2008 - 09:31
Dear Muhammad Al Sulihi,
I would like to extend my sincere appreciation for your words and they are spoken beautifully and powerfully. Your last statement is strong.
One of the companies is owned by a princess and is for Children. It is called Bambolina and is behind the intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. My kids and their friends were poisoned and hospitalized after having a party there. Even kids who were not in attendance at my kid’s party that day were poisoned as we knew people who were there that day. Later I came to find that a piece of equipment fell on a boy’s head and spilt it opened. It msut not have been fastened well, had not been inspected or was never properly installed. The problem is the people actually never had the proper licensing anyway. Anyhow, I am glad these issues are coming to light and I say
NAME THEM
NAME THEM
NAME THEM
Please join the chanting with me people
NAME THEM
NAME THEM
August:17:2008 - 09:31
Fighting corruption in the Arabic world and Saudi in particular is a joke. Every few months the government will come out with an announcement that some group of individuals were caught in a bribe case. These are usually lower ranked administrative workers that over stepped there bounds and got over ambitious. They may get caught by a more senior individual that is honest or were too open about it and did not use the proper networking processes to accept such bribes.
Honest individuals do exist in abundance in Saudi, but they cannot do much in combating corruption at the higher levels. Every company that does work in Saudi knows that they will need a local partner, who knows how to win contracts by satisfying the needs of the proper officials. It has been working this way since I can remember and it has been getting worse not better over the years.
If the government is serious about this issue, they need to create a high commission for combating corruption reporting to the king directly. This commission has to look at top officials first. Each member will need round the clock protection to insure their safety. Otherwise, all the government is doing is provide the same useless headlines.
August:17:2008 - 09:31
The government didn’t seem to object to the publication of the names of the 47 women involved in the driving demonstration in Riyadh in 1997. A paper listing their names was reportedly posted on walls of mosques in Riyadh after the demonstration along with a statement about how they were fallen women (according to the translation I read). It would be interesting to analyze what that gender discrepancy means. Of course, posting the names of the women was also a way of shaming their male relatives.
August:17:2008 - 09:31
That’s a good point, but I think that was in 1991, not 1997.
Analyzing the discrepencies in the way men and women are treated in the KSA, though…? Where would you start and where would you end?
August:17:2008 - 09:31
[...] Arabia, comments on the importance of ‘naming and shaming', in a post entitled ‘Time to Start Naming Names in Saudi Arabia‘: There is a tendency in Saudi Arabia – as in most other Arab countries – to not air [...]
August:17:2008 - 09:31
Speaking of airing dirty laundry, I wonder if the Saudi media has the guts to name the Saudis on this list:
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/data/diploma-mill/
It includes at least one woman (incorrectly identified as male in the accompanying report) who may be working as a OB-GYN in Saudi Arabia:
“Remah Moustafa Ahmed Kamel, a 43-year-old Saudi Arabian, bought degrees in obstetrics and gynecology, but investigators don’t know whether he’s practicing in those medical fields in his home country.”
The list is dominated by people in the USA, but there are at least 80 Saudis listed along with “Saudi names” (ie Al-Zahrani) without accompanying country of origin.
It’s interesting to see how US transparency exposes things about individual Saudis that Saudi Arabian society (and or gov’t) doesn’t think is worthy of public knowledge.
I’d love to see a Saudi paper publish the list of names and try to contact some of these individuals to see what they’re doing with their purchased diplomas, esp. doctors since Saudis often blame Egyptians for working on fake diplomas.
It’s amazing to me how many “Drs.” there are in Saudi society, and I wonder how many of them are either lying or obtained their certifications through degree mills like the one in Spokane.
I love sunlight. Even though the list is dominated by people in the USA, at least it was exposed, right? It seems this could never happen in KSA because of non-existent clear rules on what constitutes libel. And of course if any of these folks are VIPs with lots of wasta, the newspaper could be unjustly sued by these people. If a royal is on this list, forget about it.
August:17:2008 - 09:31
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