Saudi Gazette reports on the YouTube video of a Saudi woman’s confrontation with religious police in a Riyadh mall. According to the report, the video has also been noticed by the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, which learned that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are looking into the matter.
Video of Hai’a staff arguing with girl goes viral
RIYADH – A video of a girl and a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arguing over why she had manicured nails has gone viral and ignited a debate over the way commission members should deal with people in public places.
The video, shot by the girl, and uploaded on the popular video-sharing website Youtube, shows a commission member ordering the girl to leave the Hayat Mall in Riyadh on account of her manicured nails. The two become engaged in a heated argument with the girl telling the commission member he has no right to look at her nails.
“You don’t see a strand of hair from other girls while you are showing off your manicure in a public venue… this is my duty to tell you this,” said the commission member to which the girl replied, “Why are you chasing me? The government said no more chasing! Your duty is to advise people… why are you looking at my manicure? I will never leave the mall!”
At one point, the girl sought the help of two of the mall’s security guards.
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[Note: the video link above comes through the MEMRI channel and carries its translation of the exchange. I'm currently unable to find the woman's own YouTube submission. If anyone can point me to it, I'll swap out the link.]
UPDATE: Thanks to reader Saudi Jawa, I’ve replaced the link to now point YouTube. The link was at Ahmed Al-Omran’s Saudi Jeans blog.
In it’s “On Faith” section, The Washington Post runs a piece by Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. She questions the tactics used by Mona Eltahawy in addressing gender inequalities in the Arab Muslim world, finding that in addition to being too sharp, those tactics miss their target. Declaring intellectual war on Islam or Arab culture simply will not win adherents in the region and offer no useful advice to foreign governments concerned about women’s right.
Instead, Mogahed suggests, attention needs to be paid to overall development and overall respect for human rights. Only when there is a substantive change in people’s perceptions of justice and equality and respect for rights can special attention be carved out for women. It’s an interesting piece, worth reading.
Does Mona Eltahawy’s approach hurt women?
Dalia MogahedMona Eltahawy’s Foreign Policy cover story “Why Do They Hate Us” triggered an avalanche of passionate responses. But few have addressed how her arguments impact indigenous Arab women’s rights activists or the article’s primary audience– how American policy makers– can best support the cause of gender justice in the Middle East.
Eltahawy draws attention to crimes committed against women in the Middle East that should outrage us all. Unfortunately, rather than discuss the complex social, economic and political dimensions of these issues (see Max Fisher’s useful analysis), she offers the radically original notion that Arab men, and by extension Middle Eastern culture and even “moderate” interpretations of Islam, are backwards and barbaric.
Well-meaning fans of the piece applaud what they see as Eltahawy’s courage for raising public awareness of Arab women’s struggles.
Critics question not the crimes Eltahawy describes but the causes she assigns, namely Islam and Arab culture’s inherent “hate” for women, alleging that her analysis is not only pedestrian but panders to prejudice.
The real danger however is that Eltahawy’s narrative harms the very cause she claims to champion. Conflating women’s rights advocacy with Arab inferiority or Islam bashing doesn’t empower the champions of change, it aids their enemies.
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The BBC engages in a bit of plausible tea-leaf reading. It reports that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has relieved Sheikh Abdelmohsen al-Obeikan – one of the more conservative religious sheiks – of his position as adviser to the royal cabinet. The article suggests that this is because al-Obeikan was getting too loud with positions contrary to those of the King, particularly when it came to the proper role of women in Saudi society.
Al-Obeikan became notorious when, a few years ago, he suggested that a way to permit men and women to work in the same offices would be for the women to share breast milk with the males in the office. This would create a relationship under Islamic standards, by which the men became family members of the women and therefore be ‘safe’ to be in the same location. His suggestion drew cries of disgust and ridicule among both foreign audiences and Saudis alike.
Saudi King Abdullah sacks conservative adviser
Saudi King Abdullah has sacked one of his most hardline advisers, Sheikh Abdelmohsen al-Obeikan.
Sheikh Obeikan, who was an adviser to the royal cabinet, opposed moves to relax gender segregation.
The dismissal comes shortly after Sheikh Obeikan attacked plans by “influential people to corrupt Muslim society by trying to change the natural status of women”.
Saudi officials did not give a reason for Sheikh Obeikan’s departure.
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Saudi Gazette runs only a brief report from the Saudi Press Agency stating that al-Obeikan had been relieved of his duties. Arab News runs a somewhat longer, but no more informative article.
[Thanks to reader 'Dakota' for the lead.]
An piece in Saudi Gazette, which originated in the Arabic daily Okaz, wonders why there are no female Saudi Arabia flight attendants, even on Saudi airlines. At present, only foreign women hold the job and not all of them can speak Arabic or are aware of Saudi sensitivities. Customer service, the writer suggests, would be greatly improved, at least for the Saudi passengers who make up the vast majority of all passengers.
The writer is correct, but neglects a few historical details. It was not long ago – and it still may be the case – that some flight attendants worked in the Kingdom for, shall we say, dual purposes. They discovered that they could greatly supplement their airline salaries by taking part in the ‘horizontal hospitality’ business, never mind what the laws or their contracts said. While it was only a very small minority of attendants involved, it cast a rather dark shadow over the job classification. That’s why the writer received such strong pushback when he mused about Saudi flight attendants to a nearby Saudi.
The airlines are going to have to do a better job of ensuring that flight attendants have a good reputation before Saudi women can be expected to take the jobs.
The piece does note that ground crews, particularly ticket counter personnel, are primarily women around the world. This is certainly a job that Saudi women could do without jeopardizing their reputations. I’ve no doubt that Saudis would make competent flight attendants – or even pilots – but the bad reputation developed by the few has tainted the job.
Why can’t Saudi girls fly?
Homoud Abu Talib | OkazON a recent flight I witnessed a foreign air hostess struggling to come to terms with the seating arrangements of a large family. She didn’t realize how serious it would be for a woman to be located next to a strange man. The concerned felt even more frustrated that she did not understand what they were trying to communicate to her given the obvious language barrier.
I told my compatriot in the seat next to mine, “Don’t you think if the air hostess was a Saudi woman, perhaps such problems could be averted? His reply was a sharp and dismissive “You want our girls to work as air hostesses? How dare you!” I thought it wise to stay silent but it did start off an interesting train of thought.
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Ever since Edward Said’s rant on Orientalism, the word has carried a purely negative connotation. Despite Said’s flawed understanding of it and his reporting on it tendentious and intellectually suspect, the book has served to color opinions in both the East and the West.
Saudi magazine Majalla reports on an Egyptian collector of Orientalist art, Shafik Gabr, who points to how much Orientalism was a two-way street, with information, opinion, and observations flowing back and forth between the observer and the observed. Gabr is particularly interested in what Orientalist art has to teach the Orient about itself. The article is interesting and worth reading in full.
The Orientalist Connector
As world attention is still riveted with the ‘Arab Spring’, how is cultural dialogue between East and West faring? With a monograph of his collection due to be published this year, Shafik Gabr speaks to Juliet Highet about the significance of the Orientalists on the Arab world today
Juliet HighetEgyptian collector of Orientalist art, Shafik Gabr, believes that Orientalism embodies a dynamic and continuing dialogue between East and West. “The Middle East has always been a crossroads between these worlds,” he says. “We owe the Orientalists a great debt, because although much of what they painted lives on today in our streets and villages, we constantly need to be reminded of the richness and value of our culture. For many years we Arabs did not reconcile ourselves to Orientalism. Now, from those paintings we’re getting to know about our own traditions.”
Orientalist art buyers, many of them ‘Orientals’ themselves, are aware that it is much more than a repository of pictorial memories, precious as those are. As the region invests in museums, art institutions and art education, Orientalism is increasingly perceived as a valuable part of the region’s heritage.
… “I see Orientalists as ‘Early Globalists’, who brought the Arab world to the West and really contributed to mutual understanding. They were bridge-builders.” Gabr tells me. He too has been building bridges all his life. “I have always felt that a greater dialogue and therefore empathy between peoples are very worthwhile objectives, and I have done that in business, society and even across nations. The concept of bridge-building is the basis of my fascination with the Orientalist genre, which embodies a true respect between our cultures. Far from ‘colonising’ their subjects, these artists actively bridged the Oriental and Occidental worlds.”
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The international trend of body piercing has hit Saudi Arabia, Al-Arabiya TV reports. Most see it as ‘blind emulation’ of foreign culture, but some see it as signs of discontent on the part of the women being pierced. Whether it is rebelling against parents and social expectations, or simply asserting individuality, the practice has raise concerns. This is very much a female issue, though: Saudi males are not getting pierced.
Pierced ears are the norm for Saudi women: one would be hard-put to find little girls without it. But other piercings, particularly on the face, are another matter. Tattoos, though forbidden in Islam, have a long history and tradition within Bedouin culture; piercings, particularly nose piercings, do as well. But this isn’t that. It’s clearly a cultural import, but one whose meaning is modified by those having it done.
Body piercing trend rises among Saudi women
Al ArabiyaSeveral trends seen as imported from Western cultures have invaded Saudi Arabia and encouraged women to seek change through them. While clothes and accessories seem like the most traditional influences, piercing is the latest and most outrageous fashion among Saudi women.
Piercing the lips, tongue and navel are the most popular with Saudi women, reported the Saudi edition of al-Hayat newspaper.
According to the paper, Saudi girls differ on the piercing trend. Some do not think this trend makes the girl more beautiful and in fact argue that it makes her look ugly. Some go as far as considering a girl who pierces any part of her face unfeminine. Several men agree with this point of view and say that they never get attracted to girls with piercings.
Others argue that piercing adds to their beauty and makes them look different.
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Saudi Arabia’s journalists seem to believe that they’re right on top of things, doing a good job of reporting. The Saudi Journalists Association says so:
Saudi press enjoys considerable freedom, says journalists’ group
JEDDAH: ARAB NEWSSaudi Journalists Association (SJA) has underscored the remarkable progress achieved by the Saudi press during the past 50 years.
“The Saudi electronic media space is open without restrictions and journalists deal with many sensitive issues with courage,” it said.
In a statement issued on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, which falls on May 3 every year, the association said the Saudi press has made rapid strides during the past years, in terms of content, technical structure and professionalism.
“We don’t claim the Saudi press enjoyed total freedom in the initial stage or during its development stage. However, we can say that Saudi journalists enjoy considerable freedom in dealing with all issues,” the association said.
“Saudi Arabia participates in this important international event that aims at deepening the basic principles of press freedom, defending journalists and media persons and removing the obstacles that stand in the way of their mission,” he said
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The international Committee to Protect Journalists, however, sees things a bit differently. It reports [13-pg PDF] that Saudi Arabia has the 8th most-censored media in the world. If there’s any solace to be taken from the report, Iran and Syria are worse than the Kingdom.
Saudi weekly magazine Majalla runs a story on the Salafist war against arts and culture in Egypt. Not only are actors and directors being arrested for supposed ‘crimes against Islam’, but the hard-line conservatives are also calling for bans on the books of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz and the covering of statues of the pharaohs in wax. At least they’re not calling for them to be destroyed or the Pyramids torn down.
Egyptian artists note that these are actions and ideas proposed by Salafists, but also note that the ‘more modern, more moderate’ Muslim Brotherhood says nothing about them, only claiming to ‘support culture’. Today’s Egypt is a far cry from the expansive cultural environments of its past, even as recently as the 1960s.
Islamists on Art
Ati MetwalyWhen Asran Mansour, a Salafi lawyer, filed a case against Adel Imam, renowned Egyptian actor, for “defaming Islam” in his films, no one expected that the verdict issued on 24 April 2012, by Judge Mohamed Abdel Aty would sentence Imam to three-months hard labor and a fine. Though the case was dropped on 26 April afternoon, the news outraged Egypt’s artists and equally angered international supporters of freedom of expression and creativity.
Adel Imam’s case is one of the many indications that Islamists are implementing limits on culture and freedom of expression. Also on trial with Imam were directors Nader Galal, Sherif Arafa, and Mohamed Fadel, and writers Wahid Hamed and Lenin El-Ramly, who faced the same charges of “defaming Islam.” Their cases were also dropped on 26 April.
The arts and culture scene will not be silent regarding Imam’s sentence—just as it will not remain passive when challenged by many other limitations posed on culture. The fight against such religious-based censorship is expected to be a long and painful one for all of Egypt’s creative minds.
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Women and sports is a volatile combination in Saudi Arabia. Many see sports or athletics of any kind as incompatible with society’s ideal of womanhood. As a result, government tends to pussyfoot around the issue. It says it’s not against women’s taking part in athletics, but doesn’t do much of anything to encourage it, even while noting that active lifestyles are important to the nation’s health. Now, Saudi Gazette reports, the earth groans and starts to deliver. A state school in the Eastern Province city of Al-Khobar has installed basketball hoops and is encouraging girls to get active. Too, the government is ‘forming a committee’ (yes, yet another ‘committee’) to study the issue of formal sports clubs for women.
The Saudi Olympic Committee make itself a laughing stock when it said it would permit Saudi women to take part in this year’s Summer Olympics in London, but then said that it wouldn’t support them at all. Whatever women wanted to participate would have to pay their own way and would get no support once in London.
Arguments against women’s participation in sports are vague and chaotic. Even in the face of issues of fairness or health or national economy, society just doesn’t see that women are equal to men. They instead seek ways to define women as categorically different and insist on putting them on a pedestal of social construction. Perhaps something will come of the new committee, perhaps not. That a public school is finally getting around to encouraging activity is likely the better indication that change is coming to Saudi Arabia, even if it moves at a snail’s pace.
Committee studying sports clubs for women
RIYADH — The government has set up a ministerial committee to consider allowing and regulating women’s sports clubs, a senior official has said.
Abdullah Al-Zamil from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, the top Saudi sporting body, was quoted by local media as saying that the committee was formed to end the “chaos” surrounding women’s sports clubs which are unregulated.
“The mission of the committee is focused on building a system for these clubs,” Al-Zamil was reported as saying.
Last week, a public girls’ school in the Eastern Province introduced physical education to its students by installing basketball hoops for them to use at break time.
The school in Al-Khobar thus became the first public school to openly encourage sports for girls.
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Saudi Arabia has no minimum age for marriage. This fact leads to several unhappy outcomes. First, young girls, as young as eight, are sometimes married off by their parents. Their agreement usually involves a hefty payment by the would-be husband, often decades (if not a generation) older than the bride. Various reports, including by Saudi researchers, have found that marriage is not something for small children to undertake for reasons of both psychological and physical health. Then too, child marriage is extremely objectionable to most societies across the world. That Saudi Arabia permits it to continue provides grounds for Saudi-bashing.
Now, Saudi media report, the Ministry of Justice is preparing to announce a minimum age for marriage. The Ministry is not yet prepared to say just what that age is as it is still under discussion.
The major problem facing the Ministry is that child marriage has a long tradition in the region and is not forbidden by Islam. People can point to Islamic history and see that even Mohammed, in a very different time, married Aisha at a young age – various reports say she was 8, 9, or 13.
The fact that something is not forbidden by religion, though, does not mean that it cannot be forbidden by the state. Slavery, too, is permitted within Islam (as it is, textually, within Christianity and Judaism). But societies around the world, including Saudi Arabia in the 1960s, have banned slavery. Not only do attitudes change over time, but circumstances do as well. While child marriage may have made sense when societies were small and under constant threat of annihilation, they no longer do. Saudi society is now mostly urban, tribes and tribal identities are less important, society knows more about the psychology and physiology for young women. Too, the institution of marriage in Saudi Arabia is under great pressure already, with a large proportion of them ending in divorce. Permitting another negative factor to be introduced does nothing to resolve those problems.
While no age is yet stated, I expect it will be set at 13. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were 16, but doubt that Saudi Arabia will go as high as 18, though many of its neighbors have. Saudis go for compromise and consensus and 13 strikes me as the number most likely to find that consensus. This does not mean that that age is fixed forever, though. Once the fact that law can operate in setting a limit, that limit can be later changed. As Saudi society continues to change, as Saudi women continue to be educated and employed, there will be fewer parents who believe that their financial salvation rests in the bodies of their daughters.
Age of consent for marriage of Saudi girls soon
DAMMAM: ARAB NEWSThe Justice Ministry will soon make an announcement to establish the age of consent for Saudi women to marry, local daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday quoting an official source at the ministry.
Director of the Department of Marriage at the ministry Muhammad Al-Babtain said a decision on the issue would soon be announced following the agreement of departments in the ministry involved on deciding on an age of consent.
“The project was discussed by a number of government departments concerned. The ministry deemed it appropriate to decide a certain age for the marriage of the underage girls taking into account its social and psychological aspects,” he said.
Al-Babtain declined to reveal the age of consent for marriage, but said the issue was still being discussed.
He said fixing an age for the marriage of young girls is commensurate with Shariah rules and the culture of the society. “Underage marriages are permissible under Islamic law,” he explained.
Al-Babtain pointed out the ministry had prepared a Shariah-based study that confirmed that marrying young girls was not against Shariah rules.
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Not only is the duration of Saudi Arabia’s work week under review, but the days to be considered the weekend are also under discussion, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report.
Friday is the Muslim holy day. Throughout much of the Muslim world, Friday is one of the days on which one does not work, though many have adopted the Monday-Friday work week. Most of the others have gone to a Sunday-Thursday week, including all of the Gulf States except Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar, with Saturday-Wednesday comprising the work week.
This causes a disjunction when it comes to international business. At worst, the overlap of work weeks means that a business headquartered in Saudi Arabia has only three days of overlap with its branch in New York or Tokyo. If business needs to be conducted on one of the other four days, someone is going to be called back to the office from home. That’s not a great way to build employee satisfaction. It’s also a good way to lose business if you’re at home while the rest of the world is busily churning away.
There have been discussions in the past about changing the Saudi work week to Sunday-Thursday, but they never result in any concrete actions. Now, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report, there’s another move to shift the work week, but only for the financial sector. As that makes up a huge portion of the Saudi economy, it makes sense.
On the other hand, there are going to be problems when one part of a society is working while the other is relaxing. It will create difficulties for those in the financial sector who will be working on a Thursday while all local commerce is shut down. Eventually, the work week and weekends will have to shift together. Starting with the financial sector, though, will provide the wedge that makes it happen.
Changing the weekend for the financial sector only
Anmar Hamid Mutawe’ | Okaz newspaperCHANGING the weekend has been a subject of top priority for the financial sector in the Kingdom for several years now. It is also a topic of discussion in international economic forums in which Saudi Arabia takes part.
Those who support the change argue that we lose four days of international financial transactions – more than half of the week – because the weekend in global finance is Saturday and Sunday while ours is Thursday and Friday.
Saudi financial firms, especially those dealing with the international stock market, lose a lot, not to mention the state itself.
Those who support keeping the status quo argue that Friday is a day of worship and of special importance to Muslims.
Therefore, being a Muslim country, Friday should not be touched. However, we can achieve a compromise with a solution that satisfies all parties.
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The veil is such a norm in Saudi Arabia that many women feel rather naked when seen without it. Due to the unwelcome publication of photos of bare-faced ladies taken at women-only events like weddings or school graduations (where veils are dropped), the Saudi government instituted a ban on cameras and camera-enabled cell phones at these events. Times have changed, though, according to this piece from Saudi Gazette. Now, it’s almost impossible to find a phone without a camera and people have become so attached to their phones that they are loathe to surrender them. Rather than ‘punishing’ an entire group for the misbehavior of some, women are suggesting that the actual miscreants be punished.
End camera-phone ban in weddings, say women
Doha Ghouth | Saudi GazetteJEDDAH – Many young Saudi women detest the societal norm to ban camera phones in women’s sections during weddings and graduation ceremonies.
They call it absurd that such conservative norms exist in the 21st century. Moreover, they say it is problematic for women to leave their mobile phones outside the wedding hall and many a time they end up losing their phones.
In a Saudi Gazette survey of 300 females in the age group of 20-45, 95 percent of women own smart phones, 4 percent own camera phones and only 1 percent have a secondary non-camera phone.
“Personally, I understand the reasons for concern, but I believe having surveillance is enough,” said Dr. Niven Farid, a psychologist. She says trust in people can be developed through installing means of surveillance. That would put an end to absurd norms. Many women dread social events like weddings or graduation ceremonies because they feel they are deprived of what is their property.
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