The Arabic daily Al-Madinah runs a very strong piece calling for the ending of the way Saudi Arabia currently handles employment of labor. In this Arab News translation, the op-ed notes that the current system is both in violation of Council of Ministers decisions and of Shariah law itself. Now, many foreign workers find themselves in situations not easily distinguished from slavery, something far from the dignity that the Quran says should be accorded all human beings. The current system is in violation of an array of international treaty obligations, too, something that does nothing for the reputation of Saudi Arabia and Saudis in general.
It’s not just domestic workers who are being deprived of basic human rights under the sponsorship system. Manual laborers, brought in for jobs ranging from construction and manufacture to agricultural work are kept in sub-standard housing with no ready access to water, toilets, and decent food, never mind such luxuries as having phones or the freedom to travel.
I do think the proposal to have a unitary body that manages all contracts with foreign workers is the right way to go. Presently, a violation by an individual employer is small potatoes, something barely worth the effort of the authorities to investigate and prosecute—tough for the employees, of course, but hey, they’re not Saudi! As a result, nothing much gets done to enforce existing regulations. I note with some bemusement that even Saudi law prohibits employers of holding their employees’ passports. I guess Homaidan Al-Turki didn’t get that memo, either.
There are many Saudi who treat their employees well, making them almost a part of the family. Too many, however, abuse the system and abuse their employees. If a new system results in higher costs for imported labor, then that’s what it does. It might open a few more doors for Saudis to find jobs for themselves. It might help people realize that they are capable of a lot of things, even those things ‘below their dignity’ that need to be done.
Perhaps it will take the example of Kuwait, which is about to scrap its own personal sponsorship program, to make the change.
Scrap the sponsorship system
ABDUL AZIZ AL-SUWEIGH | AL-MADINAHThe sponsorship system is a complicated issue in the Kingdom. I hope Labor Minister Adel Fakieh will follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, especially the optimistic way the late minister handled thorny issues.
Readers responding to my recent article on the sponsorship system are nearly unanimous that the current system needs a thorough review. Some readers demanded amendments to the system with guarantees for sponsors and giving more rights and a dignified status to expatriate workers.
The general impression I got from readers’ reactions is that the system in its current form serves only the interests of a small section of people who have found it as an unending boon for them at the expense of workers and citizens.
Reacting to my article, Muhammad Sindi wrote on his Facebook page that the system is a form of slavery in the sense that the sponsor exploits the worker by demanding regular monthly payments from him, whether he worked for him (the sponsor) or not.
A member of the Shoura Council, Abdul Rahman Al-Annad, pointed out on his Facebook page that the Council of Ministers’ decision No. 166, dated July 16, 2000, scrapped the technical terms “sponsor” and “sponsored” and replaced them with “employer” and “worker.”
The decision also forbade the employer from keeping the passports of a worker and his family in his custody and gave the worker freedom to move about in the Kingdom, as well as many other rights. But the order has never been fully implemented.
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The Islamic or Hijra calendar is based on cycles of the moon. In Saudi Arabia, the trigger for establishing the start of things like the new year, the Haj, and holidays is based on the actual sighting of the crescent moon, not any mathematical calculations. So, when the government attempts to plan its support for major activities like the Haj, it has to do so on a tentative basis: the sighting of the new crescent moon can be delayed by a matter of days by weather conditions.
As Saudi Gazette reports, the government is announcing that Haj is probably going to start on Nov. 14 and run through the Nov. 19. Accordingly, pilgrims and those supporting them are being given broad windows in which to obtain their visas and make travel arrangements. Saudi nationals, permitted to perform Haj only every five years, still need to apply for permits to avoid overcrowding.
Things would be far simpler if the government could get religious authorities to accept celestial calculations rather than relying on the human eyeball. But things move slowly in the Kingdom…
Ministry: Haj likely from Nov. 14 to 19
Fouzia KhanJEDDAH: The Ministry of Haj has indicated that Haj is likely to take place from Nov. 14 to 19, but this has still to be confirmed later.
Pilgrims were allowed to arrive in the Kingdom from Oct. 9, with the last date of arrival on Nov. 10 at King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah and Prince Muhammad Bin Abdul Aziz International Airport in Madina.
The last date for pilgrims to travel from Jeddah to Madina by bus is Nov. 2; and from Jeddah to Madina by air is Nov. 8. The last date for pilgrims to travel from Madina to Makkah by bus is Nov. 11; and from Madina to Jeddah by air is Nov. 12.
The final date for the departure of pilgrims is Dec. 21.
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The paper also reports that a further measure to limit overcrowding is a ban on buses carrying fewer than 25 passengers into Mecca.
Arab News reports that the Saudi government is very serious about dropping subsidies on water. It’s not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’ and ‘how much’. The ‘when’ seems to be very soon. The ‘how much’ is under debate, but will be significant. The articles says that most of the 92% subsidy will be removed. The government is looking to establish a ‘block system’ in which water use will be measured in tiers. The lowest tier, that which applies to daily domestic use, will have the lowest pricing, while each higher tier sees much higher prices.
The article notes that the Kingdom is the third largest consumer of water in the world, but is also one of the countries with the lowest renewal of water from natural sources, i.e., rainfall. Other than a few channels for treated waste water, there are no year-round rivers in the country and, of course, no glaciers to provide melt water. So far, desalination has provided the buffer supply for water, but it is both expensive to produce and expensive to transport. It’s certainly not an economically feasible source for the vast amounts of water needed by agriculture. The government has already started moving away from subsidizing food crops that demand large amounts of water. Now it will be dropping subsidies on water itself.
As new water tariffs kick in, there are going to be some unhappy Saudis. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder are going to feel the pinch hardest, but industries that rely on water in their production cycles are going to be hit as well.
NCB backs proposal for water tariff hike
ROGER HARRISON | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: The biggest bank in Saudi Arabia, NCB, has added its weight to the debate on the need to reduce water use through the introduction of charges. The recommendation came in the Oct. 4 edition of “NCB Weekly Views on Global, Regional and Local Economic and Financial Developments,” a report on financial matters locally and globally.
The bank says: “In our opinion, imposing more regulation on agricultural activities coupled with removing the subsidies on water are possible solutions to save strategic water resources.”
The report was published on the day before CEO of the National Water Company Loay Al-Musallam announced the imminent introduction of higher water charges. He told delegates at the Saudi Water and Power Forum in Jeddah on Oct. 5 that consumption in the Kingdom was “growing exponentially due to the lack of incentive for the customer to conserve water.” He added: “There is no doubt that water tariff changes are imminent and they have to be assumed very, very quickly.”
… The NCB comment says, “Saudi Arabia is ranked the third largest consumer (in the world), with daily per capita water consumption amounting to 248.7 liters. The scarcity of water resources can be attributed to: 1) the very low rainfall, estimated at 70-100 mm per year; 2) the growing demand for water as population grows at high rates (growth rate is estimated at 2.3 percent in 2009); and 3) water is subsidized by the government; thus demand is artificially high.”
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Here’s a clever little quiz from Nicholas Kristof on the pages of The New York Times. I suspect most readers here will do well on it…
Test Your Savvy on Religion
Nicholas D. KristofThe New York Times reported recently on a Pew Research Center poll in which religious people turned out to be remarkably uninformed about religion. Almost half of Catholics didn’t understand Communion. Most Protestants didn’t know that Martin Luther started the Reformation. Almost half of Jews didn’t realize Maimonides was Jewish. And atheists were among the best informed about religion.
So let me give everybody another chance. And given the uproar about Islam, I’ll focus on extremism and fundamentalism — and, as you’ll see, there’s a larger point to this quiz. Note that some questions have more than one correct choice; answers are at the end.
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MIT psychologist Steven Pinker recently gave a speech before the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The speech focused on the idea of ‘taboo’, areas of cultural and social life that are considered ‘too sacred’ for public discussion. As such, I think you might be interested in reading it in its entirety.
The Psychology of Taboo
Steven PinkerThank you very much. It’s a great honor to be speaking to the Ford Hall Forum. All the more so in an event designed to honor the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. I’m an experimental psychologist. I’m interested in how the mind works, and that gives me two interests in the issue of free speech on campus. One of them is that I think that psychology is becoming the science that is most likely to get people exercised about issues that they feel have great moral and cosmological import. It used to be that people were deeply concerned about cosmology, whether the earth went around the sun or vice versa, and read profound moral implications into that debate. That pretty much got settled. Then, I think it was evolutionary biology. The battle is not quite won, but clearly, among educated people, it’s clear that that’s no longer an open issue, whether life evolved by Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection.
Today, I think it is the scientific study of the mind that people tend to blend with deep moral issues. I’ll give you just a few examples of questions that have been raised by people in the field of psychology that have gotten them into trouble because even though they, in theory, are purely intellectual questions, people believe that they shake the foundations of morality. Do most victims of sexual abuse suffer no lifelong damage? Do women, on average, have a different average aptitude in mathematical reasoning than men? Are Ashkenazi Jews on average smarter than Gentiles because their ancestors had been selected for the shrewdness needed in money lending? Is morality just a gadget that evolution installed in our brains with no inherent reality? Are religious beliefs like parasites, which colonize the minds of believers? Is the average intelligence of Western nations falling because duller people are having more children than smarter people?
Do men have an innate tendency to rape? Do women who give birth under difficult circumstances have an innate tendency to abandon or even kill their newborns? Now, if you feel your blood pressure rising as you listen to this list of research questions, then you will have first-hand acquaintance with the fact that scientific or empirical questions can have moral colorings, or at least they can be perceived to have moral colorings.
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I happen to think Steven Pinker whose work is worth getting to know, particularly his book The Blank Slate. His other books are certainly worthwhile as well, but some, as Rules & Words, are a bit dry. Pinker’s principal argument is that genetics plays a more important role in the way people think and behave than today’s social scientists would prefer to imagine. ‘Nature’ is as important in understanding human behavior as ‘nurture’.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is an interesting group, too. It seeks to remove from college campuses rules that infringe upon individual rights. These include restrictions on free speech and association. The work they do is commendable, in my estimation, and reading of some of their efforts on their website is informative.
As to what this speech has to do with Saudi Arabia? Well, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader’s imagination!
[H/T to Ilya Somin at Volokh Conspiracy]
China, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt (I guess ‘Egypt’ didn’t fit in the headline) are the ‘busiest’ Internet users, according to Financial Times. Particularly when it comes to ‘social media’ like Facebook, the citizens of these countries are finding a lot to like. As face-to-face social interactions are so complicated in the KSA, I suspect that social media are serving as a replacement. For Egypt and China, though, I think it’s more a matter of looking for opportunities to capitalize on connections.
Chinese and Saudis lead way in internet use
Tim Bradshaw in LondonPeople in China and the Middle East are the busiest and most enthusiastic internet users, a study of the world’s online habits has revealed.
The Chinese are also among the most receptive to brands and advertisers communicating with them on social networking sites, underlining the substantial and still largely untapped opportunity for online marketers in Asia.
The survey shows how emerging markets are overtaking western Europe and North America in social networking and reveal sharp regional differences in patterns of behaviour.
TNS, the market researcher owned by WPP, interviewed almost 50,000 people in 46 countries for its “Digital Life” study.
TNS ranked the online populations it sees as the most highly engaged in the internet through the time spent using it and people’s attitudes to the technology.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China topped the list, with about 55 per cent “highly engaged”.
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The French government has taken the final step in banning the wearing of niqab in public places. The Constitutional Council, which decides whether a law follows the rules and principles of the French constitution, has said that the ban is in conformity. Therefore, starting next spring, women will not be permitted to wear veils in public in France. The ban does not restrict the wearing of hijab, nor wearing veils in private nor inside religiously-oriented buildings.
France, then becomes the first European country to ban the veil. Belgium’s lower house of parliament has approved a ban; popular majorities in Germany, the UK, and Spain are also seeking a similar ban. Other countries, as the US, ban the veil in particular circumstances, as in photographs used for official identification or in appearances in court as a witness, but not generally.
French Constitutional Court Removes Last Hurdle To Veil Ban
Paris, France (AHN) – The Conseil Constitutionnel in France has approved a ban on wearing a full-length covering and facial veil ban in public places, after an exception was made to allow such coverings in public places of worship. The ban will come into effect next spring.
Parliament has already approved the measure. However, a legal challenge sent the issue to the guardian of the French constitution.
The court said that law was a “reasonable balance” between the requirement to uphold other constitutional principles like public order and women’s rights, while maintaining personal liberty and religious freedom.
Under the law, persons will have to face a $208 fine or a citizenship course if found wearing garments such as the niqab or burka in public places. However, those who force women to wear the full-face veil will face much a heftier fine of $41,727, along with time in prison.
The ban has strong public support, but some critics argue that it was not necessary because only a few French Muslims wear the full veil. An estimated 2,000 women wear a full veil in France.
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Here’s an interesting essay from Majalla magazine, by Afshin Molavi, on the limited utility of political geography—that is, maps that show political borders. Rather, he says, we should be looking at the world in terms of commercial connections. To do so, for example, would show that Saudi Arabia and the GCC countries are more closely related to the Far East than to the Arab West, the Maghreb. The Maghreb, in turn, is more closely related to Europe than to the rest of the Arab world. These commercial linkages are more important, at least in the short term, than conceptual links like the Arab League. Worth reading.
Commercial Geographies
Afshin MolaviGoverning bodies around the world approach challenges from a geographical perspective. However, political geographies lock minds into thinking of countries within the same “region” as part of a coherent bloc. This point of view, is in many ways limited when it comes to predicting the future of a country, especially when compared to a perspective based on commercial geographies.
The celebrated American writer Mark Twain once said that “the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and most governments around the world have a lightning bug problem. They see the world through an “almost right” framework, but miss the “lightning.”
The problem lies with geography. Most governments and international institutions rely on a political geography view of the world. Political geographies lock minds into thinking of countries within the same “region” or sharing similar languages, histories, or cultures as part of a coherent bloc. Whereas the more important indicator might be the commercial geography of a country: where and from whence does its trade and investment flow? Commercial geographies of countries are often far different than political geographies, and better predictive tools for the future of a country.
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I commend, too, the entire September issue of Majalla. You can find it at this link [64-page PDF]. Take note of the article on the changing nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, by Amr Hamzawy. There are also good pieces on ‘honor killings’ as a global phenomenon and an excellent interview with Frank Gardner, the BCC correspondent who was crippled in an Al-Qaeda attack in Riyadh, back in 2004.
Saudi Gazette/Okaz run a nicely satiric piece on how to resolve the perennial questions about how Saudis treat their domestic servants. The writer suggests that in order to fulfill the very special needs of Saudi culture, in the face of international condemnation of the status quo, a new form of marriage must be developed. If human rights organizations have their way—and the writer believes they will—servants will obtain more rights. But those organizations can’t say much about Saudi marriage, so the obvious solution is for Saudi men to marry their servants! Clever and pointed.
Imported wives may solve our crisis
In two to five years from now, recruiting maids and family drivers from abroad will become a very difficult task. This is because international human rights organizations will no longer tolerate our continual abuse of Asian maids, who we receive at the airport, take home and make them work nonstop without allowing them to leave the house except when accompanying “madam” to the market to carry shopping bags.
Such treatment is not acceptable to civil rights societies who are consolidating their presence in all international treaties. These societies do not care about our local customs and traditions, especially since we have slightly amended our popular saying from being, “A woman leaves her home only to go to the cemetery” (i.e. when she’s dead) to, “The maid leaves our home only to go to the airport.”
International organizations will keep pressing us until we drop the sponsorship system in its current form and will insist that domestic workers have a weekly holiday and fixed working hours. These bodies will one day achieve their objectives.
We do not belong to another planet. We are part of this world and, paradoxically, our country has signed almost every international treaty that aims at putting an end to human trafficking, which means we are obliged by international law to abide by such treaties.
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The Saudi discussion about whether heart-death or brain-death constitutes the condition of demise seems to have been concluded. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that the Ulema and the Saudi Heart Association, contrary to the belief of some of its members, have concluded that brain-death is the ultimate marker. The article also notes that the decision to disconnect a brain-dead person from life support is made by the attending doctors, even if a patient’s family disagrees.
Senior scholar: Better take brain-dead off life-support
Fahd Al-TheyabiRIYADH: A member of the Board of Senior Ulema (Scholars) and Royal Court Adviser, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Sulaiman Bin Munea, has agreed that brain-dead patients should be removed from medical life-support systems. He said his opinion is based on the Prophet’s Sunnah which urges Muslims to ensure funerals are carried out as soon as possible after a person’s death. The Sheikh’s comment comes in the wake of a Saudi Heart Association (SHA) statement, issued Friday, which stated that the association does not consider it murder if a brain-dead patient is removed from life-support.
The SHA “does not agree with some doctors’ opinion that removing life-support machines from brain-dead patients, while the heart is functioning, is equivalent to murdering a human, and that, therefore, approving it is erroneous”. Brain death “is a fact recognized by most international medical and healthcare establishments. Removing life support devices gives hope to dozens of patients around the world who [need] organ transplants, which is their only chance to live after all other treatments have failed”.
Bin Munea said he agreed with the SHA because a brain-dead patient would not benefit from these devices. He agreed to remove them even if the patient’s family refused to do so.
Education isn’t just a matter of textbooks and curricula. Teachers, how they do their jobs, and just what it is that they’re teaching also matter. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that a new effort is being made to handle problem teachers within the Saudi Ministry of Education, responsible for primary and secondary education throughout the Kingdom.
Ministry addresses teacher violations
Saeed Al-BahisDAMMAM: The Ministry of Education has asked a house of expertise to produce a program to tackle schoolteachers committing offenses involving moral or doctrinal issues.
An informed source told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that a procedural guide, due to be issued by the beginning of next year, advises on handling issues such as insulting religion and Islam, deviant thought, weapon possession, liquor and drugs, sexual harassment, abusing authority to engage in illicit relations, dishonesty, poor punctuality and commitment to working hours, forgery, bribery, embezzlement, striking and humiliating students, and private tuition.
“Since 2006, the number of cases has increased dramatically and they have become so serious that they require urgent legal intervention,” the source said. “These practices are deviations from the culture of Saudi society.”
Saudi media report with considerable distaste the story of a marriage official who married a twelve-year-old. The sixth grader didn’t understand why she’d been married off; the official wasn’t terribly eager to consummate the marriage. But his mother goaded him into it. Ah, yes… the power of the Saudi mother.
The papers note that this marriage comes in the midst of a campaign to end child marriages.
Marriage official’s wife is 12-year-old
ARAB NEWSNAJRAN: A marriage official (mazoun) in the southern city of Najran has told a local Arabic daily that he had married a minor girl who is barely 12 years old and consummated their marriage after only two and a half months.
The mazoun, who has not been identified, told Al-Watan on Friday that his father in-law advised him not to touch her for a year, but his mother insisted otherwise.
He claimed that his mother, who was angry that he was treating his young wife like a sister, told him that there was no girl too young for marriage.
The mazoun told the newspaper that he brought his wife to his home and lived for two months together like a brother and sister.
“When my mother insisted I consummate my marriage, I had to summon up the courage for two weeks before I was able to have sex with her,” he said. He said when he first saw her, he was shocked by her fragility and added that he spent a long time trying to understand how to treat her. “We used to be together without any sexual contact. She slept in the bedroom while I slept in the guest room. All the time I used to tell her the story of Adam and Eve. She often said to me that she did not know why her parents gave her away to me,” he said.
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Saudi Gazette reports that there’s an investigation into who authorized the marriage. It is not legal for a ma’dhoun to authorize his own marriage.
UPDATE: There’s quite a raucus argument going on the the comments to the Arab News article. If your blood pressure needs a little boost, you might want to visit.