Saudi Gazette carries this Reuters story which cites Prince Mansour bin Miteb saying that women might be permitted to vote in the next round of Saudi municipal elections. That’s nice, but there’s not a lot of evidence—beyond this article—that municipal elections are to be held this year, as the schedule would suggest.
Women may be allowed to vote – Prince Mit’eb
RIYADH (Reuters) – The Kingdom is considering allowing women to vote in municipal elections this year but they would still be barred from running for office, a senior government official was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Prince Mansour Bin Mit’eb, Deputy Minister for Municipal and Rural Affairs, made the comments after attending a conference of municipal councils in the Eastern Province, newspapers reported.
The meeting’s recommendations included one that women should be eligible to vote, Al-Watan Arabic daily said.
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Arab News reports on the opening of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy’s five-day conference. Opening days are normally filled with statements of intent, recalling the importance of the effort to be undertaken. This is no exception to that. It is correct in noting that unity and reason must prevail in the issuance of fatwas as that is the only way to avoid the off-the-wall and extremist fatawa that have been creating discord throughout the region and great animus with non-Muslims.
Strive for unity, scholars urged
Badea Abu Al-Naja | Arab NewsSHARJAH: Crown Prince of Sharjah Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad Al-Qasimi opened the 19th conference of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA) at the Al-Zuhri Hall in Sharjah yesterday.
In his address on the opening day of the five-day conference, Secretary-General of Endowments in Sharjah Sheikh Saqr Al-Qasimi, who also heads the Islamic Affairs Department in the emirate, stressed the policy of his government to support all efforts aimed at solving Islamic issues. “It is our duty to strive for Muslim unity in the light of the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah,” Al-Qasimi said.
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Arab News carried this story yesterday about public awareness about the effort—and law—to require blood tests of couples intending to marry. A study found that awareness of the purpose of the law was low, which suggests that compliance was also low. The piece does report on some of the findings of the study. Of particular note is the presence of thalassemia, a blood disorder similar to sickle-cell anemia which provides some immunity to malaria, but at the cost of shorter and more painful lives.
Study shows awareness about premarital screenings lacking
Fatima Sidiya | Arab NewsJEDDAH: A recent study conducted by the fourth-year medical students at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU) suggests a general lack of awareness about the importance of premarital tests and how they help reduce the incidence of recessive gene disorders, such as thalassemia.
The study called on marriage officials to make sure prospective couples abide by the law and are pre-screened for the presence of shared recessive genes, as well as HIV and hepatitis B and C. A ministerial decision in 2004 obliged prospective couples to undergo genetic testing. In 2008, sexually transmitted infections were added to the mandatory testing.
The KAU study urges more resources be devoted to testing centers, including more staff and equipment. Awareness campaigns, the study says, play an important role in explaining to the general public the importance of pre-marriage screenings.
Last year, the Ministry of Health revealed that over a 10-month period, 49 people tested positive for HIV/AIDS; 3,250 people were found to carry hepatitis B or C; 545 people had the recessive gene for the common blood disorder thalassemia (meaning that their children were at a greater risk of inheriting the gene); and 8,251 of those screened had thalassemia.
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Saudi King Abdullah came calling on the Eastern Province—his second trip as King, if I count correctly. He was accompanied by the Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Pr. Nayef. The photo below, by Arab News journalist Molouk Ba-Isa, was sent to me showing one of the billboards that welcomed them and the Deputy PM Pr. Sultan (in absentia).
The King was visiting to announce several multimillion dollar development projects to boost the local economy. The Arab News report does not mention any projects directed at the Shi’a areas of the Eastern Province, so it’s not clear if they are particular recipients, but new projects ought to offer new employment opportunities if the hiring is done locally and without prejudice.
Credit: Molouk Ba-Isa
Abdullah visit sparks jubilation
Siraj Wahab | Arab NewsDAMMAM: The Eastern Province is buzzing with excitement over the arrival of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. This is the first visit to the province by the king since May 2008 when he traveled to Dhahran to mark Saudi Aramco’s 75th anniversary.
All major streets and thoroughfares have been decorated with huge billboards of the king, creating a festive atmosphere that is augmented by Saudi public schools being closed for vacation. Hotel lobbies are buzzing with activity in Jubail, Alkhobar and Dammam. All five-star hotels in Alkhobar and Dammam are fully booked for the three-night duration of the king’s visit. “We have 100 percent occupancy. There are no vacant rooms at the moment,” said Irfan Khan of Sheraton Dammam.
On arrival at King Abdul Aziz Airbase in Dhahran, King Abdullah was received by Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif, Eastern Province Gov. Prince Mohammed bin Fahd, other senior princes and top officials.
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The New America Foundation—which is sponsoring a day-long conference tomorrow, which can be viewed by streaming video here—will be covering a lot of issues. The Washington Note carries this piece on how Saudi Arabia is at the nexus of many issues of great concern to the US.
This piece notes that portions of the conference will be televised by CSPAN, though I cannot find any mention of it on the CSPAN calendar. The article linked below also gives the schedule of events for the conference and notes that the conference is already over-subscribed. Watching the streaming video is likely your best bet.
US-Saudi Relations in a World Without Equilibrium
Steve ClemonsOn Monday, 27 April, I will be co-chairing a major national policy forum on US-Saudi economic and strategic perspectives on the Middle East and global economic and security system.
We have quite a line-up which I’ll share below. C-Span will be airing parts of the conference, but the entire program will run live here on The Washington Note — and video will be posted here for later viewing.
This weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Israel and Iraq. There are as yet unsubstantiated rumors that she may drop in on some other countries as well — but we do know that State Department Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia Dennis Ross will be in Saudi Arabia on Monday and Presidential special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell will be in Saudi Arabia this next week as well. All of this is happening while we are holding this US-Saudi policy forum in Washington, DC.
Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir has been called back to the Saudi Kingdom yesterday to advise the King in the meeting with Dennis Ross and other as yet unannounced officials.
Other members of the Obama national security team are traveling as well — to points not announced, but my guess is that we have a large chunk of our national security and diplomatic representatives focused on affairs in the region this weekend and next week.
So, big stuff is up.
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A female Saudi student in the US has started up a new campaign to bring women’s driving to the fore in the Saudi debate. The tagline of the poster, I think, pretty much says it all: ‘I wan’t to drive because there’s no reason I can’t.’ Absolutely correct. There is no legal impediment to women’s driving in Saudi Arabia. There is, however, a lot of friction from conservatives who fear the consequences of allowing women out on their own. It’s time for them to get over that.
Credit: Arab News
The driving force!
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewJEDDAH: A postgraduate thesis on women driving in the Kingdom has turned into a massive campaign, leading to the launch of an online forum — www.n7nudrive.com — in which men and women openly discuss the issue.
The project — entitled “N7nu — We the Women” — is the brainchild of a 24-year-old Saudi woman studying design in the US. The woman, Areej, who does not wish to give her family name, said she was inspired to write a thesis on the subject, as her father, after retirement, would juggle his time in chauffeuring her, her mother and three sisters.
Areej said her father did this, as he felt responsible for the women folk of his family and did not want to rely on drivers. “I always felt guilty for few months that he used to drive me around. Driving four girls in one house is hard task. We had drivers quitting after becoming fed up by the amount of places we needed driving to,” she said.
Areej’s thesis, which started one year ago, is ongoing and something that she is passionate about. As part of her project, Areej has launched a website that has gained its own momentum. It is a place where differing views from both men and women, Saudis and non-Saudis, are being expressed openly and freely.
“N7nu — We the Women” is a nontraditional campaign that aims to raise the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia and to start a public debate,” she said.
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Note: I suddenly realized that not everyone reading Crossroads Arabia will understand the first word of this post. It’s the Arabic word Nahnu (or Nihnu), meaning ‘We’. Arabic is, of course, written in the Arabic alphabet. When that alphabet collides with English (or other Western) keyboards used for SMS or text messaging, something has to give. While most letters are transcribable fairly easily, letters unique to Arabic get special treatment. Here, the ’7′ stands for the Arabic letter Ha (sometimes called ‘big H’) which is the heavily aspirated version of ‘h’.
The Saudi General Auditing Bureau—equivalent to the American General Accounting Office or the English National Audit Office—have requested support from King Abdullah in getting ministries to comply with regulations. Humans being humans, auditing is a necessary part of government bureaucracy. Sometimes, auditing can be onerous: the ‘bean counters’ inhibit government action. But they also keep an eye on public monies to ensure that they aren’t going into bureaucrats’ pockets or being otherwise diverted from their intended aims.
Auditing is an important facet in establishing accountability and responsibility within government agencies, as this Arab News piece reports.
Audit bureau seeks king’s support for its mission
RIYADH: Osama Faqeeh, head of the General Auditing Bureau, yesterday met Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and sought his full support for the bureau to carry out its mission effectively.
“The bureau requires your continuous support to carry out its duties in an unbiased and objective manner,” Faqeeh told the king during a meeting at Al-Yamamah Palace.
King Abdullah commended the efforts of the bureau’s officials.
“We also request you to instruct government departments to cooperate fully with the bureau in order to do its duty with complete independence,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted Faqeeh as saying.
… Faqeeh said many government departments spent money without authority and without issuing bills. He also noticed a lack of follow up on implementation of projects, negligence in applying contract terms and a laxity in generating state revenues. “Some government departments and agencies do not abide by financial and budgetary regulations. They also fail to prepare final account statements on time,” he said and called for greater efforts to collect revenues.
Al-Arabiya TV’s website offers a look at how Saudis have created a virtual Saudi Arabia on Second Life.
As I don’t play Second Life, I’ve nothing personal to report on this. It appears, though, that the Saudis who frequent the site are creating the Saudi Arabia they’d like to have, not necessarily the one that exists in real life. That’s sad, in a way, but it’s also hopeful, I think. It means that there are Saudis who are considering the future of their country and society, trying out different things in a gaming environment that are not yet possible in the real world.
Saudis create their own world in virtual island
JEDDAH (Hassan Hamidoui)Saudi Arabia has become the most popular Arab destination in the world and visitors no longer have to worry about the difficulty of obtaining a visa. Well, to the virtual island in Second Life, that is.
More than 25,000 avatars have travelled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and another 25,500 to an island called Middle East, the most popular amongst the 36 Arab islands in the Second Life world.
On the island, Saudis can engage in activities they might not be able to do in real life. They celebrate western holidays like Valentine’s Day, on which they receive gifts from the other sex, and they dance to DJ music in discotheques.
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You can read about the effort to create an Islamic world on the Second Life servers here.
The Dutch group Menassat, which promotes press freedoms, runs this article on the Saudi film industry, growing from nothing in an infertile land, but with vibrant seeds.
The kingdom’s new breed: Saudi film makers
There are no proper cinemas or film schools in Saudi Arabia. Yet, the Kingdom’s underground film scene is a bustling one filled with self-taught young filmmakers whose films are increasingly being shown at festivals around the region. MENASSAT met with some of the up and coming talents in Riyadh.
By ALEXANDRA SANDELSRIYADH, April 22, 2009 (MENASSAT) – In his shoulder-length curly hair and loose t-shirt, filmmaker Abdulamusin Al-Mutairi looks slightly out of context among the abaya and thobe-clad street goers in the kingdom’s ultra-conservative capital Riyadh.
Al-Mutairi is among a growing breed of young Saudi filmmakers who are pushing the cultural mores of their country – and all without official government funding.
His latest project “The Dream” is a short low-budget film shot in Riyadh that recounts the experiences of a Christian woman living in Saudi Arabia.
The film, which recently premiered at the Gulf Film Festival in Dubai, is the first Saudi movie venture to talk about “the issue of the Christian religion in Saudi Arabia,” as Al-Mutairi puts it.
Al-Mutairi says he was advised by some friends to not show the film in the kingdom due to the “sensitive” topic of the film – Christians living in Saudi Arabia.
“I was told not to screen this film in Saudi. But I think it’s important to show different stories. Our films always talk about Muslim society. So I put the spotlight on Christian (expatriate) women in Saudi, “ he told MENASSAT.
The Dream marks Al-Mutairi’s third short film. He has previously written and produced “The Project,” the story of a young man from Riyadh seeking to fulfill his dream in life, and the film “Nothing” which competed in last year’s Gulf Film Festival.
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz run an interesting piece in which members of the Saudi media give us their thoughts about the future of print media in Saudi Arabia. Globally, it’s clear the print media are having a tough time and the survival of many newspapers and magazines is questionable. Do the same rules apply in Saudi Arabia? Will Saudis be an exception or will they have to select among ‘solutions’ that are still being tried out?
Will the Internet kill the newspaper?
Abdul Rahman Al-ShumraniJEDDAH – The fate of the printed press has been up for discussion since the inception of the Internet, and the number of voices warning of its demise has increased year after year as online news sources proliferate and the cost of paper goes up and the global economic crisis makes cost-cutting demands on publications.
If the idea has taken hold in the West due to the large economic interests behind the World Wide Web and by the idea’s conformity to the nature of western culture, then what is the situation in the Arab media world, especially in Saudi Arabia which has the fourth largest number of newspaper readers in the Arab world, and where there are 11 newspapers with a further two due to be established soon?
Some of those working in media say it is too early to talk about competition.
They say the Arab World in general and the Kingdom in particular is new to the Internet and electronic news sites. Others say newspapers will always be with us and will always have a place in society.
Others, however, are pessimistic about the future of printed newspapers, particularly if methods are not changed.
Perhaps I was wrong… ‘red mercury’ truly does seem to be a dangerous thing! According to this Saudi Gazette/Okaz piece, its rumored presence in old sewing machines is still raising a furor… at least at the shops of sewing machine repairmen!
Red mercury continues to sow discord
Mohammed Al-Surei’iBISHA – Fahd Abdullah Hanash, lawful inheritor of a now defunct sewing machine repair shop in Bisha, was taken by surprise recently to find a crowd of local residents knocking at the door of his home demanding the return of sewing machines they had left with his deceased father.
Upon witnessing the recent rush to buy Singer sewing machines following rumors that the needles contained the elusive substance known as “red mercury”, locals recalled the machines they had left at the repair shop of Abdullah Hanash Al-Ghamdi years before. When they found the store itself bolted up, they made their way to his home, where Fahd, son of Abdullah, greeted them
Fahd, at the insistence of the crowd, decided to open up the dusty storeroom and see what his father had left.
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The issue has a lighter side, though. Saudi Gazette also reports that a Riyadh intermediate school has come up with a humorous theater piece about how people fall for the most unlikely things: School sketch to warn against sewing machines
Copenhagen University’s Middle East and Islamic Network (CUMINET) has an interesting post on the Durban II Conference on racism and how the Middle East and the West were attending (or not attending) completely different conferences. The writer, Sune Haugbolle, cites several different issues as causing the breakdown: ‘racism, islamophobia, freedom of speech and colonialism’. He argues that colonialism and post-colonial responses to it are the lenses which most accurately explain the differences.
I suspect that this post-colonial response is indeed a major factor. I have to side with the critics, however, who point out that colonialism has been dead for at least 50 years. Attempts to see ‘neo-colonialism’ lurking behind every bush or policy is incredibly narcissistic and shows a poverty of thought. Unfortunately, the Middle East as a whole is stuck in the middle of the 20th C. (if not earlier) and I don’t see any signs that that’s about to change.
Arab reactions to Durban II: the ghost of colonialism
Sune HaugbolleThe images of EU representatives walking out during Ahmedinejad’s speech in Genève yesterday, amidst the cheers of Arab and other representatives, are haunting. They speak of a chasm in cross-cultural understanding, and that sense will probably remain as a big ugly stain on our collective global consciousness from this event even if the diplomats manage to avoid further walk-outs and a final document is agreed upon. It is a chasm worth dwelling on for a bit. How can the world’s leaders, in 2009, disagree fundamentally on such a universally deplorable phenomenon as racism?
We can begin to grasp this chasm by looking at the Arab press’ reactions to Durban II. The views on racism presented here differ dramatically both from the Western press and from the universalising UN discourse that forms the basis of the conference. As columnist Mahmoud Mubarak wrote in al-Hayat on 20 April, “the seven years that have passed since Durban I have been some of the most racist in recent history.” From an Arab perspective, the US is to blame for much of this: the war on terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Quran-pissing in Guantanamo, have all been products of a resurgent neo-colonialist US under President Bush. Add to that the Muhammad cartoons, Israel’s incriminate wars on Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, the continued occupation of Palestinian territories, and the racist ideology that underpins it. One then wonders, according to Mubarak, why none of these issues will be on the agenda at Durban.
He answers the question himself. The reason is that the Western countries have other priorities, and perhaps other views of what racism means. Mubarak wryly ends his piece by noting that the Dutch call for a sentence on protecting “sexual freedoms” (ie. homosexuality) in the final document of Durban II “reflects the difference in thinking between the Islamic countries and Western countries on the priorities of this conference!”
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