This piece from Dammam’s Arabic daily Al-Yaum is translated by Arab News. It laments the distance between young Saudi graduates expectations and reality. Though they may have a degree saying that they are qualified in a field, the fact is that they are not, at least without additional training. But their lives are comfortable enough—with parents providing housing, cars, and allowances—that they feel no pressing need to change things.
I’d like to note that this phenomenon occurs primarily with Saudi males. Not all males, but a dismayingly large number of them. Young Saudi women are more than ready to take jobs—even socially ‘demeaning’ jobs—if it will provide them with an income. Brothers: Watch your sisters and learn!
Hey, young men!
Saeed Al-Yami | Al-YaumWe have unemployed Saudis searching for the right job when the right job they are searching for does not fit them. Sadly this is a reality. Years pass and the young Saudis still carry around their degrees in green files since they are convinced that they are qualified. Most of them are dependent on their families. Most of them do not want the situation to change as long as they can eat, live for free and drive their cars — which were bought by their families who also give them a monthly allowance.
All that these young Saudis have to do is wait for the ideal job that fits their dreams and specifications. Those who sympathize with some of our unemployed Saudis and place the blame here and there should look carefully at what Minister of Labor Ghazi Al-Gosaibi said about unemployment among Saudis when he visited Al-Yaum newspaper.
He said that the ministry had coordinated with the private sector to employ Saudis at a monthly salary of SR4,000 after they were trained for a few months at King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals in order to gain skills in various fields. A large number of Saudis applied. But the number continued to decrease until it fell to 150 trainees.
The main reason why the program was unpopular is that they felt these jobs did not suit them because the jobs were below their standard. Since there is plenty of comfort at home, there is no need to rush into employment.
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Arab News translates this amusing article from the Arabic daily Al-Watan. It’s funny, but it’s also sad. It certainly brought back memories of flying within the Kingdom!
Women in airplanes
Abdullah Al-Maghlouth | Al-WatanMuhammad, is there a woman sitting beside you? The question was asked by the Saudia flight attendant when he saw a woman entering the airplane. In 15 minutes, I changed my seat four times when the number of women entering the airplane kept increasing. Saudia flight attendants act hysterically when they see a woman sitting next to a man who they think is a stranger.
They immediately volunteer to find another seat for the woman even if she has not complained. At one point they separated a man from his wife and placed a strange woman next to him. The greater the number of women in the plane, the bigger the mess. An old man was forced to stand for a long time because there was a woman seated next to his seat. In the end the woman felt sorry for the old man and asked him to sit in his seat. The flight attendant, however, did not agree to that and insisted on finding another seat for the old man.
On one of my trips on Saudia from Dammam to Riyadh, I could not help laughing at the comedy that unfolded inside the aircraft. An Indian engineer sitting next to me described it as a funny movie. The comedy did not end when the plane took off; indeed it continued even when the aircraft was flying. One of the passengers kept asking a female flight attendant a question every time she passed him.
Once he asked her about the arrival time; at another time about the captain’s nationality and then he wanted some water! Do you have an apple? He continued to ask the poor flight attendant questions until she stopped serving passengers. When a male flight attendant passed by the passenger, he asked him about the female flight attendant. He told him that she had jumped out of the plane in order to escape his questions.
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Not all Saudis, not even all Saudi clerics are averse to the combination of women and exercise. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that Dr. Ali Abbas Al-Hakami, a member of the Board of Senior Ulema says that not only is exercise for women permitted, it is a religiously recommended duty to stay fit. The piece says that the concern about women’s sports clubs is that they are a step toward a slippery slope. Once there are women’s sports clubs, the fear goes, then the next thing you know, there will be mix-sex sports clubs and we all know what that leads to!
[I wonder what it is that prevents Muslims---at least in the view of many clerics---from exercising self-control? Is the sight of an unaccompanied woman some chemical signal for men to go into rut? If so, that doesn't say much good about the society, about child-rearing, about a whole lot of things...]
So, slippery slope or a half-step toward women’s equality… whichever, Dr. Al-Hakami’s support will go a long way toward curtailing the opposition.
‘Women’s exercise – a necessity as per Shariah’
Na’eem Tamim Al-HakimJEDDAH – Dr. Ali Abbas Al-Hakami, a member of the Board of Senior Ulema, has said that exercise for women is not only permissible but a necessity according to Shariah.
“It is permissible for women to exercise if the intention is to maintain good health, become more active and prevent obesity, and it is a necessity according to Shariah, as exercise as a means of maintaining physical health is one of the necessities called for by Shariah,” Al-Hakami told Okaz newspaper.
Al-Hakami’s comments come in the light of recent controversy surrounding the issue of all-female sports clubs, which the Shoura Council recommended be set up some time ago.
“There is nothing stopping setting up women’s sports clubs provided nothing forbidden by Shariah occurs, such as mixing with men, exposing what should not be exposed, and other issues forbidden by Shariah,” Al-Hakami said.
“What is feared is that opening sports clubs will eventually lead to clubs where men and women mix which is forbidden. Keeping women’s exercise to the rules of Shariah is required, and exercise also becomes recommended, provided it abides by Shariah rules.”
Another member of the Board of Senior Ulema, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Suleiman Al-Manee’, agrees with Al-Hakami. – Okaz/SG
The Saudi papers continue their coverage of the earthquakes and evacuations from the Al-Ais area, as they should.
Saudi Gazette reports on the activities in some 250 refugee camps, apparently being called ‘Ministry Camps’, set up by the Saudi Civil Defense. There are others who have taken refuge in Madinah, Yanbu, and likely other cities where family are located, but this is not addressed in the piece.
The exact number of refugees is also hard to ascertain. Earlier media reports noted that there were about 60,000 people in the Al-Ais region. Media reports also state that ‘everyone’ has been evacuated from the area. Reports on those in camps vary in number from 2,000 to over 6,000, still far short of the area’s population. I suspect some of the nebulosity of number is due to limited reporting by the media, limited release of information by the various authorities (and likely the lack of a unitary authority to speak for all), and probably a goodly amount of chaos in what is the first sizeable event in recent history.
Evacuees being taken good care of at 250 camps
Muhammad Talib Al-Ahmadi, Khalid Al-Shallali and Ali Al-HarbiMINISTRY CAMP – The scene at the 250 camps set up on Al Eis-Yanbu Road provided by the Ministry of Finance to shelter the evacuated residents of Al-Eis area was one of panic and concern.
Muhammad Abdullah Al-Sinani, 14, said he came with his mother and sister to the camp Tuesday night, leaving his 70-year-old father in the family home in Al-Badee’ village as he was suffering from cancer and cannot undertake the journey.
Al-Sinai said they relocated with several families after Civil Defense teams asked them to leave their homes.
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Arab News focuses its coverage on a visit by the Governor of Madinah Province, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Majed, to the affected area. It certainly does not hurt to have an Al-Saud paying personal attention, but as governor of the region he ought to be there.
The article locates one of the Ministry Camps as being 60 km west of Al-Ais. That’s a curious number as some earlier reports said that an area 90 km in extent was being evacuated. The piece also reports on statements by Ahmad Al-Attas, acting head of the SGS, who says that no outgassing had been noted over the past 24 hours. He also said that the monitoring was being done on a 12-hour cycle from Al-Ais and neighboring mountains and extinct volcanoes.
Madinah governor tours quake-prone Al-Ais
Muhammad Al-Sheikh | Arab NewsYANBU/AL-AIS: Madinah Gov. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Majed reassured the people affected by a series of tremors during an inspection tour of the shaken zone in Madinah province.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from many villages around Al-Ais town where tremors measuring more than 5 on the Richter scale have been registered since Sunday.
Geologists are concerned that the quakes are a sign that dormant volcanoes in the area may become active. The evacuees have been rehabilitated in Yanbu and Madinah cities. No deaths or injuries have been reported.
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From what I can gather from the media, the Saudi government is doing a pretty good job of crisis management. Several comments left here, however, suggest that there are many in the country—likely expat laborers—who are getting only scant details. It’s a fine line to tread between informing people of a potential disaster and churning up panic of that potential disaster. Perhaps the Public Relations departments of the various ministries are being too cautious.
UPDATE: The Saudi Press Agency is reporting that the Saudi Geologic Survey finds that the activity in the region has markedly decreased over the past day:
Riyadh, May 21, SPA — The Saudi Geological Survey Commission, Saudi Arabia’s authority in charge of monitoring and controlling seismological activity in the country, said today that the volcanic activity at Harrat Al-Shaqa, which showed unprecedented activity over the last 30 days, registered recent remarkable fall in terms of number and strength.
In a press statement, the authority said only six minor quakes were registered during the last 24 hours measuring about 3 points on the Richter scale.
The statement said nobody felt or reported the shocks neither of which exposed in volcanic vapor.
No large earthquakes are being reported out of Saudi Arabia today. That doesn’t mean that things are quiet, of course. International monitoring organization seem to have a reporting cut-off of around 4.0 on the Richter Scale.
Anything below that doesn’t get reported.
The Arab news site Maktoob has this story, reporting that seismic activity beyond earthquakes is continuing, including a troubling ‘outgassing’ that has geologists waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Saudi volcanic eruption ‘imminent’
Peter HarrisonA volcanic eruption in Saudi Arabia is “imminent” and could be the biggest to occur in more than 1,000 years, a leading seismologist warned on Thursday, as thousands evacuated quake-hit villages in part of the western Al-Madinah Province.
Saudi authorities on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in part of the province, known as Al-Ais, and ordered a complete evacuation of the area after another quake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale struck.
The area has been rocked by dozens of violent tremors since the weekend.
At the epicentre of the tremors, a village called Harrah al-Shaqah, dangerous gases and unusually hot air and water in wells have started coming up from the ground, Saudi daily Arab News reported on Thursday.
A civil defence source cited by the newspaper said the discoveries suggested an eruption was likely.
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The Eruptions blog has been following events as well. Today’s post discusses (in the comments) whether rising levels of the elemental gas Radon has any bearing on the potential for an eruption. Italian scientists who are doing Radon monitoring from Mt. Etna suggest that it does. There are useful links within the post that you might wish to follow.
More signs point towards a Saudi Arabian eruption
Well, as the days go by, there are more and more indications that an eruption is about to occur in the Harrat Lunayyir region of Saudi Arabia. There is more confirmation in the press about “hot gasses” being released in the area near the epicenter(s) of the earthquakes and the seismicity is continuing – boths signs of magma moving towards the surface and degassing as it does. There are other confusing reports that mention things like “increased Radon” – which (a) I’m not entirely sure how they are measuring; (b) I’m not sure what it has to do with basaltic magmatism and (c) I think people are confusing with the controversy surrounding the Italian earthquake. Now over 2,000 people have been evacuated from the region near the earthquakes – and many of the quakes are still being felt far afield from the Al-Ais (Harrat Lunayyir) area.
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Eruptions asks that those in the area consider dropping the blog a note on what they’re seeing and hearing. I’ll echo that and ask my Saudi-based readers, or those involved in geology of any sort, to feel free to let us know what’s happening.
While Haj has never been cancelled as the result of an epidemic, that doesn’t mean that pilgrimage will proceed as normal. This year’s concern about swine flu (A/H1N1) has led to suggestions about containing it. Some recommend that an ill pilgrim should ‘do the right thing’ and avoid the Haj until well. That’s all well and good, but human inclination does not lend toward losing money already paid in full, or only as a deposit, for the benefit of others. Nor does the fact that Muslims believe that dying while performing Haj assures a reception in Heaven.
Saudi authorities could put up quarantine stations at the various points of entry to the country. This would certainly work to contain problems, but to be truly effective would require that the entire plane, bus, or shipload of pilgrims be quarantined along with their diseased fellow travelers. Let’s just agree that there would be a very strong public relations downside to doing this. If the diseased travelers were from a country that does not have good relations with the Kingdom, conspiracy theories and politics would make it even worse.
That leaves trying to minimize the problem after the fact, exactly what the Egyptian Minister of Health is suggesting in this Associated Press story (here published by The New York Times). He cautions would-be Egyptian pilgrims that if there is an oubreak of swine flu during Haj, Egyptians returning to the country would likely face quarantine to prevent spreading the disease to the population at large. This measure has several things going for it… it doesn’t stop people from following their religious duties or consciences concerning Haj and it allows for the potential of ‘martyrdom’ should a pilgrim die. It should also serve to discourage many from undertaking Haj this year. Haj is obligatory, but only conditionally obligatory. It should be performed once in a lifetime, but there is not date or age limit set. It is also conditional on the financial ability of the would-be pilgrim. It’s not hard to argue that the finances of a pilgrim would suffer seriously were s/he to die.
Wary of Swine Flu, Egypt May Quarantine Pilgrims
Egyptians who perform the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia risk being quarantined upon their return to Egypt, the health minister warned Wednesday, driving home the lengths to which Egypt is willing to go to remain free of swine flu. The minister, Hatem el-Gabali, said the volume of people participating in the pilgrimage, expected to begin in December, made it possible that swine flu would be transmitted.
I notice that Princess Lolowah Al-Faisal is to receive an honorary degree from Mt. Holyoke College, in Massachusetts. Mt. Holyoke was one of the major women’s universities in the US (one of the ‘Seven Sisters’) until most of them went co-ed in the ’70s. Its student body is still primarily women and it pays much attention to women’s issues. Below is the entry the Boston Globe listing of graducation ceremonies. The Princess is clearly in good company!
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley
Sunday, May 24, 10:30 a.m., Gettell Amphitheater
Speaker: President Mary McAleese of Ireland
Honorary degrees: McAleese; Princess Lolowah al-Faisal al Saud, founder of Effat University, the first private university for women in Saudi Arabia; Clare Waterman-Storer, ’89, chief of the Laboratory of Cell and Tissue Morphodynamics at the National Institute of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Well, that experiment in using math to defeat spam failed. Epically.
The plug-in broke and in so doing, managed to lock me out of my own account for the bulk of the day. Hence the late posting.
Also hence the lack of any math quiz!
Count it one for the forces of darkness. May the spammers be caught in a lava flow!
There were no major, or even moderate earthquakes in the area around the Al-Ais volcano over the past 24 hours, according the international seismic monitoring organizations. These, unfortunately, do not report on the number of smaller quakes, so it’s not clear that there were no quakes, just no significant ones.
That has not interrupted Saudi efforts to evacuate the villages in the region, however. Both Arab News and Saudi Gazette run stories on the completion of the evacuation. Interestingly, Arab News notes that foreign workers were the last to leave, standing around the town markets waiting for rides out. The paper also reports that temporary schools are being established in the areas to which people have been evacuated. Saudi Gazette reports that officially, the schools in the region will close for two weeks. In its story, the paper also says that Civil Defense had taken note of increasing seismic activity since April and had begun taking public safety measure. To all appearances, Civil Defense seems to be on top of the issue.
Credit: Saudi Gazette
Arab News:
Saudi Gazette:
Arab News has a piece in its ‘Sidelights’ section that raises an issue which never crossed my mind. I guess it should have, though…
Domestic tremors for polygamous men
MADINAH: The recent evacuations in Al-Ais due to seismic activity has led to a logistical hassle involving men with more than one wife. In many cases, polygamous men must accommodate their spouses separately lest the ladies annoy each other. The Civil Defense has allotted one emergency shelter per family, but men with more than one wife have complained they cannot accommodate their ladies in the same shelters. Perhaps understanding the domestic problems among competing wives, the Civil Defense has been allotting some men a separate shelter for each spouse.
Back in March, Saudi and international media were outraged when a 75-year-old widow was sentenced to lashes and jail time for khulwa, the sin/crime of people of mixed sex being together in seclusion. Today, the Saudi Court of Cassation (Appeals) has rejected that sentence and sent the case back to the lower court with admonishments to reconsider the case in light of both the woman’s age and the fact that khulwa occurs in seclusion and she and her nephew were not secluded. It also stated that it did not like the lower court’s ruling on whether or not the woman and her nephew were sufficiently related through breast-feeding. She had claimed that they were—a fact which would have obviated any claim of khulwa—and was supported by villagers who knew her and her family.
This isn’t the ideal result, perhaps. A better one would have been for the Court of Cassation to simply overturn the verdict. But by sending it back with ‘observation’ of the lower court’s short comings, I guess it sends a useful message.
Arab News has the details:
Appeals court refuses to ratify khulwa verdict
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewsJEDDAH: The Court of Cassation has refused to ratify a sentence handed to a 75-year-old widow who was accused of khulwa (illegal seclusion) with two young men, who were reportedly bringing her bread.
Khamisa Sawadi and the two men, including her late husband’s 25-year-old nephew, were sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison by a court in Al-Shamli town in Hail province.
Sawadi, a Syrian national who was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced in March. She previously told the court that she considered her late husband’s nephew, Fahd Al-Anzi, her son because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. But the court rejected her claim, saying she had no evidence. In Islamic law, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation.
Sawadi met the men last June after she asked Al-Anzi to bring her five loaves of bread.
Al-Anzi and his friend and business partner, Hadiyan bin Zein, were arrested by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice when they came out of Sawadi’s home after delivering her bread.
Sawadi’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, said the verdict was against the principles of Shariah. “Islam has given women different and simpler rules to follow when they become old,” he said, citing the example of covering the face.
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Writing in the UAE’s Khaleej Times, Saudi journalist Abeer Mishkhas notes that the election of four women to Kuwait’s parliament cannot but have put pressure on Saudi Arabia and its own political relationship with women.
Victory for Arab Women
Abeer MishkhasFour women have won their battle to become MPs in the Kuwaiti parliament after losing last time. The women managed to amass a great many votes in the historic election. The reaction of Gulf newspapers to the win was supportive throughout.
There was even a streak of pride in the editorials written on the following day, with some voices hoping to see such results repeated in other ?Gulf countries.
However, readers of the news were not always so congratulatory or happy. Most of the comments posted on the Al-Arabiya website, for example, were sarcastic and negative. Readers were keen to post a Hadith that implied “people who let a woman govern them will never prosper”, forgetting its various interpretations.
Others were ready to shoot down any suggestion that Saudi women might one day try the same thing. Protective and suspicious and derogatory remarks flooded the website objecting to any hint of a role for Saudi women in any governmental body.
On other websites, the tone was more supportive of the Kuwaiti women’s victory, and the negative slant less pronounced, although some still made sarcastic comments suggesting the victory would not have been possible had there been real men standing against the four women.
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How something looks depends on where you stand. At least that’s the message conveyed in these two very different assessments of the announced postponement of Saudi Arabia’s next round of municipal elections. The New York Times correspondent Michael Slackman, in talking with Saudi activists, seems to find the delay to be a sign that nothing much is going to change in the Kingdom.
Saudis’ Local Elections Delayed for Two Years
Michael SlackmanCAIRO — Saudi Arabia’s brief and limited experiment with electoral democracy has suffered another setback with an announcement that the royal family has decided to postpone local council elections by at least two years.
The Council of Ministers, which is led by King Abdullah, made the announcement on Monday. It phrased the decision in positive terms, saying the government had “extended the mandate” of the sitting councils by two years so that it could prepare changes to the law to “expand the participation of citizens in the management of local affairs.”
But the decision delayed what was to have been the kingdom’s second round of national elections, and its small, frustrated community of human-rights and democracy activists immediately lamented the decision as another blow.
“I consider the decision a delay in a reform process that we were supposed to believe really began when we started this process of elections,” said Hatoon al-Fasi, assistant professor of women’s history at King Saud University.
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Gulf News, out of the United Arab Emirates, however, find those willing to state the more positive. They say that the delay is probably a good idea, but only if effective use of the newly-granted time is used well. Saudi Arabia certainly does need time to develop not only democratic institutions, but a democratic mindset. Having power, but being unskilled in its use and unaware of its limits—statutory or otherwise—is not the road to success.
Saudi political analysts cited in the piece also point out that this delay obviates any excuses for not including women in the next election, at least as voters.
Saudi analysts hail postponement of elections
Abdul-Rahman ShaheenRiyadh: A number of Saudi writers and political analysts have agreed that the Saudi government’s decision to postpone the municipal elections for two years was aimed at giving more time for promotion of the democratic values among the Saudi society and for increasing participation of probable voters. The municipal elections were originally scheduled to take place later this year.
In special statements to the Gulf News they stressed that postponement of the municipal elections would lead to a dynamic political and social situation in Saudi Arabia, and will represent a true beginning for the reform process led Saudi King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz
They noted that the ongoing reform process aims to develop the Saudi community to cope with the new developments in the national and international scene.
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I do think the delay is disappointing in some regards, but I also think that it can be put to good use, by both the government and the people of Saudi Arabia… if they wish to do so.
Elections are the end point of democratic process, not the beginning. As evidenced by a multitude of stories in the Saudi media, there are many Saudis—perhaps a majority—who are still comfortable with antiquated systems like tribalism and the most restrictive reading of human and political rights. Undoubtedly, some of those are to be found among the Al-Saud, giving them little incentive to change. But before democratic institutions can work, there needs to be a general sense within society that every individual, no matter his or her race, sex, color, or sect, has equal rights. That day has not yet arrived.
Then, too, is the matter of the exercise of power. While many Saudis certainly ‘get’ what democracy and power-sharing is about, there are others who do not. They still see political power as a way to push personal preferences, regardless of whether or not they are truly ‘Shariah-compliant’, are cultural rather than truly for the best for society, or based on individual gain at the expense of others.
I’m not at all sure that a two-year delay is enough to fix those attitudinal problems; likely, it is not. But a delay does give time for other reforms—in society, in law, in governance—to take hold. Whether or not these reforms succeed will depend on the desire to see them succeed. Without success, there’s really not much point to elections.