Writing in the Arabic daily Al-Madinah (here translated by Arab News), Abdul Rahman Al-Oraibi decries the violence that has crept into Saudi society. He launches his complaint by noting the violence done to an Indonesian maid a few weeks ago by an employer who is now pleading her own mental problems. That doesn’t excuse the violence Al-Oraibi says as the boss’s actions are simply inexcusable under any circumstance. He finds increasing levels of violence not only toward employees, but within families as well as in schools and on the streets. Something, he says, needs to be fixed in Saudi society, but he’s not sure how.
No excuse will justify vile attack on Indonesian maid
ABDUL RAHMAN AL-ORABI | AL-MADINAHThe sight of the Indonesian maid who was abused by her sponsor in Madinah was something extreme and unimaginable.
I could never think that someone could exhibit such violence against a fellow human just because she did not do her job. The violence that this maid was subjected to shows that the sponsor suffers from serious problems. This leads one to question: what drove the sponsor to do such a thing?
I will not try to behave like others and find excuses for the sponsor because no excuse will justify what she has done to this maid. What happened to this maid was pure torture and violence that goes against one’s religion, sense of humanity and society.
This is not the first time a maid has been treated like this, nor will it be the last. Many stories are published in our newspapers about violence committed against maids and drivers. Newspapers also publish stories of domestic violence with husbands, wives and sons being the culprits. There are many disagreements among students that lead to violence and sometimes murder. There are also many stories of teachers being violent against small children.
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I’ll point you to a supplement in Arab News that takes a look at Saudi women, business, entrepreneurship, and the barriers that get between them.
Top 20 Businesswomen Supplement
Driving in Saudi Arabia is notoriously risky. Not only do drivers tend to do whatever they want, in violation of law and common sense, but they seem to believe they have an absolute right to do so. Arab News reports that drivers ticketed by the new ‘Saher’ traffic camera program are taking it out on the cameras and operators. Physically.
I tend to be rather hard on dangerous driving. A car, weighing in at around a ton and moving at speed is a lethal weapon. It is a danger to others on the road as well as to those inside. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve seen driving in the Kingdom that would have resulted in jail—not just fines—in any developed country in the world. The fines levied in the KSA are not particularly onerous, either, though if you’re poor, any amount is too high. Perhaps if the Kingdom went to a system that fined a percentage of one’s annual income, as Finland, drivers might pay more attention.
Traffic cameras take away the ‘he said, but he said’ element. There’s positive proof on film of the violation that cannot be effectively contradicted by any verbal argument. It’s a pity that some feel they need to resort to violence to preserve their rights to drive like lunatics.
Victims let anger out on Saher cars
MD AL-SULAMI | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Repeated attacks on Saher vehicles carrying speed cameras across the Kingdom have now led to police to spend a considerable amount of time monitoring them to ensure people do not attack them.
Since its launch earlier this year, many vehicles carrying speed cameras have been attacked by members of the public who feel the fines are extortionate. According to police, the situation is so bad that many officers joke that the Saher monitoring system is in need of surveillance itself.
The first of these attacks happened in Buraidah on Sept. 24 when an iron rod was thrown at a Saher vehicle from a speeding car. The rod broke the windshield, damaging cameras and other equipment inside.
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From Volokh Conspiracy comes a reference to a Michigan appeals court decision sending a child custody case back to the lower court. It’s simply a fact that some Shariah principles—or customs, anyway—just aren’t going to fly in US courts, despite the fears of some.
“Counseling a Child That It Is The Child’s Duty to Kill
The Child’s Sister
Could Certainly Have a Significant Effect on the Child’s Well-Being”
Interesting little article in Saudi Gazette/Okaz on Pres. Obama’s (half-)brother, Abdul Malik. Noteworthy is that as the executive secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organization in Kenya, he is at ease with the fact that Barack Obama is a Christian. He’s not calling him an apostate; he’s not calling for him to be killed for his apostasy. That’s as useful an example as is likely to be provided from the family at large.
‘Obama family is a symbol of religious tolerance’
NAEEM AL-HAKIMJEDDAH: Abdul Malik Obama, the brother of US President Barack Obama, has described their family as a symbol of religious coexistence and tolerance.
Speaking to Okaz/Saudi Gazette, Abdul Malik Obama said the family is a perfect example of this mindset because the US president has embraced Christianity while the rest of the family are Muslims and are leading Da’wa work, the religious call, in Africa.
Abdul Malik Obama said that coexistence between religions, preventing sedition, conflicts and wars, is important for the well-being of humanity. He confirmed that he has observed up close that President Obama loves and respects Islam and Muslims.
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Whether he intended to sell them onward or was just stocking his own private zoo, a Saudi was caught smuggling a bunch of animals at the Abu Dhabi airport, reports The National. I’m guessing he didn’t go through any backscatter screening. That, or he did and those monitoring the screening were too embarrassed to ask.
Snakes on a plane passenger held
Ola SalemAbu Dhabi // A passenger has been arrested at Abu Dhabi airport after spending more than eight hours with a bag of snakes on a plane.
The Saudi passenger was said to have been carrying four snakes, two parrots and a squirrel in his hand luggage.
He was caught at the first security checkpoint after arriving at Abu Dhabi International Airport on Etihad Airlines flight EY471 from Jakarta, which landed in the capital shortly before midnight on Thursday.
The animals were not licensed for international transport. They had no health certification, nor confirmation that they were not on any endangered list.
Abu Dhabi police officials expressed surprise that the passenger had cleared security at Jakarta with the animals.
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The Saudi Press Agency and Saudi Gazette report that the students at KACST are looking to get into automobile production with their latest engineering feat. The article gives no technical details of the car which could sell for an estimated price of around US $13,000. As a get-around car, it looks okay and the cost would certainly attract a wide swath of Saudi buyers. But as the world moves toward ‘post-petroleum’, I’m not sure the timing is right.
Credit: Saudi Gazette
KACST launches a car named Aseela
RIYADH: King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology has launched a sedan, the Aseela (the original), it manufactured to serve as the basis for auto manufacturing in Saudi Arabia.
The sedan, distinguished by its low cost, not more than SR50,000, and efficient engine, was exhibited in the Riyadh Motor Show 2010 Tuesday.The Aseela was designed and built by the National Program for Automobile Technology, an affiliate of KACST, which selected the trademark pony, Mohr, for the vehicle.
The estimated cost of its production line, which has a capacity of 2,000 to 5,000 cars per year, is SR60 million, officials said.
If nothing else, WikiLeaks is feeding the horde willing to believe everything and therefore anything.
Credit: Arab News
Today’s editorial in Arab News cautions that, at the very least, it’s a bit silly to say that Julian Assange’s arrest in the UK, for sex crimes on a Swedish warrant, is a ‘CIA plot’. Perhaps it is; perhaps it is not. It’s clear that politics are much in the stew about WikiLeaks. That does not mean that everything to do with WikiLeaks or Assange must be seen in the light of politics, however. Assange can be both a bold leaker and a sex criminal. The Swedish courts are likely to decide the latter issue, assuming they succeed in their call for his extradition.
Rape charges against Assange is serious issue which must be throughly probed.
There will be many people around the world, not least here in the Middle East, who see the CIA’s hand behind the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation. He certainly sees it as a conspiracy. A WikiLeaks spokesman has called the arrest an attack on media freedom.
That claim cannot go unchallenged. Assange may have been arrested in London but the warrant comes from a Swedish court, and Sweden is no American poodle. More to the point, Assange cannot be above the law. Even if allegations were concocted, they have to be answered. Rape is a very serious matter, so serious that in this country it is a capital offense. When such allegations are made, they have to be investigated and if there is a case to answer the accused has to be brought to court.
It may well be that there is no case for Assange to answer, that he has done nothing wrong. It may even be that the women who accuse him have acted with malicious intent, either on their own account or at someone else’s prompting. That is not yet known. That is what the Swedish investigators have to find out. But to decide Assange’s case is a set-up without waiting for the evidence to be evaluated, and that he therefore he should not have to go to court, is to show contempt for justice. The law can never make exceptions because somebody is considered too important or famous. Ultimately there is no difference between that and someone bribing a judge to drop his case. They are both corrupt. If the Swedish prosecutors say there are charges to answer, they have to be answered. That said, was it necessary for the court in London to refuse Assange bail when he had voluntarily surrendered? That seems vindictive.
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An indication of the not-quite-first-world nature of Saudi Arabia can be seen in its infrastructure. Arab News reports that major cities are running into a problem with the plumbing, with most homes and businesses relying on sewage (aka septic) tanks to handle wastes. In the best of climates and the best of conditions, septic tanks can be problematic. That is why modern cities (starting in the 18th C.) have moved to sewage systems with more centralized processing of effluents. Installing a modern system, though, is going to wreak havoc in the cities. Roads will be torn up for years to come. Too, I think most Saudis are going to find the jobs involved ‘beneath’ them.
Security of sewage tanks questioned
MOHD HUMAIDAN | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Only 30 percent of houses in the Kingdom benefit from sewage networks, said Suleiman Al-Basaily, director of sewage at the Ministry of Water and Electricity, on Monday.
“Out of 19 cities in the Riyadh province, only four have sewage services,” Al-Basaily said in a radio interview conducted by Dawood Al-Shirian.
He said about 40 percent of houses in Riyadh and 25 percent of houses in Jeddah benefit from sewage services.
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I came across an interesting article on Live Science science news aggregator that looks at the psychology of WikiLeaks as a form of gossip. You might like to take a look.
The Saudi-US Relations Information Service (SUSRIS) posts an interesting interview with Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence services and former ambassador to the US and UK. I think the discussion is worth a look.
A Conversation with Prince Turki Al-Faisal
SUSRIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Editor’s Note:
In late October two explosive devices were posted from Yemen by “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” operatives into the international airborne package delivery system bound for the United States. A coalition of global intelligence and security organizations tracked down and neutralized the bombs based on critical information provided by Saudi Arabian intelligence. As demonstrated by the unusual public acknowledgement of the “tip” by the White House it was a testimony to both the focus on Al Qaeda by the Kingdom’s intelligence service and to the close cooperation between Saudi Arabia and its allies like the United States and the United Kingdom. It was our good fortune then that the timing of an interview SUSRIS had planned with HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former head of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (1977-2001), fell just days after the Al Qaeda bombing plot was thwarted.
In addition to sharing his insights on the decades of intelligence and security cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia when we sat down with Prince Turki we were also fortunate to talk about his perspective on current issues in the relationship. He served the Kingdom as Ambassador to the United States (2005-2007) and talked about what he learned in his travels across America and experiences meeting people in many parts of the country. Prince Turki, Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, is spending the Fall semester as a distinguished visiting professor at Georgetown University and shared his thoughts on his time in the academic community. We thank Prince Turki Al-Faisal for taking time to share his insights with you here. Prince Turki was interviewed November 2, 2010 (Election Day in the United States), by SUSRIS at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington. [Video segments of the interview are posted on SUSRIStube.com.]
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Last week’s release of assorted diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks was an interesting affair, if you’ll pardon the understatement. Only a few hundred of a reported quarter million documents were released. What else remains to be released will be interesting to discover, but I suspect that the bulk of them are administrative rather than politically interesting. We’ll have to see about that.
Of the cables released so far, a few dealt with Saudi Arabia. One reported on Saudi attitudes toward Iran. That is being characterized in this Arab News article as “highly spurious information on and about Saudi leaders. Some of them insinuated that the Saudis had pressured Washington to attack Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.” Perhaps.
Prince Turki Al-Faisal is not well-pleased with the release. As Arab News reports, he’s pointing out the damage to the US and others that has been caused and calls for ‘rigorous punishment’ of the leaker:
Leaks damaged US credibility: Turki
SIRAJ WAHAB | ARAB NEWSMANAMA: Former Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal Sunday felt that America’s credibility and honesty have been seriously compromised following the recent publication of hundreds of confidential diplomatic cables.
Speaking at the concluding session of the 7th International Institute for Strategic Studies Regional Security Summit at the Ritz-Carlton, Prince Turki said officials will henceforth find it extremely difficult to engage in frank discussions with American diplomats.
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Another leaked cable, this from the Department of State, notes that Saudi Arabia continues to be a (if not the) major source of funding for Al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba. The annual Haj, with millions of Muslims gathering from around the world, is providing the opportunity for the transfer of cash to questionable organizations. There are oceans of cash involved in Haj—most pilgrims are not using credit cards, after all—and the religious nature of Haj inspires many to give to ‘religious’ charities. The Saudi government seem unable to control the solicitations.
The UK Guardian‘s report notes that it is not the Saudi government being accused of funding—though its efforts to control it are deemed unsatisfactory—but rather wealthy individuals. I think this is true. The Saudi government can do more, starting with cracking down on extremist and hyperbolic speech coming from its mosques, its clerics, and in its classrooms. By portraying any Muslim who suffers—for any reason—the ‘victim of anti-Muslim warfare’, it continues to allow, intentionally or not, the radicalization of thought. If the government is now focusing on the intellectual sources of extremism, it’s only begun to make the effort.
Saudi Arabia is ‘biggest funder of terrorists’
Rob HastingsSaudi Arabia is the single biggest contributor to the funding of Islamic extremism and is unwilling to cut off the money supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary Clinton.
The US Secretary of State says in a secret memorandum that donors in the kingdom still “constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide” and that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority”.
… Saudi Arabia is accused, along with Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, of failing to prevent some of its richest citizens financing the insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan. Fund-raisers from the Taliban regularly travel to UAE to take advantage of its weak borders and financial regulation to launder money.
However, it is Saudi Arabia that receives the harshest assessment. The country from which Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists originated, according to Mrs Clinton, “a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during the Haj and Ramadan”.
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