What? The Saudi ministry responsible for the upcoming Municipal Elections is telling the Municipal Councils to not provide any information to anyone asking about them? How’s that going to work? Saudi Gazette/Okaz run this too-brief article that simply begs for expansion. The concept of ‘transparency’ seems not to have much hold…
Municipal councils warned not to provide
election information
THAMER QAMQOUMARAR: The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has warned chairmen and members of municipal councils not to provide any information about municipal elections or its members to any domestic or foreign bodies.
This came after a number of municipal councils asked the ministry for instructions concerning queries they received from some of these bodies.
The minister, Prince Mansour Bin Miteb Bin Abdul Aziz, issued a circular stating that information and data related to municipal elections, and the work of municipal councils and members, should be considered official business.
If freedom of religion is to have any meaning, it must include the fact that people will disagree over religion. Some religions are particularly offended when things or people they deem holy are abused, either by non-believers or even notional believers. The deaths of people at the hands of Muslims in Afghanistan, offended by the acts of an idiotic Florida preacher, are very much on point.
Terry Jones, the preacher, burnt a copy of the Quran, intentionally insulting Muslims. That is indeed his right, under the US Constitution. The Muslims who have killed at least 30 people in Afghanistan are responsible for those murders, but Jones is morally, if not legally culpable. While he was free to do what he did, he did so knowing the likely outcome, not just a possible outcome, but the most probable outcome. Thus, he cannot avoid moral responsibility even as he denies it. The killers, though, do not get a free ride by crying, ‘He made me do it!’
Now, Jones seeks even more attention. He wants to ‘hold a trial’ of the Prophet Mohammed. What law might pertain, what authority he might have, are exactly nil. This is a publicity stunt and nothing more. The man is a fool and most people recognize that.
There are those, though, who will take this as yet another manifestation of hostility on the part of the West toward Islam. It’s not, actually. It’s the hostility of an idiot and his handful of parishioners, looking for attention and contributions.
The wise thing to do is to simply ignore it, as one would ignore the babbling of a derelict on a street corner. But inevitably, there will be people who will use this to fuel their outrage and seek to avoid their responsibility for their own actions. Sadly, it is not this world that will ever be spared of idiots, on both sides.
Koran-burning pastor threatens mock trial for Mohammed
Despite clear evidence that his actions have led to multiple murders and widespread violence in the Middle East, controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones has vowed to step up his provocative campaign against Islam.
The radical pastor said that he was considering putting Islamic prophet Mohammed ‘on trial’ for his next ‘day of judgement’ publicity stunt. His last, in which he oversaw the burning of a copy of the Koran after a six-hour mock trial, has been directly responsible for a wave of violence that began last night and has left 30 people dead and more than 150 injured.
The defiant stance has led General Petraeus, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, to join international condemnation of pastor Jones.
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It’s being reported that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has decided not to push for a vote on an anti-blasphemy resolution, apparently understanding that it does not have the votes to put it into effect. Nina Shea—not my favorite commentator—writes for National Review magazine:
An Anti-Blasphemy Measure Laid to Rest
Nina SheaA long-term campaign by the U.N.’s large Muslim bloc to impose worldwide blasphemy strictures — like those in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran — was given a quiet burial last week in the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s main human-rights body. At the session that ended in Geneva on March 25, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), sensing defeat, decided not to introduce a resolution calling for criminal penalties for the “defamation of religions” — a resolution that had passed every year for more than a decade. This is a small but essential victory for freedom.
The lessons in how this campaign rose and fell will be important in protecting the international human rights of freedom of expression and religion against other threats, particularly as the U.S. engages with the new order in Egypt and other Arab states.
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A better discussion, I think, can be found at this piece at Volokh Conspiracy law blog. Follow the links in the piece to various discussions of how the OIC movement does great violence to the meaning of ‘Freedom of Speech/Expression’ and the freedom to practice religion as one sees fit.
UN Human Rights Council Drops Resolution Banning “Defamation of Religion”
Ilya SominReligious freedom scholar Nina Shea reports that the United Nations Human Rights Council recently ended consideration of a resolution requiring states to ban “defamation of religion.” The Organization of the Islamic Conference decided not to push for a vote on the resolution, which had passed in each of the several years, when it became clear they didn’t have the votes to win this year.
This is a notable (and sadly rare) victory for freedom of speech and religion at the UN. In previous posts, Senior Conspirator Eugene Volokh and I have pointed out the threat that this resolution poses to individual freedom (see here, here, and here). The resolution is also a prime example of how repressive authoritarian regimes use international human rights law to try impose their despotic norms on the international community. For reasons John McGinnis and I explained in this article, the problem goes far beyond this particular resolution.
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The OIC says it is not ‘backing down’, though, just waiting for a more opportune time to re-introduce the measures.
Here’s a quirk in Saudi society: Men don’t like to have the names of their mothers known to unrelated others. Arab News reports that there’s a tribal taboo on mentioning one’s mother’s name, that having her name known opens her to abuse. I’ll expand that by noting that a) it’s not just tribal, b) it’s not just a mother’s name. Educated, even Western educated, urban Saudis are reluctant to have their mothers’ names known; they’re reluctant to have their wives’ names known, too. Again, this seems to be an issue with Saudi males, not women. What is it in Saudi society that encourages men to be so aggressive toward women? The article goes on to say that some believe the practice is fading, but I’ve not seen much to support that.
Saudis don’t want mothers’ names mentioned
RIMA AL-MUKHTAR | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Saudi men say they are reluctant to give their mother’s names to male acquaintances, arguing that their traditions and culture are all about keeping women out of men’s minds.
Some say that if a man knew his friend’s mother’s name, it is seen as shameful.
“I remember back when I was in high school, two guys started a fight as one of them has been telling his friend’s mother’s name to other pupils,” said Waheeb Atallah, a 29-year-old marketer.
“It was so intense that the school administration had to intervene. At the end of the day, we asked them about the fight and one of them said that mentioning a mother’s name in his tribe is taboo and that’s why he started a fight.”
The problem is not simply a matter of someone knowing the name of a person’s mother, according to Khaled Al-Harby, a 34-year-old schoolteacher, but rather it is when a man knows the name and then starts mocking it in public.
“This strange attitude is usually prevalent among young tribal men. They want to keep their female family members in a sacred place where no other men can reach them or even know they exist,” he said.
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Jobs are scarce for women in Saudi Arabia. Now, it appears they’re going to become scarcer. Arab News reports that companies employing women as cashiers are rethinking their practices in the face of a fatwa issued last year condemning women for working in positions that would put them ‘in contact with strange men’. In fact, women are anticipating a new rule from the Ministry of Labor that would exclude them from that job category.
Women cashiers face uncertainty
FATIMA SIDIYA | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: The few women in Jeddah working as cashiers are still doing so, but they fear that government ambivalence to the idea of women working in the service industry won’t protect them from being fired without notice due to their employers succumbing to social pressure, especially considering an official fatwa last year condemning any job where a woman might interact with a male customer, coworker or manager.
Arab News visited several Jeddah supermarkets and stores that employ women as cashiers. The sales consultant supervising the employment of women cashiers in her company said that they have so far employed 35 Saudi women in five branches and are to open three more women sections in Jeddah.
The salaries of these women, she said, are SR3,000 a month. The women who are employed come through the Ministry of Labor.
Another major store that had started employing women last year recently stopped recruiting more women. An official at the company told Arab News that they are not willing to employ more women and are now working on restructuring the women’s sections in their company.
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Meanwhile, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that a Saudi philanthropy will be training women in cooking and nursing. I guess they don’t need to training them in how to get pregnant. The jobs for which women will be trained will fall, for the most part, in the same ‘dangerous’ category as is being prohibited to them, that is, the women will be required to interact with ‘strange men’.
I do wonder why Saudi society traditionally assumes that women are the problem here. It seems rather clear that the problem is Saudi men who don’t know how to behave in the presence of unrelated women, assuming that strange women are simply dying to sexually assault them. Perhaps philanthropies could institute courses for men to teach them to respect strange women as much as they would respect their mothers or sisters. Or, perhaps, the Ministry of Education could start that training in grammar school, helping the little pashas get a better grasp of reality…
Saudi women to be trained in cooking and nursing
ABDULLAH AL-HARITHY JEDDAH:The Saudi Social Philanthropic Fund will train Saudi female jobseekers in cooking, nursing and other jobs which suit the conservative nature of Saudi society and are based on Islamic teachings, said Dr. Yousuf Al-Othaimeen, Minister of Social Affairs.
He made the comment after signing agreements with the Philanthropic Fund and the International Saudi Academy for Tourism, Hotels and Training at Mursal Village in Jeddah on Friday. The agreements also stipulate the training of 300 male jobseekers in various vocational skills at a cost of SR21.6 million.
He said the trainees will be given SR1,000 a month throughout the training period and contracts for employment after completing the courses, at a minimum salary of SR3,000. Many of them will be employed by the Americana chain of restaurants.
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I’m not sure why Arab News is taking note just now, but the fact that workers abuse prayer time by turning it into an excuse to shirk work has been known for quite some time. Islam strongly supports the idea of praying five times per day. Prayer times are published in all the newspapers. The religious police sweep through commercial districts to ensure that businesses are closed during prayer time, just to make sure no one forgets. Yet prayer time seems to get stretched out far beyond the obligatory by a) pious or b) lazy workers. The practice annoys consumers who have to wait until the dilatory workers decide they want to come back to work. Employers don’t like it much, either, as it means that rather than a 10-minute break, their businesses are on hold for a half-hour or more.
Addressing the problem is touchy, though… it’s not easy to criticize someone for praying, after all. But there’s potential for a new industry here: a firm that would monitor, for employers, whether the employees were actually at prayer or out running their own errands. With the ubiquity of cameras and videos these days, this would be a low-entry-cost enterprise!
When prayer is used as an excuse to skive off
RENAD GHANEM | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Some private company employees use the prayer time as an excuse to avoid work. Some companies allow 10 minutes for each prayer, while others allocate 15 minutes.
Employees use more than their allocated time to skive off work. In some government departments, employees simply leave work and go home when the call for Dhuhr prayer starts without bothering to come back after the prayer break to complete the remaining hours.
Employees are often accused of wasting too much time chatting outside their offices during prayer time. Others gather outdoors to smoke. Some employees try to use this time to go out and finish personal errands.
Many companies have created prayer rooms inside the workplace to prevent employees from ditching work.
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The Empty Quarter is one of the world’s great deserts. It’s considered a hyper-arid desert, with <35mm (1.4″) of annual rainfall. It wasn’t always so, though. In a great example of climate change, the area used to be dotted with lakes as recently as 800 years ago. That water, which has been building up in underground reservoirs over millions of years, is now being tapped to meet the growing demand for water throughout the country. Current efforts are being focused on the Najran area in SW Saudi Arabia, conveniently close to the desert.
This Arab News article notes that experts report that four billion cubic meters of water (141 trillion cubic feet) could be extracted annually. It is not reported whether this could be done sustainably nor for how long. Water extraction in more northern regions has dropped the level of the water table by over 30 meters (100 feet). The consequences of the aquifer depletion have been serious in the north; they may be less in the undeveloped and undevelopable Rub’ al Khali.
Somewhat tangentially, but interestingly, the article also states that currently 80% of Saudi electricity use is devoted to running air conditioning!
Empty Quarter project starts pumping water to Najran
ARAB NEWSNAJRAN: A project to exploit underground water in the Empty Quarter started pumping water to many districts of Najran on Friday.
“Water supplied by 17 wells in the Empty Quarter are collected at a location 130 kilometers east of Najran city before supplying to various districts,” Director General of the Water Department in Najran province Saleh Heshlan said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency.
The wells are now capable of pumping 50,000 cubic meters of water daily and the pumped water is collected in the first pumping station in Nuqaiha, 125 kilometers east of Najran, and then pumped with the help of boosting stations, he said.
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The ever-refreshing former Royal Saudi Navy Commodore Abdulateef Al-Mulhim has another good piece in today’s Arab News. Here, he takes a look at US and British think tanks and finds them wanting. He points to example after example where the think tanks missed predicting events that were happening around them. Well, sort of ‘around them’ as they weren’t usually in the places they were analyzing, nor did they seem particularly au courant with those places.
Think tanks serve a variety of purposes and are of mixed quality. Some are established to produce particular opinions, regardless of facts; others, the better ones, try to report the facts as faithfully as possible. With few exceptions in the US and UK, think tanks are non-profit organizations, something that means they are always scrambling for money by which to conduct their operations. It also means that its analysts are rarely in jobs that pay a lot of money. The organizations do produce reports and studies, but the sales of these—even when done on contract—never suffice to fund those operations. The hunt for funding presents its own problems and there is a human tendency to want to say nice thing about or in support of major funders. That’s contrary to the generally understood goal of think tanks, of course, but it happens. A further complication comes when a think tank takes money from a government. Whether or not the organization biases its reports, critics will assume, rightly or wrongly, that it has.
The world does need independent, objective think tanks. The world, however, has not come up with a way to ensure that the good (or at least better) ones get the funding they need to do their jobs properly.
US and British think tanks that failed to think
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM | ARAB NEWSTHE year was 1978.
It was the beginning of the uprising against the Shah of Iran but there was not a single think tank in the US that even mentioned any possibility of a revolution in Iran. This is what opened my eyes to the futility of relying on the so-called think tanks for any guidance on global affairs
One year later (1979), the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini took over. And in September 1980, the think tank teams were again taken by surprise when war broke out between Iraq and Iran. It lasted eight years.
After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, one of my American classmates suggested that I serve in a think tank. That was in 1989 during the tenth annual class reunion at SUNY Maritime College in New York. I told him there was no think tank in Saudi Arabia. After that I read a lot of think tank reports. I have noticed that a lot of reports about Saudi Arabia were written by non-Saudis. When I read those reports I felt I was reading reports about a country in another planet. Yes, they were written in a beautiful way, but they were far from reality.
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