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 Gazette

JEDDAH – 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.
…

Identity, including cultural identity, is tied up with what went before, that is, history. All around the world, on all sorts of topics, groups use or seek to use history to define themselves, their cultures, morals, and worth. We see it in India, where members of the Hindutva movement seek to rewrite Indian textbooks to highlight – or perhaps amplify – to role of early Hindus in the cultural and political development of the subcontinent. We see it in the US, where traditional histories are overturned by revisionist histories, themselves subject to overturn by later scholars. Japanese history books have been the subject of battles over issues as disparate as the behavior of the Japanese Army in WWII and the cultural borrowings from China that led to Japanese civilization. We saw it in Saudi Arabia where certain members of religious groups fought (and, honestly, continue to fight) about exploration of and recognition of the Kingdom’s pre-Islamic history and culture.

The Christian Bible, as well as the Jewish Tanakh write of the life of Moses in and his flight from ancient Egypt. Those who hold to Biblical inerrancy have to decide which of several Pharaohs, for instance, ruled at the time of Moses. Biblical scholarship suggests that there were two, but there’s no certainty as to identity. The Pharaohs are never named, so it comes down to interpreting vague and often conflicting comments and inferences. The Quran, equally inerrant, doesn’t name names, either. Inferences suggest several possibilities and ‘possibilities’ implies disagreement.

The newest Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, finds himself in the midst of the battle for history. Political groups trying to rise from the wreckage of ‘Arab Spring’ are making assertions about history and the Minister, according to this piece from Asharq Alawsat, is having to fight for the primacy of science over cultural modeling. Some in the Egyptian Salafist camp are making assertions that Ramses II was the Pharaoh of Exodus. They have some intellectual supporters (example), but that runs against what archeology finds. The question is still an open one, but it’s a question for which particular answers play particular roles in modern politics.

Egypt’s Antiquities Minister on the Pharaoh of the Exodus
Taha Ali

Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs in Egypt, Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim, asserted that he would never allow the analysis of King Ramses II’s mummy to confirm whether or not he was the long-disputed Pharaoh of the Exodus. Ibrahim said: “What is being rumored in this context is utterly non-scientific and not founded on any sort of evidence”.

In an exclusive interview conducted with the minister in his Zamalek-based office in Cairo, Mohammed Ibrahim stated that Ramses II’s mummy had previously been flown to the French capital of Paris during the 1980s to analyze the water within it, and try to treat the artifact. “But to speak now of the mummy’s examination and analysis is a matter I can never allow because Ramses II is not the Pharaoh of the Exodus and we should not build upon wrong assumptions in the first place.”

Ibrahim cited evidence for his argument with verses from the Holy Quran and the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, especially the 14th Chapter. “The scenario and sequence of events clearly show that Ramses II could have never been the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Based on several given facts and not just one piece of information, inferences have been drawn concluding that the Pharaoh of the Exodus ruled toward the end of the 19th Dynasty. The facts confirm that Ramses II’s reign did not witness any state of unrest, contrary to what is widely known about the Pharaoh of the Exodus’s reign. Moreover, Ramses II’s rule was marked by power and construction. Hence, we can’t say that either Ramses II or his successor Merneptah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.”
…

There’s a nice piece in Asharq Alawsat that takes a look at official Saudi government spokesmen. It finds that more often than not, going to or through the official spokesman is a fruitless exercise. Some seem to believe their role is as a shield for the senior officials at a ministry or agency. Others seem to see themselves as polishing rags, there to buff up the minister, ministry, and their activities, making everything shiny and bright. A few, as in the Ministries of Interior and Justice, seem to be doing it right, providing quick and accurate information to journalists.

The position of spokesman is relatively new within the Saudi bureaucracy. Governments have a tendency to see information as power and keep it close to the vest. Winkling out information sometimes seems as though you are asking for the officials personal bank details. What these officials fail to realize is that information, like water, flows. It can be channeled and, at times, dammed up, but it will always, eventually find its way. Waiting until it has ‘escaped’, though, means that others, who may or may not share interests with the government, are going to be interpreting, shaping, framing the news. By the time the government gets around to giving its own interpretation, it’s often too late. The message has been massaged by others, be it in foreign media, Twitter and Facebook feeds, or the good old rumor mill.

Having been a spokesman, I do have sympathy with Saudi spokesman. It’s often difficult to get senior officials to understand that they cannot completely control the message. That doesn’t stop them from trying, though. I’m embarrassed by the number of times I’ve had US officials, in Congress and in the executive branch, try and pull back awkward statements they’ve made in public, to try to change history.

There’s another deficient school of management that thinks it good policy to keep the spokesmen in the dark about impending events. The fewer people who know that something is about to happen, the fewer there are to leak it, accidentally or not, the theory goes. The theory goes only a short distance, however. When something goes wrong, the message gets out of control while the spokesperson is trying to figure out just what the hell happened. The issue is wrapped up in a public affairs saying, “If you want us there at the crash, you need us there at the take-off.”

The problems discussed in the article are all very real. They are not uniquely Saudi, however. They are problems of bureaucracy. The Saudi bureaucracy will have to fight through the same swamps of power struggles, ineptitude, and egos that infect all bureaucracies. The Saudis will have to come up with their own solutions, pushed by the media and pulled by publics, and of course spun by officialdom. They can at least be thankful that they don’t have to switch directions and gears every few years following an election.

The trouble with official spokespersons in Saudi Arabia
Amal Baqzai

Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat – In recent years the Saudi press has grown accustomed to pursuing official government spokespersons by various ways and means, incurring many hardships in order to obtain a response to their inquiries. It is therefore not surprising that many official spokespersons are committed to utilizing the tactic of “evasive silence” when responding to any questions put to them by the press, whilst also relying on bureaucratic red-tape in this regard.

Such criticisms continue to surround these “silent” official spokespersons today, to the point that some media figures and journalists have begun to actively seek out officials in order to express their displeasure and pass on complaints against their spokespersons, in an attempt to force these official spokespersons to issue statements and respond to press inquiries. In addition to this, the continuation of this state of affairs means that journalists believe that the appointment of an official spokesperson is akin to a “do not approach” warning sign around an official, namely that all inquiries must be made through this official spokesperson.

Editor-in-Chief of Saudi Arabia’s “Al-Madina” newspaper, Dr. Fahd Aal Aqran informed Asharq Al-Awsat that official spokespersons can be split into two camps, those who are very active, and those who play a negative role.
…

The new head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is taking the reins of control into hand. Saudi Arabian media report that he is pulling the religious police back from some of the powers they had exerted in the past, including car chases over petty offenses, hectoring women about their makeup, and generally harassing the public over behaviors the individual muttawa believed sinful. Undercover patrols out looking for bad behavior (as opposed to actual crimes) are also being stopped.

This is all a good step. The next step is to get rid of the Haia entirely, allowing citizens to lead their own lives by their own moral guidance. That’s not likely to happen soon, however, as a majority of the Saudi public still believe the religious police have a valid role to play.

Haia will stop undercover patrols and car chases
ARAB NEWS

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice intends to stop its undercover patrols, said President Abdullatif Aal Al-Sheikh on Monday.

At the opening of a training program for the commission’s field staff in Riyadh, Aal Al-Sheikh said that commission’s agents practice to chase cars in the streets “is a matter that is coming to an end”. He called on citizens to complain to the commission’s branch director if they were harassed by agents. “If the matter is not solved, the complaint can be filed with the commission’s president,” he said. Asked about the issue of banning young bachelors from malls, he said, “The ban is wrong and it created a problem out of nothing.” The commission has no right to prevent anyone from entering malls, he added.

Saudi Gazette reports a bit more extensively.

Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Alawsat catches Al-Jazeera TV in a bit of a contradiction. He applauds the network for choosing not to broadcast video of the killings in Toulouse, France. He applauds the reasoning behind the decision. He questions, however, whether the standard the network says it is applying is actually it’s moral standard in the first place.

Perhaps Al-Jazeera has changed its standards, but in the past is seemed more than happy to broadcast images that supported terrorism, that in fact seemed to praise it. If this is actually a change, then it should be applauded. It would show a marked move away from sensationalism toward serious, objective reporting.

Thank you Al-Jazeera…But
Tariq Alhomayed

Of course we must say “thank you” to the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, which announced yesterday that it would not broadcast the images filmed by the terrorist Mohamed Merah, of the crimes he committed in the French city of Toulouse, where among those killed were young children. However, regardless of our gratitude to Al-Jazeera on this occasion, we must pause and think about where we stand on the subject of broadcasting images of murder, and how the media deals with terrorism.

Al-Jazeera, as quoted by a German news agency, said that it had decided not to broadcast the footage of Merah’s terrorist crimes, when he attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse, because the images contained no new information, and because broadcasting them would not be line with the channel’s moral standards. The truth is that this is not entirely accurate, and here is the simple proof: while I was searching the [Arabic] Al-Jazeera website for its statement declaring it would not broadcast the French terrorist’s footage – after the French President had asked television stations not to broadcast the images – I found, by chance, a previous Al-Jazeera press release under the “statements” section, entitled “Notice” and without a date, saying: “Al-Jazeera aired a news story last Thursday depicting alleged executions in the city of Karbala, Iraq. We subsequently found out that these images were false and that Al-Jazeera had broadcasted false news, as we discovered that the images accompanying the news story were not images of executions in Karbala, or anywhere in Iraq. It should be noted that Al-Jazeera immediately suspended the broadcast of this news item, having aired it only twice, after it was discovered that the footage was false. Accordingly, we have issued the necessary correction”. End quote!
…

Arab News also runs the editorial.

Ah, the joys of the Saudi Arabia’s news media! If you don’t know the story already, the media won’t give you much help. The ‘Who, What, Where, When, Why’ tenets of journalism are called that for a reason, you know…

Today’s Saudi Gazette reports that the Ministry of Culture & Information might shut down a satellite TV channel. It tells us why that is: the channel broadcast a program that seemed to promote sectarian division in Najran Province. What the story completely avoids telling us is just what TV channel is at issue.

Najran is the home of Saudi Arabia’s ‘other’ Shi’ite population. While various sects of ‘Twelver’ Shi’a live in the Eastern Province, Najran hosts populations of Ismaili and Zaydi Shi’a. They are no more popular than their eastern cousins and the government tends to see them as tools – witting or not – of Iran.

Ministry mulls closing TV channel

JEDDAH – The Ministry of Culture and Information is considering shutting down a satellite TV channel which has allegedly provoked sectarianism and harmed the national unity, sources close to Al-Hayat Arabic daily said here Monday.

The channel aired a program that allegedly aimed to divide the residents of a region within the Kingdom along sectarian lines.

Dr. Abdul Aziz Khoja, Minister of Culture and Information, said the Ministry would not accept such a thing from any satellite TV channel, newspaper or e-newspaper.

“National unity is the red line,” he said. “Sectarian statements against a region, tribe or a family are unacceptable. The Ministry will prevent any type of sedition.”
…

Young, unattached Saudi males are no longer to be banned from shopping malls, Saudi Gazette reports. The bans, instituted by mall owners according to the article, had prevented young males from entering the malls because they had a tendency – or were perceived to have a tendency – toward harassing women. The harassing is still out, but the men are not to be categorically excluded.

It’s interesting to see that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice says it has never had a policy banning young men. Fear of them, however, has absolutely colored the thoughts of the mall owners/operators.

It’s now up to the young men to show that they can behave like adults, not assuming that everything female needs their personal attention. Whether they can do that is open to question. In the meantime, the whole will not be punished for the behavior of some subset of them. Perhaps, if they wish to keep the privilege, they might do some policing of their own.

Riyadh malls open to single men

RIYADH – Single men can now enter shopping centers and malls in the capital on the condition that they do not misbehave with women shoppers and follow security regulations.

A directive to this effect was issued by Prince Sattam Bin Abdul Aziz, Emir of Riyadh region, on the recommendation of a tripartite committee comprising the undersecretary at Riyadh Emirate for Security Affairs, the Hai’a Branch Director in Riyadh and the Riyadh Police Director General.

Previously, single men were only allowed into shopping centers at lunch time on weekdays, a move the authorities said was intended to prevent women being harassed during peak hours.

Managers of shopping centers and malls had banned single men from entering their premises to avoid unruly scenes.
…

A reader drew my attention to this paper at CyberOrient, a peer-reviewed journal on the Middle East. I think it worth reading.

The article focuses on the issue of women’s driving in Saudi Arabia. It notes that the ban on their driving is based on cultural fears and a fatwa, one written by Abdel Aziz Bin Baz, when he was Grand Mufti of the Kingdom. The article points out correctly that a) culture is not the same as religion and b) a fatwa is a non-binding opinion: it does not carry legal force anywhere within Islam. People are free to follow or ignore any given fatwa.

Shariah law is interpreted by many different groups throughout the Islamic world and they don’t all agree on everything. Consequently, rather than a single Shariah, there are numerous interpretations on many issues. The illegality of women’s driving is unique to Saudi Arabia, for example. Other Islamic countries find women’s driving banal and unworthy of comment, never mind worry.

Because Sunni Islam has no single, ultimate authority, this is the way things have to be. Each country will interpret Shariah law in ways that best suit it. Interpretations of Shariah are just that, interpretations, until they are structured within laws written by parliaments or palaces. Only law is binding, be it Quranic or secular. This has the downside, though, of permitting certain interpretations to go unchallenged, because there’s no authority with the power to challenge on dogmatic or doctrinal grounds. One result of this is that human rights can go unprotected or ill-protected, with no real handle to get at changing the situations.

The paper suggests a solution: a ‘Best Practices’ analysis of all countries’ interpretation. Here, ‘best’ would be defined as ‘that which maximalizes human rights.’ The Quran and Islam are certainly not against human rights. In fact, the Quran represented a major expansion of the concept in how it approached things like marriage, slavery, and that status of women in 7th C. Arabia.

I think this is an interesting idea. Whether it is practicable, though, is another question. The paper cites the example of Morocco and its 2004 revamping of its Personal and Family Law that greatly expanded the rights of women. It could be done on a region-wide basis. I have doubts, however, that all Islamic countries would cede the power of their parliaments and ulema to a general consensus. I fear, too, that efforts to do so would end up with only lowest common denominator laws. While these might be a step forward for the most restrictive countries, it could also mean a step backwards for the more progressive.

Still, this is an idea worth thinking about.

The King, the Mufti & the Facebook Girl: A Power Play. Who Decides What is Licit in Islam?
Khalid Chraibi

CyberOrient, Vol. 5, Iss. 2, 2011

Abstract

Saudi Arabia enforces a ban on woman driving on the grounds that it is prohibited by sharia law. Women’s associations have actively denounced this ban for years, arguing that it was the only Muslim country which had such a peculiar interpretation of Islamic law. A power play is taking place online on this subject between the ulema (who support the ban), the Saudi authorities and feminine associations. This situation raises the question: “Who decides what is licit or illicit in Islam?” Muslim women’s associations merely ask for the implementation in Muslim countries of the “best practices” in Islamic law which exist anywhere, as a substitute for those laws which are unfavorable to women’s rights or do not protect their interests adequately.
…

It’s been a year since Saudi Arabia’s government announced that only women would be permitted to sell lingerie and other female-oriented things. That should have been enough warning that males would not be permitted as salesmen in these shops. Apparently, that wasn’t enough time for some.

Saudi Gazette reports that the Ministry of Labor has ordered the closure of 600 shops across the Kingdom. They’ll stay closed until the males are replaced with females.

I’m sure that this shift in hiring presents a serious burden to some shop owners. Particularly small owners will be faced with additional expenses in bringing their shops into compliance with new regulations tailored to provide the security and privacy Saudi society seems to demand for places where women work. The owners will also be stuck with the foreign workers – and their salaries – that they brought in originally to staff the shops. The owners will either need to find useful work for them to do or try to transfer their visas to others who might make use of them. It’s really tough for those workers who, through no fault of their own, now find themselves unemployed, likely unemployable, and perhaps in debt themselves over the expenses incurred in getting the jobs in the first place.

I really dislike the adage about ‘omelettes and broken eggs’; it trivializes the pain of those whose eggs are being broken. But here, a social revolution involving the welfare of thousands of Saudi women directly, and millions indirectly, is more important to Saudi Arabia than the job of one or hundreds of foreign workers.

600 erring lingerie shops shut

JEDDAH — The Ministry of Labor has ordered the closure of 600 erring lingerie shops and has initiated penal action against other women’s accessory and lingerie outlets not complying with the government’s directive to employ only women as sales representatives.

Penalties include fines, suspension of files and closure of the establishment. Shops thus closed will not be allowed to reopen unless they replace all their male workers with females, a Ministry of Labor source was quoted by the Arabic press as saying Wednesday.

The decision to hire female workers will be strictly enforced and by the beginning of July all cosmetics shops which do not replace their male workers with females will be closed, the source pointed out.
…

The times do change. Ten years ago, when I was working in Saudi Arabia, the government was having a hard time arguing for the introduction of English language teaching in the 6th Grade. The then-Minister of Education was having to defend his decision to do this against widespread protest that often became slanderous, rife with accusations that he was trying to pervert Saudi society.

Now, the Ministry is applauding – and being applauded for – the spread of English teaching in the 4th Grade.

Far from being condemned as ‘anti-Islamic’, the ministry’s efforts are being applauded by parents, teachers, and students.

Saudis excited at English in govt-run primary schools
DAMMAM: SIRAJ WAHAB, ARAB NEWS STAFF

The Ministry of Education’s project to introduce English language teaching in government-run primary schools is receiving enthusiastic response from teachers, students and parents in the Eastern Province.

“There is an increased awareness among Saudis about the importance of learning English from an early age,” said Najah Al-Rayes, central supervisor at the Education Ministry in the Eastern Province. “They are particularly happy because in the past they had to approach private schools to get their children conversant with the nuances of the English language.”

Speaking to Arab News on Monday, Al-Rayes said the project is being implemented in stages. “Two years ago we introduced it for Grade 4 girls in only six schools in the region and now we have the project running in 119 government primary girls schools,” she said. “In the coming years, it will be introduced to all Grade 4 girls in 251 primary schools in the Eastern Province.”
…

Arab News runs an article about how the high rents charged in Saudi cities is preventing young Saudis from getting married. The piece goes on about the rapacity of landlords.

What’s more interesting to me is how this article signals a very major change in Saudi Arabian social mores.

Traditionally, Saudi families lived together in multi-generational gatherings. A father would have his house and his sons would live in the same compound, perhaps even in the same house after they married and started their families. Not now, though. Today, young men expect to live at some distance from their family home. Not a great distance, maybe, but at least not within the same walls or under the same roof.

Is this just a price that has come with modernity and change? Is this an example of what the traditionalists and conservatives warn about when they argue against ‘imported’ change? Or is it a recognition that earlier practices existed only because poor economies required it, that once alternatives were available, they were quickly seized? For better or worse, for whatever reason, this aspect of traditional Saudi life has broken down.

Skyrocketing house rent frustrates young men aspiring to get married
JEDDAH: IBRAHIM NAFFEE | ARAB NEWS

An exorbitant rise in rent prices in Jeddah has dashed the hopes of several young men who want to get married and have families.

Speaking to Arab News, a number of young men, both Saudis and foreigners, said they find it very difficult to rent residential flats at a reasonable rate.

These youngsters claim greedy landlords have unreasonably hiked rent prices to the extent that they are unaffordable for most of them. This forced some foreigners to lease residential apartments and then share them. This happens at a time when Jeddah is facing an acute shortage of homes. According to real estate sources, the availability of housing units in the city at present does not exceed 5 percent of total homes. This situation has resulted in the annual rent of a two-room apartment shooting up to at least SR18,000 a year, while a four-room apartment costs more than SR40,000.

Muhammad Hashim, a young Yemeni national, said he is in search of a two-room apartment for a reasonable rent before he gets married. “I have already spent more than three months looking out for a suitable home but I’ve had no luck,” he said, blaming the greed of landlords for the situation.
…

In order to address the unemployment of women, Saudi Gazette reports, the government has instituted a program of ‘feminization’, the restriction of certain jobs to females only. The ban on males selling lingerie is just the first step, though it is a step with teeth. According to the report, no work visas are being granted to male foreign workers to take up jobs selling lingerie, and also cosmetics. Perfumes are being looked at as the next target for sex restrictions on hiring. The article says that ‘female-related commercial activities’ are to be looked at for further steps.

This, though, all comes down to a matter of definition; almost anything can be defines – with a sufficiently active imagination – as ‘female-related’. Pediatric medicine seems as though it could fall into this category easily enough. After all, don’t women take care of children? Women are traditionally those who prepare food for the family. Shall all restaurateurs now be female? According to Saudi understanding of Islam, only women can be in a state of ‘seclusion’ with other women without causing untoward arousal. Logically, this would suggest that only women should be drivers of taxis or private cars that shuttle women around town, but this runs into the ban on women’s driving.

By insisting on a regime of ‘separate but equal’, the Saudi government ties itself up in the tangle of spaghetti logic. Follow a train of thought just a little way and you run into contradictions and paradoxes. Each one adds to the burden on national treasure; to uniform progress for society; to unburdened human rights of one group or another.

Visas for salesmen in lingerie shops suspended

JEDDAH – The Ministry of Labor has suspended visas for foreign salesmen at lingerie and cosmetics shops, to further pressure companies to employ Saudi women on full-time contracts, it was reported in a section of the Arabic press Saturday.

Dr. Fahd Al-Takhifi, Assistant Undersecretary for Development at the Ministry of Labor, said the ministry will continue to allow these companies to employ males in other positions.

He said business owners have until June 27 to employ Saudi women in all cosmetics shops, as is currently the case with lingerie shops. Al-Takhifi said the ministry is considering proposals to ensure Saudi women are also employed at perfume shops and in other female-related commercial activities. He said no decision has been taken in this regard yet because the ministry is focusing its efforts first on lingerie and cosmetics shops.
…