First Iran, now Iraq is banning its citizens from traveling to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. I think this is reasonable for both countries. Neither is particularly well set up to handle a major epidemic of any disease. The close contact that is inevitable during the performance of Umrah will result in more transmission of the flu.
Iraq bars citizens from visiting Saudi Arabia
Galal Fakkar I Arab NewsJEDDAH: Iraqi authorities have decided to stop Iraqi citizens from coming for Umrah during the holy month of Ramadan. The decision was taken as a precaution against the risk of citizens contracting H1N1 virus, Iraq’s Radio Dijla reported on Wednesday.
The move follows Iran’s recent decision to suspend Umrah trips in Ramadan.
“The government also recommends reducing the number of Haj pilgrims this year. It will prevent the old and the chronically ill from performing Haj,” spokesman for Iraqi government Ali Dabbagh said in his statement which was quoted on the radio.
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Arab News also reports that two more deaths consequent to swine flu have been reported in the Kingdom. It reports, too, that the mother of one of the fatalities is challenging the diagnoses, alleging that the hospital at which her daughter died is ‘covering up’ some other malfeasance.
You know, I really am puzzled about why so many Saudis feel compelled to take care of other people’s business and not their own. This Agence France Presse article, picked up by Saudi Gazette, notes that there is a new wave of pressure on satellite TV broadcasters to ‘clean up’ their programming. Now, a certain amount of this is de rigueur at the advent of Ramadan. Saudi families—including many relations—all gather around TVs after iftar and look to be entertained. There’s somewhat of a ‘captive audience’ situation as the elders choose what will be on the screen.
But what is it that paralyzes the hand that holds the remote control? If a program comes on that doesn’t appeal, it’s easy enough to change channels. If a particular channel carries material that one finds objectionable—many Saudis, for example, don’t approve of Lebanese music videos—it’s very simple to simply block the channel.
Instead, it appears that every Saudi is a ‘wannabe muttawa’, demanding that the neighbors not watch something distasteful If I decide that football is anathema, should I militate to have it taken off the air? Yes, that’s it! Let’s ban all sports programming!
Or is it that Saudis are children who must be protected against themselves? Are Saudis so incompetent that their ‘betters’ will decide what they can watch in the privacy of their homes? The message being sent through this suppression effort certainly seems to say so…
Sex show flap sparks attacks on satellite TV
Paul HandleyRIYADH – The scandal over a man boasting about his sex life on a popular satellite television show has sparked outbursts against the huge popularity of often-racy offshore broadcasts in the Kingdom.
Influential clerics have lashed out at the most popular satellite broadcasters for corrupting Saudi society with a broad fare running from Arab sitcoms, movies and talk shows to titillating US and Indian films and dramas.
Meanwhile, viewers fear that some of their favorite shows, broadcast from across the region, could be endangered.
“There is no doubt that we are targeted by channels that are looking to create problems and scandals,” columnist Amel Zahad wrote in Al-Watan newspaper on Tuesday.
“Saudi society is the biggest market for satellite TV… due to the absence of alternative sources of entertainment. This is something that we have to examine and deal with.”
Prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad, referring to some of the largest regional satellite broadcast groups, said on the Al-Dalil religious channel: “MBC,
Al-Arabiya, ART and the Rotana channels are all axes that destroy Islam and Muslims.”
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An article appearing in Roaa magazine and Saudi Gazette talks about how culture and tradition work to hold back women. The article focuses not just on Saudi women, Arab women, or even Muslim women, but on all women’s whose struggle against conservatism that prefers things as they were to things as they might be.
In the piece, the writer addresses the role of fatawa that remain locked in the 7th C. rather than acknowledging that the world has changed. Worth reading.
Customs and traditions are ‘depriving women of rights’
Amira Al-OtaibiJEDDAH – A variety of cultural factors lead to women, particularly Muslim women, being targeted in the Arab World and beyond, Bahija Bint Baha Azzi, Secretary General of the International Muslim Organization for Women and Family (IMOWF) and part-time adviser at the Shoura Council, has said.
“In my view, some societies have cultures that marginalize women and prevent them having a more active role in the world they live in through instilling discrimination between the sexes, resulting in a conflict,” Azzi told Roaa magazine.
“Excluding women from public affairs will not help advancement and development, and treating women as man’s equal partner without discrimination is better for the whole of society.”
On Saudi women, Azzi said that misconceptions in customs and traditions affect the way they are treated, but cited no single cause.
“We have problems, in both society in general and women in particular, that can’t be put down to one single reason, but there is a culture of customs and traditions that form the individual’s conduct leading to the suffering of women in the Arab World and Saudi women. That culture has caused women to lose part of their status and lose some of their rights.”
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Arab News reports on a Saudi success in stopping human trafficking across its border with Yemen.
Child smuggling attempt foiled
Arab NewsJAZAN: Yemeni authorities foiled an attempt to smuggle 20 children into the Kingdom through the Saudi-Yemeni border and arrested five smugglers, Al-Watan reported. The children were to be used for begging during the month of Ramadan. Last year, Saudi Arabia repatriated nine Yemeni children who were smuggled illegally through the border.
The University of California-San Diego announces new work being undertaken by US and Saudi researchers to treat retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that can lead to degenerative blindness. Experiments with their new therapy have proved successful in animal studies. They now are moving on to wider animal studies but hope to begin human trials as early as next year.
It’s notable that a Saudi researcher is taking part in this study. Not only does it say something good about the quality of Saudi researchers, it also demonstrates a focus on Saudi-related health issues. Due to close marriages, Saudis find themselves susceptible to a wide range of genetic disorders.
Developing Gene Therapy to Fight Blindness
Debra KainAn international team of scientists and clinicians from the United States and Saudi Arabia are working to develop gene therapy for treating a rare, hereditary retinal disease. The therapy has been shown to restore lost vision in animal models of retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Their work is being funded in part by a $1.5 million grant from the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research in Saudi Arabia, where the recessive gene mutation that leads to the eye disease RP has been found in children from several families.
The study is being led by Kang Zhang, MD, PhD, professor of ophthalmology at the University of California, San Diego School’s Shiley Eye Center and director of the UCSD Institute for Genomic Medicine, and Fowzan Alkuraya, MD, senior clinical scientist and head of developmental genetics unit at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Saudi Arabia.
RP is a type of hereditary retinal dystrophy, a group of inherited disorders in which abnormalities of the photoreceptor rods and cones lead to progressive visual loss. Rods and cones are specialized light-sensitive nerve cells that line the retina. They collect light and then send nerve signals that the brain interprets as vision. Rods facilitate black and white vision and are used mainly at night. During the day, humans depend on cones for color vision.
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Saudi Gazette has an interesting article on the way Saudis view low-paying jobs. In a country with considerable diversity, you’ll find diversity in opinion, too. Some Saudis simply will not contemplate holding a low-paying job: it’s beneath their dignity or social status. It can also interfere with marriage proposals as Saudi fathers would prefer that their daughters marry someone with a big income.
Others, though, believe that any legitimate work is dignified. Yet others, university students, find that getting their hands dirty in part-time jobs enhances their employability after graduation. That’s very much the case in American universities. Very few American students go through university without holding a series of part-time, usually unglamorous jobs. How the perform in those jobs very much enhances their academic records when it comes time to graduate and find full-time employment.
The article goes on to discuss Saudization and employer attitudes toward Saudi workers. All in all, worth reading.
Young Saudis willing to accept low-paid jobs
Nouf Hassan GhaznawiJEDDAH – Economic and social factors have forced several young Saudis to start earning their living at an early age, at times even before completion of their studies. But finding jobs these days is a tough task.
For those fortunate enough to enroll in universities there are more opportunities since the training they go through in their respective institutions helps them enter the labor market more easily.
Fresh graduates are willing to work in any field, for example, as cashiers, tea boys, salesmen, waiters and taxi drivers to help their families get some extra money to eke out a better living.
And there are several others who want to make good use of their hard-earned money to go on to higher professional studies to secure their future.
Abdurrahman Al-Mohandis, 22, a high school graduate, is proud to earn some money during his free time so that he can gain some experience and amass savings to be used in realizing his dream of becoming a pilot.
“I am proud to work, it teaches me how to manage my spending and I have learnt to stop relying on my parents,” said Al-Mohandis.
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In posts on Saudi women taking jobs as domestic workers, we’ve been having a bit of a discussion. You might want to take a look, then join in.
The ‘Sidelights’ column in Arab News usually has an amusing piece or two. This one, about baboons getting into an illegal alcohol stash is pretty funny.
Sidelights: Drunken monkeys lead cops to stash
Arab NewsTANUMA: Baboons are a common sight in the western region of Saudi Arabia, but what about drunken baboons? According to a report in Tuesday’s Al-Riyadh newspaper, a troop of monkeys went ape wild on a mountaintop near this village in the south, causing police to investigate. It turns out our simian friends happened upon a stash of distilled libations, and that’s when the party started. They managed to get into those bottles with the magic of opposable thumbs. Police believe smugglers from the south hid the stash, though perhaps only the monkeys know for sure who the culprits really were.
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Not quite as funny are two additional pieces about weddings gone bad: one concerns an almost instant divorce caused by friction between the groom and his bride’s family; the other is an accident following a wedding.
Saudi Gazette has its own little horror story about marriage:
A new Saudi death consequent to a swine flu infection is ratcheting up concern in the country. Ramadan and a prime season for Umrah are quickly approaching. Traditionally, Ramadan sees great movement of people among their friends and neighbors as well as on the semi-festive city streets after sunset. Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, brings hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to Mecca, Madinah, Jeddah, and other ports of entry. If one thinks that this is an excellent way to spread the flu, one wouldn’t be terribly wrong.
As Arab News says in this editorial, while concern is proper, panic is not. The editorial offers some suggestions about how the government should handle the inevitable outbreaks.
With the death in Riyadh on Monday of the Kingdom’s ninth swine flu victim, the virus has obviously gained a firm foothold here and the cases are increasing. In the past fortnight, they have doubled from around 300 to 595 although health officials privately say that the numbers are over 700 — and that is only counting those who have been diagnosed.
People are worried. It will soon be Ramadan and then Haj. Every year, a range of viruses are brought in by pilgrims which naturally leads to many of the Kingdom’s residents coming down with some form of flu. Many now opt for a flu vaccination before Ramadan. In general, it works. But a flu vaccination is most unlikely to work against swine flu — and the vaccination that will is not yet available anywhere. Testing has just begun in the US but it will probably be late September at the earliest before it is publicly available. That is too late for the Umrah season in Ramadan. It would be in time for Haj at the end of November but will there be enough supplies of the vaccine for Saudi Arabia by then? The US and Western Europe plan to get their hands on as much as they can as early as possible — and since that is where most of the drugs will initially be manufactured, they will probably succeed.
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Arab News also notes that Saudi nationals are becoming more concerned about the flu.
Calls flood in about swine flu
Mohammed Rasooldeen | Arab NewsRIYADH: The Ministry of Health’s toll-free swine flu hotline has been receiving about 3,000 inquiries a day, according to the ministry’s spokesman.
“The center is inundated with calls from people from all walks of life,” Dr. Khalid Al Mirghalani told Arab News on Tuesday.
The hotline (800-249-4444) is available to respond to queries from the public on matters related to swine flu. Fifteen specialists are manning the phones during weekday working hours at a call center near the Riyadh Airbase.
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Saudi hospitals are getting new information on the latest protocols for dealing with the disease, Saudi Gazette reports.
Lecture on ways to deal with swine flu
Diana Marwan Al-JassemJEDDAH – The Health Affairs Management here will hold a lecture Thursday for doctors on ways to deal with swine flu cases. All officials from government and private hospitals in Jeddah have been invited to attend the lecture at King Fahd Specialist Hospital.
The lecture is part of the series planned all across the Kingdom after directives from Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeah, Minister of Health, to this effect. He has called for holding warning lectures under the theme ”How to deal with swine flu cases” aimed to make medical staff aware of the latest ways to control the spread of the deadly virus.
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The National from Abu Dhabi reports on the social friction resulting from Saudi women’s taking on the job of housemaid. There seem to be a lot of specious reasons being cited for why this is a bad thing. I’m surprised that ‘social reformer’ Mohammed Fahad al Qahtani finds this to be some sort of plot, allowing women to only take low-paying jobs.
The fact is that there are poor people in Saudi Arabia, including women. Many of them lack education, are perhaps illiterate. They still need to have some sort of income. Should the government be saying to the poor: ‘Go ahead and starve… we’re focusing on university graduates for jobs.’?
A further fact is that even university-educated women, women who own their own businesses are handicapped by the social, legal, and religious constructs at play in the Kingdom.
Saudi housemaids’ tale causes stir
Wael MahdiJeddah // As unemployment rises, an announcement last week by a group of 30 Saudi women that they had begun working as housemaids has fomented renewed debate in the kingdom about laws limiting the ability of women to participate in business.
For a Saudi woman, working as a housemaid has generally been taboo, or at least unnecessary, in the oil-rich country, but as poverty and unemployment rise local women are working in low-end jobs that have until now been performed by migrant workers, mostly from South and South-East Asia.
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Asharq Alawsat columnist Hamad Al-Majid writes with wonder that there are restaurants in Europe that do not serve alcohol. For the sake of argument, I’ll assume that he doesn’t mean ethnic restaurants, for many of whose cultures alcohol does not play a role in dining. It’s certainly a fact, though, that European cultures do not have the same sort of taboo about alcohol that Islamic culture does. In Europe and the West, it’s the abuse of alcohol, excessive consumption that receives social opprobrium and often legal sanction. Alcohol is simply part of European culture. That, however, does not mean that all Europeans drink alcohol, nor that they demand it at every meal. Yes, there are restaurants in the Europe that serve no alcohol. Yes, many of them are successful. They are successful because there is a market for places that do not serve alcohol or sometimes because there are other factors that outweigh the availability of alcohol—the quality of the food, for instance.
Not serving alcohol, however, is not necessarily a clever marketing ploy to attract Muslim clientele. In order to serve alcoholic beverages, restaurants must generally have a license to do so. Liquor licenses can be difficult or impossible to obtain. It’s the same in the US, though even more complicated. Many cities, counties, and states have laws that prohibit alcohol from being served within a certain distance from schools and places of worship. Even if an owner could pay for the license, it’s unobtainable. Some counties in American states exercise what is called ‘local option’, they are ‘dry’. Simply put, they prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in any public establishment, whether by the package or by the drink. Some states reserve the sale of retail alcohol to themselves: you must go to a state-operated store if you wish to buy alcohol to consume at home. These areas have restaurants, amazingly enough. People go to them to enjoy the food, the company, the ambiance. They just don’t drink while doing so. Some counties permit customers to bring their own alcohol to the restaurant, for which the restaurant charges a ‘corkage fee’.
The secret here is that restaurant sales of alcohol are a real source of profit. While food may carry a mark-up of 100%, alcohol gets marked up 400% or even more. Not serving alcohol puts additional financial stress on restaurateurs. It makes their making a profit even harder than the norm… and in the US, opening a restaurant or even a bar dedicated to serving alcoholic beverages, is fraught with risk. Studies show that between 60%-90% of restaurants fail within their first year. It’s not just the availability of alcohol that keeps a restaurant going.
The real element in play here is that people are people. They have diverse interests, wants, and desires. Some would prefer to spend money on the food at a restaurant; others want a different ‘package’ that includes the drinking of alcoholic beverages. Businessmen who understand their customers give them what they want. That can be boozeless restaurants in Europe or ‘dry’ resorts in Turkey. If you have customers, you can make money fulfilling their wishes.
A European Restaurant That Does Not Serve Alcohol
Dr. Hamad Al-MajidNever in my life have I witnessed a phenomenon such as that of the restaurant located in an ordinary suburb of the English city of Manchester. What is remarkable about this restaurant is not its spicy Asian dishes or its dazzling interior. The menu does not include particularly exotic food, nor are its staff members incredibly beautiful. What is conspicuous about this restaurant is the throngs of people that frequent it. Upon seeing the crowd pushing and shoving to find a place inside, one might think that money was being given away rather than food being served. And if you were to visit this restaurant during rush hour you would have to wait a couple of hours at least before being seated at a table.
What is so fascinating about this restaurant is the fact that it continues to make good profits even though it does not serve alcohol. It is also worth mentioning that its patrons are from a diverse range of races and religions, and have varying tastes. It goes without saying that any restaurant in the West that does not serve alcohol is logically disenfranchising a large section of people and a large potential for increasing profits. However this restaurant has broken all of these rules.
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Al-Majid says that the fact that a European restaurant can succeed without serving alcohol argues against ‘wasting time in battling against conditions that are difficult to eliminate or change.’ I don’t think that’s so at all. Now, picking one’s fights, avoiding ones that are impossible to win from the outset… those might be worth avoiding. If a change is necessary, then it’s certainly fine to battle against the conditions that sustain the status quo, else things would never change.
Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that LBC’s office in Riyadh—which had remained open after its Jeddah studios had closed—has now also closed.
The Ministry of Culture and Information’s seals shut the Riyadh office of Lebanon-based television network LBC, Monday. The ministry sealed LBC’S Jeddah office Sunday. LBC had aired an interview with a Saudi man speaking about his sexual adventures. The man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, 32, was arrested last month in Jeddah for appearing on LBC’s “Bold Red Line” program, in which he appeared to be talking about his sexual exploits.– Okaz
Over at the Arabic daily Al-Watan, (translated in Arab News), Turki Al-Dakheel argues that closing LBC is a mistake. He says, correctly in my opinion, that other stations surely got the message about how far they could push the envelope on sexual issues for a Saudi audience.
Why did we close LBC’s office?
Turki Al-Dakheel | Al-Watan, www.turkid.netSOME of my colleagues seem to think that expressing an opinion at variance with the opinion of the majority of people is a sort of media suicide. Well, it seems I am today doing exactly what my colleagues have warned against. The TV interview of the Saudi bragger — publicly known now as the “promoter of vice” — was disgusting to say the least. I am not saying that out of religious piety; nor am pretending to be virtuous. I do believe, however, that such an interview would probably not be made on channels in the West where tolerance for such things is far greater than we are accustomed to in the Kingdom.
The mistake made by broadcasting the young man’s obscenities and foolishness cannot be justified. The difference between freedom and vulgarity might seem very narrow but it is in fact very wide.
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This is all fine, given that Saudi audiences have a pretty low threshold for sex on publicly broadcast TV. (That tens of thousands subscribe to European porn channels is a somewhat different matter, not addressed here.)
His argument, though, shows the very clear difference between freedom of expression as understood in Saudi Arabia and in many Western countries, including the US. In the West, though the sentiment is being challenged, there is no right to be free of offense. One doesn’t have to like what one hears all the time; one can even protest it. Viewers, listeners, and readers certainly have the right to not watch, listen to, or read that which offends them. They do not generally have the right to prevent others from seeing, hearing, or reading that which offends them, however. Even if a majority find something distasteful does not, in the West, mean that it is illegal or should be punished by the power of the state.
The reason is that majorities can become mobs and ignore the rights of individuals. Once this is permitted to happen, even for an egregious broadcast like the one at hand, it is very easy to allow it to slip to other matters, such as religious or political belief. That, if I read history correctly, was the situation that the Prophet faced in Mecca, when the majority of the city’s residents opposed his religious revelation, resulting in his having to take himself and his followers to Yathrib. In challenging the status quo, he became unwelcomed in his home town.
Most of us, as humans, don’t object strongly when views for which we hold no sympathy are suppressed. We have to remember, though, that our views may become unsympathetic one day. Once having denied protection to others, we have no claim to protection for ourselves.
A young Saudi woman from Najran has died of swine flu, Arab News reports, bringing the number of fatalities in the country to eight.
Woman in Najran dies from H1N1
Arab NewsRIYADH: A Saudi woman, 25, died of H1N1 virus in Najran shortly after her return from Yemen, the Ministry of Health announced on Sunday.
“On developing some symptoms of the disease as she returned from Yemen, the young woman was admitted to a hospital in Najran on Wednesday and died there (on Friday),” the ministry’s statement that ran on the Saudi Press Agency said. This is the eighth reported death linked to swine flu.
Meanwhile, Bahrain said that Haj and Umrah pilgrims arriving from the country will be given flu shots and medical certificates stating they are fit, health authorities said in Manama.
In related news, Iran is taking the threat of swine flu seriously. The Voice of America (VOA) reports that Iran is to ban flights from Saudi Arabia while at the same time banning its own citizens from performing Umrah at this time. Whether this is simple prudence or some obscure swipe at Saudi Arabia I will leave to the reader to decide.