The National Council of US-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) recently concluded its annual conference in Washington, DC. Videos, audio files, and transcripts of the conference are available at NCUSAR’s website, though not all speakers are yet posted online. Many of them are, however, including the transcript [10-page PDF] of a session that brought together Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir, US Ambassador James Smith, and several former US Ambassadors to the Kingdom.

I’d like to point out something said by US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Smith, said:

And the first thing I would tell you, it is not 2001, it is not 2003 and it is not 2004. So as an American, if you formed an opinion about Saudi Arabia or Saudis in the aftermath of 911, it is time to rethink your position. And as a Saudi if you formed an opinion about the United States and Americans in the aftermath of that it is time to rethink your opinion; that was eight years ago. Ours is an era of hope and expectation.
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This, I think, is the most important thing to keep in mind when approaching the issue of US-Saudi relations today. For many reasons, the US of 2001 does not exist today; for an equal array of reasons, the Saudi Arabia of 2001 is not the Saudi Arabia of today, either. It is pure mental blindness to not recognize those changes, nearly all of them for the better.

Saudi King Abdullah is perfectly clear when he warns of the danger of extremist Islam. I might argue that ‘devious politicized doctrine’ didn’t ‘sneak in’, but was allowed in through inattention and assuming that those who wear the cloak of religion are worthy of respect purely for their costumes.

There are Saudis who support extremism. Whether that is because they are ignorant or malignant is the question that needs to be asked and answered for each of them, individually. But there is no question that individual acts rebound on the entirety of Islam, the bad acts more than the good.

Confront deviant ideology: Abdullah
Badea Abu Al-Naja I Arab News

MAKKAH: The Islamic Ummah is still paying a heavy price for 9/11 and is losing out more with every act of terror, said Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in a speech read out on his behalf by Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal at the Muslim World League’s 10th annual Makkah convention.

“Enmity from within, which is the most perilous, can be seen in attempts to kidnap moderate Islam by gangs of ignorant people who propagate rigidity out of fear of everything that is new… without any consideration for the rules of the religion,” said the king in his opening speech at the convention titled: “Problems of Muslim Youth Under Globalization.” “Despite the fact that the Kingdom practices moderation and came into existence under the banner of Islam, it has suffered a lot because of the devious politicized doctrine which has sneaked incognito into the country,” he said.
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Saudi Gazette‘s coverage of the King’s speech is here.

MEMRI translates a piece from e-zine Aafaq by a reformist Saudi writer in which he tells of his upbringing in the Kingdom and how it led him to a life of extremism. The issues he raises are not new, unfortunately. The piece, at least as excerpted here, does not explain how he changed his mind.

Reformist Writer Mansour Al-Hadj:
In My Youth, I Was Taught to Love Death

In an article in the liberal e-magazine Aafaq (www.aafaqmagazine.com ), reformist writer Mansour Al-Hadj, one of the magazine’s senior reporters, described the Islamist education he received as a youth in Saudi Arabia, which stressed the culture of death and the glorification of martyrs. The same messages, he said, were conveyed by the Islamist propaganda to which he was exposed as a university student in Sudan.

Following are excerpts from his article:

“Growing Up in Saudi Arabia, I Did Not Learn to Love Life… [But] to Love Death as a Martyr for the Sake of Allah”

“After the suicide bombings in two hotels in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, a friend of mine said to me: ‘I think something’s wrong with the world. Why would a person blow himself up when love of life is a natural human instinct?’ I answered: ‘Love of life is a natural instinct, but love of death for the sake of Allah is a creed [in Islam], by which the believer brings himself close to the Creator of Life.

“Growing up in Saudi Arabia, I did not learn to love life. On the contrary, I learned to love death as a martyr for the sake of Allah. I was taught that love of life is a characteristic of the hypocrites [i.e. insincere Muslims], and that the ones who protect their lives most keenly are the infidels, as stated in the Koran. I also learned that one who does not participate in Jihad or prepare himself for Jihad dies a hypocrite, as stated in the hadith.
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Interesting happenings out of Egypt… The 2009 Miss Arab World Beauty Pageant concludes with a Saudi, Mouwadda Nour, being named Queen. Then the complaints start, claiming that she’s ‘too heavy’ to represent ‘Arab beauty’. The article below is from The Los Angeles Times. Photos of the contestants, garbed in national dress rather than bathing suits, can be found at this link.

Saudi beauty queen attacked for weight

Beauty contests are notoriously catty, and the Miss Arab World pageant in Cairo last week proved no exception.

Muwadda Nour of Saudi Arabia had barely lain hands on her faux-jewel encrusted crown when critics began sniping that at approximately 200 pounds, she “did not meet the required standards” of a beauty queen, according to the popular Arab entertainment site Wikeez.
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The questions about agriculture—food, really—in the coming years is the subject of this piece appearing in tomorrow’s print edition of The New York Times. Judging by the adjectives he uses, the writer isn’t thrilled by one prospect, at least. He seems to think there might be something morally wrong with a new approach toward increasing global food supplies: private investment in agricultural production in foreign lands. Saudi investors are the ones he looks at most, but others, from S. Korea to Japan to India, are also in the game.

The article does give both sides of the story, both of small farmers who have to deal with corrupt governments and global forces of and for change and of those who see their investments as benefiting them, as individual investors, their countries, and the local populations. The article is, if nothing else, a good place to start the debates.

Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?
Andrew Rice

Dr. Robert Zeigler, an eminent American botanist, flew to Saudi Arabia in March for a series of high-level discussions about the future of the kingdom’s food supply. Saudi leaders were frightened: heavily dependent on imports, they had seen the price of rice and wheat, their dietary staples, fluctuate violently on the world market over the previous three years, at one point doubling in just a few months. The Saudis, rich in oil money but poor in arable land, were groping for a strategy to ensure that they could continue to meet the appetites of a growing population, and they wanted Zeigler’s expertise.

There are basically two ways to increase the supply of food: find new fields to plant or invent ways to multiply what existing ones yield. Zeigler runs the International Rice Research Institute, which is devoted to the latter course, employing science to expand the size of harvests. During the so-called Green Revolution of the 1960s, the institute’s laboratory developed “miracle rice,” a high-yielding strain that has been credited with saving millions of people from famine. Zeigler went to Saudi Arabia hoping that the wealthy kingdom might offer money for the basic research that leads to such technological breakthroughs. Instead, to his surprise, he discovered that the Saudis wanted to attack the problem from the opposite direction. They were looking for land.

In a series of meetings, Saudi government officials, bankers and agribusiness executives told an institute delegation led by Zeigler that they intended to spend billions of dollars to establish plantations to produce rice and other staple crops in African nations like Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Ethiopia. “They laid out this incredible plan,” Zeigler recalled. He was flabbergasted, not only by the scale of the projects but also by the audacity of their setting. Africa, the world’s most famished continent, can’t currently feed itself, let alone foreign markets.
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The tragedy at Ft. Hood, in which Maj. Nidal Hasan is accused of killing and wounding dozens of his fellow soldiers, is shining a light on websites that promote extremism and jihad. This Associated Press article, published in The Washington Post, reports that the extremist sites are shifting the language they use from Arabic to English. It cites Saudi Arabia’s Al-Sakina program, designed to monitor extremist sites, as one of the reasons that Arabic-language websites have declined from over 2,000 to just 50 now. But at the same time, English-language sites have grown from around 30 to 200.

While the language being used may be changing, the message is not: it is still religious extremism and intolerance.

The article is worth reading in full.

200 Web sites spread al-Qaida’s message in English
DONNA ABU-NASR and LEE KEATH

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida’s message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings.

The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers.

“The point is you don’t have to be an official part of al-Qaida to spread hatred and sectarian views,” said Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants.
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Now here’s an anti-swine flu measure unique to Saudi Arabia: the provision of sterilized stones to be used in the ritual stoning of the devil as part of Haj. Of course, no other country needs to do this as Haj is unique to the Kingdom, but it is still a bit of an eye-opener at first glance. It does, however, make perfect sense. At the very least, it will stop people from picking up stones that have been handled by an unknown number of strangers.

Saudi Gazette reports:

Millions of pilgrims to receive sterilized stones for Jamarat
Diana Marwan Al-Jassem

MAKKAH – During this year’s Haj, the government will distribute millions of bags of sterilized small stones to all pilgrims as part of the ritual stoning at the Jamarat.

The plan has been initiated by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, who believes that this will ease the Haj for pilgrims and help to contain the spread of swine flu.

Makkah’s municipality has set up 37 centers for distributing the small stones in Muzdalifah and the surrounding areas.
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Here’s an interesting piece from Saudi Gazette on the recent rash (or reported rash) of the blackmailing of women in Saudi Arabia. The writer offers some ideas about how the phenomenon might be handled—including new laws and social efforts to inform women that they are only human and thus liable to error. I’d suggest, too, that Saudi Arabia work to take women off the unattainable pedestal of perfection. If Saudi society treated women similarly to men, most of the blackmail would just go away. As it is, so much meaning and meta-meaning is put on women’s shoulders that they become excessively vulnerable. Restrictive Saudi society makes so many things ‘off limits’ that it’s incredibly easy to fall victim to blackmail.

This is exacerbated by the ‘shame/honor’ nature of Saudi culture. If you do something wrong, it’s not only your name you need be concerned about, but the name of your father, your brothers, your uncles, your tribe. That’s a lot of social pressure being put on one to toe the impossible line of human behavior.

Ridding our society of blackmailing
Fahad Al-Abri

One of the phenomena abhorrent and inconsistent with the general nature of Saudi society, which imposed itself on our social life is the phenomenon of blackmailing women (the use of threats or unfair manipulation in an attempt to influence women). This may be perpetrated to force the victims to make concessions to the criminal blackmailers. Concessions could range from paying money to having a sexual relationship with the blackmailer.

Looking at the reasons behind this act, one may mention several causes. In some cases, for instance, we find such behavior motivated by a desire for revenge, whether directed at the girl herself (the victim) or her family. Sometimes, the need of making money is the sole reason that leads the blackmailer to commit this crime. Others do this just for fun. One may say, they find pleasure in forcing other people, not just women, to do what they want. But the main question that should be asked is: Why can’t Saudi women resist the blackmailing?
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Arab News wraps up its coverage of Haj preparations with this piece. The article gives the schedule for the different phases of the pilgrimage and notes the physical developments of the area intended to make Haj easier and safer.

‘Here I am, oh Allah … here I am …’

The changes that have taken place around Mina and the Jamrat area in the past few years are astounding. Anyone who performed Haj 30 years ago or more can remember how calm and serene it was. The increase in the number of pilgrims in the intervening period changed everything. The area turned into one of the most congested parts of the pilgrimage, with the most accidents and the most deaths. Not so now.

In this, the last installment of the Arab News Countdown to Haj, we focus on how the holy sites have been redeveloped with safety wholly in mind. Points of entry into Mina are now controlled. No longer can private cars and taxis drive there; only registered buses have access. The massive five-level complex surrounding the Jamrat area for the stoning has been organized so that pedestrians can keep moving slowly but securely in a one-way system. At no point today will there be congestion or dangers. The development of the facilities — others include the provision of emergency medical services and volunteer guides to help pilgrims — is a remarkable improvement.
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The paper also reports a 70% drop in local pilgrims. This is due, the article says, to local concerns about swine flu, but also to the fact that residents of Mecca and Medina often leave town to avoid the masses of pilgrims.

The New York Times takes a look at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) through the eyes of an American student enrolled there. The article, though, is more an overview of the role of KAUST in Saudi society and looking at whether change can come from outside society or must come from within. It’s an interesting piece.

Also interesting is that this article is published under the rubric ‘Thuwal Journal’, suggesting that this will be part of a longer stretch of reporting.

A Saudi Gamble to See if Seeds of Change Will Grow
MICHAEL SLACKMAN

THUWAL, Saudi Arabia — The $12.5 billion question is this: Can Ben Frevert change Saudi Arabia?

Mr. Frevert is 22 years old. He is from Minneapolis. He had never set foot outside the United States until the day he flew to Saudi Arabia, where he became one of the first 400 graduate students to start classes at the sparkling new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology on the Red Sea.

Mr. Frevert’s presence in this conservative kingdom represents a bold, pricey gamble by Saudi Arabia’s monarch, King Abdullah, who allocated about $10 billion to endow the university. The stated goal is to take a country that consistently ranks among the poorest performing nations in education and, with all the brain power and high-tech equipment oil money can buy, build a world-class research center and university.

But there is a less discussed, yet no less consequential, objective: Can the university help this tradition-bound society become more open to new ideas? Can it help Saudi Arabia stamp out the kind of homegrown extremism that has spawned terrorism?
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There’s not much of interest in Saudi news today. The Kingdom is gearing up for Haj, which starts on Nov. 18, today, and concludes on the 26th.

Because it cannot prevent people with swine flu from entering the country for Haj, Saudi Arabia will instead focus on monitoring the pilgrims’ health.

The border conflict seems to be contained, but Saudi authorities are continuing to evacuate villages near the border.

There was another backup on the King Fahd Causeway linking Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. This time, it was a glitch in the computer that processes passport information. Interestingly, there’s a website you can go to that tell you the current traffic conditions and travel times for the causeway.

Some people take animals very seriously. Whether it is pedigree shows for dogs and cats in the West, or competitions among camel and horse breeders in the Middle East, animals are something that people appreciate.

Arab News reports on the latest trends in goats and goat breeding in Saudi Arabia…

Men who stare at goats — Saudi style
Omaima Al-Fardan | Arab News

JEDDAH: Aaid ibn Al-Zarif ibn Al-Ziraif ibn Akif is not just a man’s name. Aaid is a male goat with a blood relationship to Al-Wardi, a prized male Damascene goat, a particular breed with a distinctive face.

It is not a joke as this blood relation is what concerns goat buyers and owners in the Kingdom. Those interested in goats will always emphasize the family trees of their goats in order to guarantee their pure breeding and their belonging to a well-known goat family.

“It is not only Aaid who is well-respected,” said Abdullah Al-Hajri, an organizer of goat auctions in the Eastern Province, adding that another sought-after male goat is Jarad Abu Jarad Abu Sami.

Al-Hajri and other goat dealers, especially those of the Damascene goats, want to protect the pedigree of this goat today. The Damascene goats were brought to the Kingdom from Syria by collectors some 40 years ago and since then have become a prized breed.
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