Arab News offers an editorial today on the subject of Libya and what actions are or should be taken to end the strife there. It condemns the positions taken by Brazil, Russia, India, and China—along with the timidity of Turkey, Pakistan, and South Africa—in not agreeing to step up, through military means, to stop the slaughter of innocent civilians.

While I understand and believe the paper’s interest in protecting the innocent. After all, who doesn’t? But the editorial’s thrust seems more aspirational than practical. Just how is this slaughter to be stopped? The paper seems to be suggesting the sending in of troops, but if so, where are the Arab states, so much closer geographically? Other than Qatar, which is now flying missions over Libya and the UAE, which has promised 12 jets, where are the other Arab states? I can excuse Tunisia and Egypt for not sending troops, even though they share borders with Libya, and Bahrain; they have a lot on their own hands right now. But Morocco? Jordan? Saudi Arabia?

It certainly isn’t that these countries’ governments ‘love tyrants’. They do not. But they do seem to prefer to maintain the legitimate or even quasi-legitimate governments over an unknown future put together by unknown entities to unknown ends. What’s more, acting in Libya on the side of those protesting an unjust government quickly raises the question: Where do we draw the line? How much injustice does there have to be before outsiders step in? Does Syria, now torn with its own protests qualify? Does Bahrain qualify?

If not, why not? Is there a qualitative or even quantitative difference that argues action in one case and not the other? If so, what is it, who decided it, who will agree to it, who will act on it?

Imposing a change of government is not to be taken lightly. The US has certainly learned that—or been yelled at enough by other countries for its actions in Iraq so that it’s learned something. The Obama Administration is, if not gun shy, then reluctant to go beyond a certain point. That point seems to be stopping Libyan aircraft from slaughtering civilians on the ground. But the US has no interest (some say, ‘guts’) to put troops on the ground. Troops on the ground, no matter from where, seems to be what’s going to be required to halt Qaddafi’s troops and, possibly, eject him from his palace tent.

Hand wringing in the media isn’t going to accomplish it. It shows ‘solidarity with the people’, of course, but does it actually accomplish anything? Is it likely to achieve anything? Or does it only provide an excuse for not doing much more than feeling sorry for the victims?

Libya’s friends

The need of the hour is protecting civilians, not sterile arguments about sovereignty

When the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — along with Germany abstained in the UN’s vote on the no-fly zone over Libya a week ago, they were relatively muted in their reasons for doing so. They stuck to concerns about sovereignty and whether there had been enough information provided to them about Muammar Qaddafi’s attacks.

Since then China has hardened its stance against the military action being undertaken by the US-led coalition, demanding an end to it. So too has Russia — although in its case it is difficult to know whether Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s condemnation of the attacks is purely personal. President Dmitry Medvedev’s stinging criticism of his prime minister’s comparison of the attacks to the Crusades would suggest so, although the country’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov also came out against the air raids.

Other countries too have opposed them or taken skeptical positions, notably Pakistan, Turkey and South Africa.

We believe them to be profoundly wrong in this instance. In the present circumstances, governments cannot say they support the Libyan people and want an end to the military campaign in the same breath. That is illogical.
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Just another point to illustrate how the question of helping Libyans is a complicated one. This article appears in the UK’s The Telegraph…

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters
have al-Qaeda links
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime
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There’s just not much news coming from Saudi media over the past couple of days that I’ve found interesting. Search as I may, it seems that it’s just recycled wire service reports and inconsequential stories. If readers have found something else, I’m happy to take a look.

To fill the gap, I’ll point to an article in Saudi ARAMCO’s ‘World’ magazine. The magazine is a free, bi-monthly publication sent to those who request a subscription. It’s a high-quality publication with excellent photographs and artwork. The online edition appears to lack many of the illustrations of the print edition, sadly, and the image search function isn’t working as it should. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting read.

The current issue, for March-April, has several articles I found worthwile. There’s one on the Pigeons of Cairo that looks at the decorative pigeons raised by breeders, including some that are, to my eye, out-and-out freaky looking. There’s a related story about the dovecots or ‘pigeon palaces‘ that dot the landscape throughout the Middle East.

More interesting to me was a piece on the 17th C. Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi. The article comes from the first English translation of parts of his 10-volume travelogue Seyahatname, or Book of Travels.

Most interesting—and here the illustrations are available in a slideshow—is an article on the road networks that crossed Arabia, a piece built on the Saudi exhibit at the Louvre in Paris last year. The article, and exhibit, cover the period from the Paleolithic to 1932 and include ancient trade routes as well as Haj pilgrimage routes.

Roads of Arabia
Richard Covington

Nearly 13 years ago, under the heat of a summer sun, archeologists were working in a trench excavated in a mound on the outskirts of the ancient town of Thaj, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. So far, they had unearthed only pottery fragments and ashes. Prospects seemed dim.

Suddenly, a few more scrapes with the trowel opened a hole. Burrowing further, Abdulhameed Al-Hashash and his crew from the Dammam Museum uncovered a burial chamber. A few days later, they found the grave goods: a small mask, a glove, a belt and several necklaces—all of pure gold—as well as other exquisite jewelry that adorned the crumbled remains of what turned out to be a six-year-old girl buried nearly 2000 years ago.

Delicately crafted in repoussé to show a tight mouth, long nose and slitted eyes, the “Thaj mask” is reminiscent of the so-called Mask of Agamemnon, discovered in 1876 at the second millennium bce site of Mycenae. The Thaj mask and its companion objects are just a few of the remarkable displays in the exhibition “Roads of Arabia,” which showed at the Louvre in Paris from July to September of last year.

What is perhaps most remarkable of all, however, is that “Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” is the first-ever comprehensive international exhibition of Saudi Arabia’s historical artifacts. With 320 objects ambitiously spanning more than a million years, from the Paleolithic to the 1932 birth of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it turns out to be a veritable parade of virtually unknown treasures, each one a fragment of a tale from the civilizations that, over millennia, interwove their arts and their trade far more extensively than even scholars had previously believed.
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Arab News reports that the government has set a date—April 23—for the second municipal elections to be held in Saudi Arabia. It does not report—though the Associated Press does—that women will not be allowed to take part.

I suspect that the calling for elections next month is intended to assuage demands for more political participation by Saudis. But in setting such a short time table, the government again finds itself unprepared to deal with the issue of women’s voting. Back in 2005, the government pleaded that society wasn’t quite ready and the government too pressed to find a way to accommodate women. Well, it’s now six years later and, not surprisingly, dithering over the issue did not magically come up with a solution. Again, the can is being kicked down the road.

Perhaps the government should go back and look more closely at the recordings of demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, and even Iran. Women are in those crowds of angry people. Because Saudi women are not so public in their behavior is no reason to conclude that they are not equally frustrated with the status quo. For now, Saudi women may be invisible under their abayas, but they are half the population. Their unemployment rate is higher than that for men. They are also better educated, representing better than 50% of university students and graduates. One day, Saudi government and Saudi society are going to realize that grown women can no longer be treated as little girls, children who need to be protected and cosseted at every turn. Saudi women have every bit as much concern for the future of the country. It’s long past time to let them have a say in its governance.

There is no reason why these elections could not be postponed another few months while modalities were put in place to allow women’s voting. The elections have already been postponed more than a year; a few months wouldn’t make much difference, except that it would… were it to permit women to take part.

Municipal elections set for April 23

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced its plan to hold municipal elections next month after a two-year delay. Electoral commission chairman Abdul Rahman Al-Dahmash said the first phase of voting will be conducted on April 23, 2011.

Municipal and Rural Affairs Minister Prince Mansour bin Miteb set up the electoral commission to supervise elections in all parts of the Kingdom, Al-Dahmash said, adding that it would implement all the election strategies and remove obstacles.
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Saudi Arabian culture is still very much one that runs on the rails of patron:client relationships. As a result, it’s not uncommon for clients to praise the patron, telling him what a great guy he is, in florid, even floral language. King Abdullah doesn’t like it very much and he’s asking citizens to desist. This is not new. Even when he was Crown Prince, he’d push away callers who sought to kiss his hand or his nose (a Bedouin thing), and instead accept the simple kiss-on-the-cheek greeting common across the Arab world. Perhaps surprisingly, King Abdullah is a little shy as well as personally modest. He feels awkward with people treating him as though he were the greatest thing since, oh, I don’t know, frozen chicken maybe? Sliced bread isn’t really a Saudi thing at all. So, he’s asking people to stop. As Saudi Gazette/Okaz report:

Desist from using titles of affection, King tells nation

RIYADH: King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Tuesday asked the nation to refrain from using titles of affection which have become popular in the media and among the public, such as the “King of Humane Compassion” and the “Sovereign of Hearts”.

“I would ask that you spare me such titles,” King Abdullah said. “The Sovereign King is Allah, and we are all the worshippers of Allah the Most Exalted. I therefore plead that I be spared such titles,” he said.
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One of the major factors in getting the UN to move to establish a no-fly zone in Libya was the importuning of the Arab League that the world come to the aid of the Libyan people. Now that that is happening, the Arab League seems to be having second thoughts. I don’t know what Amr Moussa, head of the League thought would happen. Did he suppose that a mere UN resolution calling for a no-fly zone would stay Col. Qaddafi’s hand, intimidate him into grounding his aircraft?

A no-fly zone is, by definition, a military action, not a political statement. If a country upon which a no-fly resolution is imposed does not accede to the demand, then it must be enforced. To be enforced means that aircraft and pilots must go in and shoot down offending aircraft. Before they do that, they want to ensure that they themselves will not be shot down. That means attacks on anti-aircraft installations, the rendering of airfields unusable, the destruction of all likely threats (such as radar) to their own aircraft. That means bombs and missiles will be used. Bombs and missiles create big explosions; explosions are not precise in destroying only equipment. Anyone near the equipment being destroyed is likely to be injured, if not killed. Just what did Amr Moussa expect here?

Moussa: Bombardment of civilians unacceptable

TRIPOLI: Western forces pounded Libya’s air defenses and patrolled its skies on Sunday, but their day-old intervention hit a serious diplomatic setback as the Arab League chief condemned the “bombardment of civilians.”

As European and US forces unleashed warplanes and cruise missiles against Muammar Qaddafi’s air defenses and armor, the Libyan leader said the airstrikes amounted to terrorism and vowed to fight to the death.

… Arab League chief Amr Moussa called for an emergency meeting of the group of 22 states to discuss Libya. He requested a report into the bombardment which he said had “led to the deaths and injuries of many Libyan civilians.”

“What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians,” Egypt’s official state news agency quoted Moussa as saying.
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Arab News runs a somewhat fatuous editorial on the issue. It says that the UN forces “don’t have carte blanche to do as they please indiscriminately bombing the entire country.” True, but utterly beside the point as the allied forces aren’t indiscriminately bombing the entire country. The editorial is correct, though, in pointing out how the Arab League is having second thoughts about its eagerness to call for action. A most generous interpretation of its stance would be that it is simply pusillanimous, that is, about what one would expect from the Arab League. Some, in the US (both left and right) and elsewhere, however, see it as a clear instance of double-dealing, with the Arab League setting up a trap.

No license to kill

Global coalition must stick to peacekeeping and leave Libya’s future to its people

LIBYA remains on the brink. The UN-backed Western campaign against Muammar Qaddafi and his regime has apparently entered a decisive phase. Yet no one knows what lies ahead or how long this war is going to drag on. True to character, the Libyan strongman, after promptly declaring a truce in response to Western ultimatums, has dug in vowing to fight to the finish.

The allied campaign has claimed major gains against the regime. The US has talked about the first stage of the coalition strikes under a UN Security Council remit being “successful.” There’s even talk of Qaddafi’s command and control compound being hit in the bombing.

On the other hand, cracks have started developing in the front against Qaddafi as the scale and method of the so-called Operation Odyssey Dawn become apparent. The Arab League chief, Amr Moussa, has slammed the coalition for targeting the civilian population, instead of saving it. The League which had originally called for a “no-fly zone” over Libya demanding UN intervention to protect the civilian population has accused the Western coalition of going beyond its UN mandate. The 22-member grouping of Arab states has also called for an emergency summit to discuss the deepening crisis.
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Unrelated to the new cash infusing the Saudi economy (See post below), scarcity of supply is causing both a rise in the salaries of some foreign domestic workers and a shift in working conditions. Rather than working full-time for one household, domestic servants from Indonesia and the Philippines are now insisting on part-time jobs and getting much higher salaries for fewer working hours. Salaries are getting so high, in fact, that nurses are taking on part-time domestic work to supplement their salaries.

Due to violent abuse of some Indonesian servants—widely publicized in the Saudi media, by the way—there’s essentially a block on hiring new servants from Indonesia. The Indonesian government is insisting on minimum salaries as well as background checks on would-be employers, a step many Saudis consider offensive. Saudi recruiters, demonstrating their pique, are refusing to go along with these Indonesian regulations. The result is a shortage of highly desirable Indonesian servants. That shifts the power equation and, apparently, is also shifting the framework for hiring servants.

It’s not clear to me how the matter of visas and residence permits (iqamas)—which tightly bind employers and employees—is being handled. The article mentions ‘transfers’, but I’m not sure how that works out when there are multiple employers of a single employee; one of those employers is going to be legal responsible. It suggests that people may be circumventing the regulations or at least exploiting loopholes in them. But it’s also a clear indication that current regulations are inadequate to address the changing conditions and need to be changed.

Demand for part-time house helps spiraling
MISHAAL AL-TAMIMI | ARAB NEWS

ABHA: With recruitment of housemaids from Indonesia currently on hold, the demand for part-time house helps has skyrocketed with their salaries also going up.

“The market for part-time housemaids is booming these days. With the stoppage of recruitment from certain southeast Asian countries, the doors are wide open for those who are willing to work part-time,” the owner of a recruitment office told Arab News.

He said competition among Saudi families to obtain the services is high, with many Saudis willing to do iqama transfer and pay salaries that by far exceed the farthest dreams of the housemaids.
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Following King Abdullah’s speech announcing that government employees would get a two-months’ salary bonus, private companies are stepping up to grant the same benefit to their own, non-governmental workers, Arab News reports. Free money! Who can complain?

I’m sure merchants won’t complain as they jack up the prices of the goods they sell, simply because people can now afford higher prices. Nor will the people selling or renting real estate. They, too, will be profiting from the large infusion of cash into the marketplace. I wonder if there’ll be any studies on how all price levels change following the measure?

More companies announce bonuses to employees
ARAB NEWS

JEDDAH: Albilad Bank announced on Monday that it would distribute two months’ salary in bonus among its workers in line with the royal decrees issued by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah ordering payment of bonus to government employees.

“We hope that this measure would increase the spirit of combined work among our bank’s employees and improve the work atmosphere to help them provide better services,” said Musaed Al-Sinani, chairman of Albilad’s board of directors.
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There’s a certain amount of finger-pointing going on in the Saudi media today about why efforts to put Saudis in jobs currently held by foreign workers, Saudization, has failed. Saudi Gazette/Okaz carry a piece blaming private sector employers, claiming that those employers insistence on low salaries and little-to-no benefits is keeping Saudis out of jobs they could do with minimal training. Arab News, for its part, cites the Shoura Council’s blaming the government for not enforcing rules already on the books.

I note that neither article explicitly addresses the issue of Saudi women in the workplace.

Private sector can provide 250,000 jobs in six months
SALEH AL-ZAHRANI

JEDDAH: Economists say the private sector can provide 250,000 jobs in only six months, if it seriously commits to the Royal Decree calling for raising the Saudization rate.

The people can be employed in retailing, for salaries ranging between SR2,500 and SR3,000, and clerical jobs occupied by thousands of expatriates, they said. The economists also warned against the monthly SR2,000 unemployment benefit ordered by the King becoming a goal for some people who could quit their jobs to apply for it, noting that this tendency would fundamentally damage the noble project.

Fahd Al-Ahmadi, an economist, said: “The private sector has been evading implementing Saudization for 20 years under various pretexts, like Saudis are not serious or want more than they are offered in terms of salary.” “There are thousands of private-sector retail shops, which, with little employee training, can be all filled with a million Saudi employees paid salaries that do not burden the private sector.”
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Shoura criticizes government’s failure to fill 150,000 jobs
MD RASOOLDEEN | ARAB NEWS

RIYADH: The Shoura Council on Sunday blamed the government for not taking action to fill more than 150,000 existing government vacancies.

The observation was made at the council’s weekly session held under its Chairman Abdullah Al-Asheikh.

The members said despite royal decrees and Saudization programs introduced by the government, the concerned sector has not taken suitable measures to fill these vacancies with Saudi personnel.

Based on the observations made by members, the Shoura suggested the Ministry of Civil Service chalks out a five-year program to phase out non-nationals in the public sector and replace them with Saudis during a set timeframe.
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It’s trivial, I know, but the wrongness of this editorial cartoon appearing in Saudi Gazette just grabbed my eye. Labeled ‘Checkmate’, the cartoon illustrates anything but. Not only is Qaddafi not in a position of being checked by NATO, the UN, and Libyan reformers, he is in a position to remove NATO from the board. Perhaps the illustrator is making a veiled point here. Or, more likely, he was going for a better composed graphic image and missed out on how chess is actually played. At one time, playing chess was strongly disfavored in Saudi Arabia, if not out-and-out banned, as a manifestation of lèse majesté. Perhaps this has led to a general ignorance of the game.

In his column for Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi writes that the protests in Bahrain have shifted. What started out as cross-sectarian political protest has become Iran-influenced Shi’a protest. In fact, Al-Zaydi says that Iran is now in a state of war against the Gulf States. I can’t confirm or refute his analysis; I’m not on the ground nor do I have his sources in Bahrain. I do not, however, find anything unreasonable in his view of the situation.

What does Iran want from Bahrain?
Mshari Al-Zaydi

The current talk in Bahrain is not focused on the legitimacy of protesting, or the grievances which have been inflicted upon the Shiites, or any other group. It is not about the nature of the protestors’ demands, the provision of more authority to the opposition, the transformation of Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy, or even an opposition-nominated Prime Minister. Rather, talk has now turned towards transforming the island of Bahrain into a republic. The man leading this demand is Hasan Mushaima, an opposition figure with overt links to the political Shiite revolutionists of Iran. A few days ago, Mushaima announced the formation of the “Coalition for a Republic” in Bahrain.

At the beginning of the Pearl Square protests, the opposition contained a mixture of Shiites and Sunnis, with a significant Shia majority. Nevertheless a group of Sunnis shared in their demands, regardless of their political and economic nature. However, now the protests in Bahrain are being led by Shiite extremists, with demands far exceeding the terms initially set out by “al-Wefaq” opposition group, and its leader Sheikh Ali Salman. Those terms were tough to meet in the first place. The young Crown Prince of Bahrain has struggled to find common ground with “al-Wefaq” and its allies. Yet with the return of Mushaima and his group from abroad, “Al-Wefaq” have been made to look like a flock of peaceful doves! With a large crowd cheering him on, Mushaima delivered an address calling for the king to be dethroned, and for a republic to be established in Bahrain.
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Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former head of Saudi Intelligence and former ambassador to the UK and US, addressed the British Middle East Association in London last week. He spoke on the political history of Saudi Arabia. The speech is excerpted by the Global Arab Network at the link below.

Pr Turki uses the framework of Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’ to outline Saudi history. He notes that the metaphor is strained at times as the country is not yet doddering around, but basically see it thus:

1. The Phase of Unity — 1923-1953
2. The Phase of Ministers — 1953-1964
3. The Phase of State Authority — 1964
4. The Phase of Planning — 1964-1975
5. The Phase of Industry — 1975-1992
6. The Phase of Nationalism — 1992-2003
7. The Phase of Internationalism — 2003-

Now, there are many places at which one could argue about his analysis, but for a speech, not an analytical book, I think it serves its purpose. It does offer food for thought and a useful way to look at how Saudi Arabia has changed and continues to change and I think it worth reading the entire piece. It would have been nice if Pr Turki had gone on to project where he thinks Saudi Arabia is going, though.

Prince Turki Highlights Political History of Saudi Arabia
Pr Turki Al-Faisal

My speech today is entitled “A Political History of Saudi Arabia”. My goal is more than to simply recount facts from the past. I also hope to show that despite the turmoil taking place in so many Middle Eastern nations, as well as predictions among some pundits that such turmoil is bound to find its way into the Kingdom, the history of the Saudi state is in fact the history of a government that has developed over time in response to the needs of its people, and it is a progressive, active, modern political entity that due to its past actions is uniquely secure in its future.

For the purposes of this presentation, I have decided to present Saudi political history in seven phases. For those of you with a literary bent, this sub-division may remind you of Shakespeare’s famous “seven ages of man” as expressed by Jacques in his “All the world’s a stage” speech in As You Like It. Yet there is one important difference between the Bard’s schema and mine. Shakespeare’s seven ages of man describe the cycle of birth, growth, and eventual demise, leading, as he so eloquently says, to “a second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” My seven phases of Saudi political history, while nowhere near as poetic, progresses differently, for the Saudi state, thanks to years of successful institution building, is in full possession of its teeth, eyes, taste and everything it needs to continue to govern and prosper.
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A relatively recent development in the field of historical studies, Counterfactual History, explores the possibilities if only things had happened differently at one, decisive moment of time. The idea has a much longer pedigree in the fields of Fiction and Philosophy where it is known as Alternate History. Even the 10th-11th C. Arab philosopher Al-Ghazali indulged.

Today, retired Royal Saudi Navy Commodore Abdulateef Al-Mulhim takes his turn and bravely asks what the Arab world would be like today if only the Palestinians and Arabs had recognized the State of Israel back in 1948. He thinks that maybe the Arab world might have taken a wrong turn in actual history. Of course, if early Zionists had chosen an alternative location—Sudan, Alaska, and Madagascar were among the places considered—history would have taken a different turn, too.

On his part, though, Al-Mulhim offers a useful thinking experiment or Gedanken Experiment, that pushes the reader to think about how things work. In pondering the way things actually played out, with all the different people and circumstances acting on one another, it helps one to see where things went wrong and where they went right. He finds that Arab-Israeli discord was put to useful (to them) ends by numerous Arab rulers, that the overthrow of governments and the retardation of Arab development over a 60+ year span was the result of this historical choice.

Counterfactual history does not call for simply wishing that things had gone differently. It offers an opportunity to see how mistakes were made so that they’re not made again or continue to be made. At the very least, it offers the chance to step back and evaluate how and why particular choices were made and learn from them.

What if Arabs had recognized the State of Israel in 1948?
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM | ARAB NEWS

I HAVE been exposed to Palestinians since I was in first grade in Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia They were my favorite teachers. They were the most dedicated and the most intelligent among all my instructors, from elementary to high school.

When I was attending New York-based SUNY Maritime college (1975-1979), I read a lot of books about Palestinians, Arabs and the Israelis. I have read every article about the many chances the Palestinians had and missed to solve their problem, especially the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel.

I have seen and read about the lives of the Palestinians in the US and other places. They are very successful in every field. And at the same time I saw the Arab countries at the bottom of the list in education and development. And I always ask the question: What if the Palestinians and the Arabs accepted the presence of Israel on May 14, 1948 and recognized its right to exist? Would the Arab world have been more stable, more democratic and more advanced?

If Israel was recognized in 1948, then the Palestinians would have been able to free themselves from the hollow promises of some Arab dictators who kept telling them that the refugees would be back in their homes and all Arab lands will be liberated and Israel will be sent to the bottom of the sea. Some Arab leaders used the Palestinians for their own agenda to suppress their own people and to stay in power.
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