YouTube videos are often used to make political and social statements. This hasn’t escaped Saudis. Arab News reports on ‘Fasel E3lany’ (Commercial Break), a YouTube channels set up to critique – and mock – the advertising campaigns that populate the TV channels in the country, both terrestrial and satellite. The writers and actors do a good job of it. The YouTube channel is aimed toward young Saudis and makes use of easily identified regional stereotypes. There are no English subtitles, but I think you can catch at least the general drift. It’s not ‘Mad Men’, perhaps, but it’s very clever in its own way.
Saudi YouTubers mock advertising campaigns
HALAH GANDEELJEDDAH: We are all frustrated with the frequent advertisement campaigns in our country that underestimate our intelligence. But what is it that makes those advertisements so irritating to watch?
Mohammed Bahmishan, a Saudi citizen working in the advertising industry, examines what are wrong with such campaigns through his satirical Youtube show “Fasel E3lany” (Commercial Break).
The show takes you behind the scenes of what happens between an advertising agency and a client.
It starts by introducing five characters as suspects involved in the crime of “Annoying Adverts.”
They include Abdel Jaber Abo Laban, the average client that doesn’t understand the meaning of creativity or even a brief; Mostafa Lahas, his Egyptian right hand man; Fadi Marmatoon, the stereotypical Lebanese customer service manager who naturally thinks that he rules the advertising trade in the Kingdom; Fahad Ba-Mirafea, the extremely Americanized copywriter; and finally Ameera Tanash, the typically spoiled graphic designer.
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Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Commission gives itself a bit of a pat on the back in this Arab News article. The Commission, as well as the National Human Rights Society, have accomplished much, but then, there was – and remains – much to accomplish.
All of the progress noted in the article is true. Saudi Arabia has focused on Human Rights, whether it be in classroom education, media coverage, in prisons and even in the training given to members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. It has not yet managed to overcome societal and legal barriers to full enjoyment of rights however. Half of the population is still treated as though it was composed of children, unable to undertake even mundane tasks without permission from members of the other half. Young girls are still being married off to men five times their age. There is no meaningful freedom of religion and freedoms of speech, expression, and association are strictly delimited.
So, yes… applaud the accomplishment, but start planning how other basic human rights will be protected and promoted.
Kingdom forging ahead in human rights, says HRC chief
WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: Child care projects and the empowerment of Saudi women are some of the major achievements as reforms continues in the Kingdom.
These achievements stress the preservation of human rights in the Kingdom, said Human Rights Commission (HRC) President Bandar Al-Iban on Saturday, the 63rd anniversary of the UN Human Rights declaration on Dec. 10, 1948, by the United Nations General Assembly.
The Kingdom has also maintained Saudis’ basic rights to education, health and social care, housing and jobs and other rights within a systemic framework to ensure equality and justice.
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Arab News, relaying a report from the Arabic daily Al-Watan, reports that children abandoned by their parents at birth, even without clear proof that a parent was a Saudi national, are to be considered ‘full Saudi citizens’, according to the Ministry of Social Affairs. The government, however, lacks the power to place the adult orphans directly into jobs, but will work to help them find jobs.
The article notes the different approaches Saudi society and government take to housing and raising orphans.
Kids of unknown parenthood
are accorded full citizenship rights: Official
ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Children born in Saudi Arabia but are of unknown parenthood will be considered fully-fledged Saudi citizens, Arabic daily Al-Watan reported Thursday quoting a senior official at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
Abdullah Al-Yousuf also denied reports that these children were given incomplete civil records specially designed for them.
“Children born in the Kingdom to unknown parents have every right to citizenship. They receive equal treatment like other citizens,” the undersecretary said. “It is not true that they are given incomplete civil records specially made for them,” he added.
He stressed that abandoned children will be granted birth certificates and civil record numbers in their infancy and they will receive national identity cards when they reach maturity, similar to any other citizen.
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Arab News editorializes on Saudi water consumption, the government subsidy on water, and how it might be possible for people to actually be forced to pay for a vital resource that has, hitherto, been essentially free to them.
It’s clearly a serious issue, as the editorial spells out. But getting people to pay for something they consider both an entitlement and cheap is not going to be easy. The piece suggests a four-tiered system of billing, including a ‘free’ first 150 liters/day/person allotment, with prices ramping up with consumption. That’s likely workable, but would need the details worked out. As the piece notes, agriculture is a massively inefficient water consumer and so the country has turned away from ‘food independence’. But completely closing an entire sector runs against another policy priority: employment. While most farm workers in the Kingdom are foreign workers, there are Saudi involved, both directly and in the spin-off and support industries surrounding it.
It’s quite a quandary, but it’s a serious problem that requires serious answers.
Editorial: How we squander a precious asset
The water we use in the Kingdom is sold to us at a tiny fraction of what it actually costs to produce it.
The inevitable consequence is that consumers squander a precious asset. The demand for water, therefore, increases steadily, and with it the exorbitant bill the Kingdom must pick up for its production and transport.
For three years in succession at the Saudi Water and Power Forum in Jeddah, top management of the National Water Company (NWC) has indicated strongly that consumers were at last to be charged a commercial rate. CEO Loay Musallam says that, per capita, the Kingdom is the world’s third largest water consumer, using 286 liters daily. Its water production cost from desalinization is also among the world’s most expensive.
While food security remains an important government concern, it has become clear this cannot be achieved from local agricultural production. Nor, because of water costs, should it be. The figures simply do not stack up. Watering cereal crops sees 40 percent of the water evaporate before it even hits the ground. The result is that it takes 400 liters of water to produce a 200-gram loaf of bread. Similar skewed economics applies to milk and beef production. Accounting for every input, it takes 600 liters of water to produce a single liter of milk in the Kingdom and fully 6,000 liters to produce a single kilo of beef.
Then there are costs over and above the water subsidies. Desalinization, which accounts for 60 percent of the water we use, is both an energy-intensive and carbon gas-producing process. Saudi Arabia is, therefore, not only hugely subsidizing its water consumers, it is generously subsidizing a rising environmental cost.
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Saudi Arabia has rapidly increasing energy demands. It has oil that is more valuable as an export than it is as a fuel stock. It has a massive amount of available solar energy needing only the technology to capture it. The country has worked to establish a GCC-wide power grid and is considering a wider grid tying it to Europe. But it also needs nuclear power to close the gap between demand and supply for electricity.
And so, reports Arab News, the country is about to embark on the construction of 16 atomic power plants.
I don’t think anyone, other than those with a philosophical allergy to nuclear power, believes that there’s not a real need. The concern is that some countries have a way of diverting peaceful nuclear power generation to arms production. So far though, Saudi Arabia has conducted its moves toward nuclear energy transparently. Consultations and contracts have been reported widely in both local and international media. It has followed all recommendation of the International Atomic Energy Agency and those of the countries with which it has consulted.
The article is focused on a speech on US-Saudi commerce and mutual investment opportunities, given by Minister of Industry & Commerce Alireza to a business forum group from Atlanta. It appears to signal that the Kingdom is interested in having the US play at least a part in its nuclear aspirations. Given that the Kingdom has also signed cooperation with France and S. Korea, I suspect they’ll get a share of the nuclear pie as well.
Saudi Arabia to spend $100bn on 16 nuclear plants
P.K. ABDUL GHAFOUR | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Saudi Arabia will spend more than $100 billion to establish 16 nuclear energy plants in different parts of the country within the next few years, Commerce and Industry Minister Abdullah Zainal Alireza told a Saudi-US business forum in Atlanta.
He made this comment while talking about the Kingdom’s efforts to develop solar and other renewable energy technologies to reduce dependence on oil and gas.
“We have allocated $3 billion to produce solar energy panels in Jubail and Yanbu,” he added.
Alireza said Saudi imports from the US are expected to cross $95 billion or 23 percent of the total US exports to Arab countries by 2012.
“This amount is expected to double by 2015,” the minister said while highlighting the significance of Saudi Arabia as a big market in the Middle East.
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That some Saudi men constantly harass women in public places is well known. On the street, in vehicles, in malls, Saudi women contend with men whose maturity seems to have been arrested at an early teen age. Now, reports Saudi Gazette, a member of the Shoura Council is recommending that Saudi Arabia follow the lead of countries like the UAE and Kuwait in making life more difficult for the harassers.
In addition to fines, the Council member suggest that the ‘Eve-teasers’ be publicly humiliated by having their own names publicized. In a society in which naming names is viewed askance, this is likely a good move. It should certainly cause a would-be harasser to have second thoughts when he realizes that a future employer will be able to preemptively identify one a potential problem. I think, too, that it would leave the perpetrator open to barracking by his mother, sisters, and other female relations.
Public defamation the answer to women harassment?
Saudi GazetteJEDDAH – Men who harass women in public will be fined and publicly defamed under a new law being drafted by the Shoura Council. The action is due to huge public demand to end the phenomenon that humiliates women and even leads to traffic jams.
Shoura Council member Zain Al-Abideen Bin Barri urged “the council to follow the suit of countries like Kuwait and the UAE where similar laws have successfully deterred the unwelcome advances,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.
“Besides penalties, we’re going to consider imposing fines. The penalty of public defamation will deter public harassers,” he said.
The nuisance is widespread throughout the Kingdom particularly in blackspots such as Al-Elaya Street in Riyadh and Al-Tahliya Street in Jeddah. Many businesses are now losing customers who avoid malls out of fear of harassment.
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Arab News reports that the Saudi government is growing concerned about the soaring use of electricity in the Kingdom. Already, Saudi Arabia ranks #18 in the world in its electricity consumption and the rate of use is rising.
Efficiency in using available supplies is, of course, important. In that regard, the government will be taking a look at the efficiency of air conditioning equipment, one of the principle consumers of power. Modern A/C is pretty efficient, though, so savings are likely to be only marginal. Increasing power supply is going to be necessary. As Saudi power plants run primarily on natural gas, alternatives – such as the new solar desalination project – are going to be necessary as well. Nuclear power generation is certainly in the foreseeable future as well.
Electricity is also tightly bound to water in the Kingdom, not for hydro-electric power generation, but for the pumping and necessary desalination of sea water to supply the quickly growing population. The Saudis are looking to increase the supply of water and to decrease its wastage. Every liter of rainwater that is made available for consumption is a liter that doesn’t require the use of fuel for desalination.
Water, as a consumer product, is heavily subsidized in the KSA. As a result, there is considerable wastage. Things that are free or priced low are assumed to be of little or no value, thus amenable to careless use. Raising the price of water would raise consciousness of its value. That, though, is a difficult political path to take as it is the most critical of human needs.
Rising power consumption poses real challenges
IBRAHIM NAFFEE | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Saleh Al-Awaji, deputy minister of water and electricity and chairman of the board of directors at the Saudi Electricity Company, said on Sunday that the Kingdom came top in electricity consumption among countries of the region.
The increasing use of electricity posed real challenges, Al-Awaji told a conference on the sidelines of the Saudi Water and Energy Forum.
“There are pressing needs to increase the number of future projects in the electricity sector,” explained Al-Awaji, adding that there should be developments in the supply and demand of electricity in the Kingdom. ‘The use of electricity tends to increase in the summer due to excessive use of air-conditioning.”
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UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter, I’m pointed to more recent statistics. As of January, 2011, Saudi Arabia now ranks #20 in terms of consumption at 165 billion Kilowatt hours.
It’s pretty common to hear how some Saudis believe they live in a near-perfect society, that Saudis have a much finer and firmer grasp on the holy life because God chose them as the birthplace of Islam. It’s all the more shocking, then, to learn of corruption within the most holy of duties toward the umma, the conduct of Haj.
Saudi Gazette/Okaz report on a case of embezzlement on the part of a government official and others while working to ease the burdens of the pilgrimage. They seemed far more interested in – and temporarily successful in – lining their pockets.
I think the abuse of trust calls for more serious penalties than would be applied to simple government corruption or embezzlement. The crimes alleged seem particularly odious, even if they were only about money. They struck against the very fundamental trusts that Muslims around the world place in the Saudi government.
Official suspended over Haj scam
Ali Bin Gharsan | Okaz/Saudi GazetteMAKKAH – An undersecretary was suspended from work here Saturday for allegedly embezzling SR5 million from the government’s Haj program.
Informed sources told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the secret investigation committees, which uncovered the scam, included the Control and Investigation Board (CIB) and the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP).
Okaz/Saudi Gazette learnt that the embezzlement took place two years ago. The undersecretary had allegedly signed fake housing contracts for pilgrims in Makkah who came for Haj at the expense of the state.
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A column in Arab News talks about a reality TV show currently being broadcast in the US, All-American Muslim. The program, the writer says, is a step ahead for American Muslims in that it exposes the fact that the American Muslim society is diverse, but it also serves to perpetrate several stereotypes. The writer criticizes that the show’s focus is on Arab Muslims, though they comprise only one-third of all American Muslims. She’s not sure that focusing on the Shi’ite community of Dearborn, a minority even there, is representative.
She is pleased, however, that the show does demonstrate the diversity even within that community.
To tell the truth, I was unaware of this program’s existence; my viewing of reality TV shows is very limited. I’ll make a point of looking in on it, though.
American Muslims: A new trend in media
MARWA HELALThe Learning Channel (TLC) recently aired the new reality television program, “All-American Muslim”, amid a great deal of buzz both within and outside the Muslim American community
Set in Dearborn, Michigan, a city that is well known for its large Muslim and Arab populations, the series focuses on American-born Muslims and aims to answer the question: “What is it like to be Muslim in America?”
America’s Muslim population is diverse in ethnicity, class and religious expression. Attending a Friday prayer or better yet, an Eid celebration showcases this diversity at its best – Turkish Americans next to Bosnian Americans, next to Bangladeshi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Pakistani, Palestinian and African Americans – the list goes on. There are those who attend mosque regularly and others who show up to socialize during the holidays. While TLC does not claim to represent all Muslim Americans, by focusing only on Shiite Muslims of Lebanese descent living in Detroit, and with a title that claims to speak on behalf of the “All-American Muslim”, the series certainly raises the question of whether it represents the experience of Muslim Americans in general.
The choice of those Americans featured in the show reflects a desire by the producers to represent many of the issues that Muslim Americans face, such as navigating family and religious pressures when it comes to interfaith marriage, or the pros and cons of wearing the hijab (head scarf). TLC did an excellent job of portraying equal numbers of Muslim women who wear head scarves and those who don’t – a distinction that the average American may be oblivious to. However, their choice to use Arabs for the cast has frustrated many Muslim Americans because it perpetuates the misconception that Arab is synonymous with Muslim. Many Americans may continue to miss the point that there are considerable Arab Christian and Jewish populations on the one hand, and that in fact only about a third of Muslim Americans are Arab, on the other.
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An op-ed in Arab News wonders when Islamic societies will start looking to the future rather than seeking to live in an idealized past that never actually existed. Conformity to social norms that seem obvious to some is oppressive to others. Societies are not composed of a monolithic in which everyone sees all matters the same, even within Islam, witness the fact that Saudi Arabia has citizens who follow different schools of Islam and yes, even different sects. Throughout history, the writer argues, Islamic societies have flourished when they recognized that diversity is valuable in itself.
Islam is not monolithic, though some might wish it. Saudi Arabia is not monolithic, though some might wish it. Accepting the reality is critical to solving social problems and pulling society out of the ruts into which it has driven itself.
When does our renaissance start?
NAWAR FAKHRY EZZIWhat if there were a society where all people are in black and white with everyone murmuring the same prayers and leading the same way of life?
For some people, this would be a dream come true. They believe that there is only one “true” path in belief and action, making uniformity part of a religious duty where those who deviate from it are doomed and considered outcasts. According to them, religious conformity, which should also lead to social conformity, would bring back a lost civilization, get them to heaven, and even make firefighters’ only job is to save cats from trees! Absolute conformity is difficult to achieve, and if it happened, then violations of human rights, religious and personal freedom must have been committed. As a matter of fact, Islam encourages harmonious coexistence with people who live with Muslims peacefully, as it was mentioned several times in the Qur’an. One example is in Surat Al-Mumtahina: “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.” (8)
In the Golden Ages, the Islamic Empire flourished partly because of the way Muslims embraced diversity. According to Zachary Karabell in his book, People of the Book, the stability and development of the Islamic Empire was facilitated by Muslims’ respect and appreciation of diversity in the cities they conquered in comparison to their predecessors. During the ruling of Muslims in Spain, which lasted about 800 years, Spain became a “cultural Makkah” as Karabell called it, where Muslims built a spectacular civilization. People from all religions had freedom and opportunities that were not available to them in any other part of the world at that time. Racial and cultural diversity among Muslims was also appreciated.
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Saudi Gazette runs a far-too-brief article on a variety of situations concerning Saudi scholarship students in the US. All of the situations are ones that feed the worst of xenophobic fears within Saudi society. Some, such as students’ seeking US citizenship, are certainly seen as insulting to the Kingdom, its government generosity, and its culture.
The article notes that Saudi students do sometimes run into legal problems over their visas – as do many foreign students. The article concludes in noting that the worst fear has not been realized: No Saudi students are reported to have converted to Christianity.
Saudi students eyeing US residency in a mess
WASHINGTON — Forty Saudi scholarship students in the US have been cancelled from the government’s scholarship program for applying for American citizenship, said Dr. Muhammad Bin Abdullah Al-Issa, the Saudi Cultural Attaché in America, Al-Jazira newspaper reported Saturday.
He said he had clear instructions from the Minister of Higher Education to stop paying stipend, apart from canceling the student’s name from the scholarship list, if he or she is found to have applied for a permanent residency or the Green Card in preparation of obtaining American citizenship.
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I’m curious to learn how the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC learned of student applications for citizenship.
Arab News runs an op-ed about Gender Equality by a Turkish professor of Sociology. She comments on a new report from the World Economic Forum, Measuring the Global Gender Gap (375-page PDF) that looks, not to absolute levels of attainment, but the difference in attainment between men and women in some 135 countries. Her point is that Turkey is sliding down the scale. Where once it was ahead of even Western Europe in terms of, for instance, women’s political rights, it is losing ground.
I think it telling that a Saudi Arabian newspaper finds it useful to run this piece. Clearly, the paper and its editors think it has something to say about Saudi Arabia and Saudi society. And it does. Saudi Arabia is among those countries surveyed annually since 2006.
As might be expected, the Kingdom fares ill in many regards: women’s political participation, women’s activity in the economic sector, etc. On the other hand, it does significantly better in terms of things like education and health and life expectancy, falling in the middle of the lists. Even better, Saudi Arabia is one of the countries showing the most progress in closing the gender gap, raising its score by 9.7% since 2006.
The report is lengthy, but much of its bulk is comprised of the underlying questionnaire and discussion of its methodology. The report is broken into many convenient sections, each with its tables, and is relatively easy to skim. It’s definitely worth taking a look.
Seeking equality for Turkish women
IDIL AYBARSTurkish women were among the first in Europe to exercise political rights with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1924, but 87 years later Turkey ranks 122nd of the 135 countries in the 2011 Global Gender Gap Index.
Women’s rights in Turkey have a complicated track record. Turkish women gained many of their current social, cultural and political rights in the 1920s and 1930s after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. In 1934, before France and Switzerland, Turkey recognized women’s right to vote and run for public office. And along with political rights, a number of important legal reforms in the 1920s and 1930s aimed to provide Turkish women with equal rights in the educational, family, work, social and legal spheres.
Today, however, there are pressing problems when it comes to gender equality in Turkey. These problems do not harm only women, but also men and society at large.
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