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 | Okaz

ON 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.
…

Al-Arabiya runs a story on research being conducted by Oxford University into the archeology of Saudi Arabia. Using a variety of methods, including satellite photos, the group has identified ancient lakes and river beds and archeological sites alongside them. Some of the sites date back to 75,000 years ago, the report says, and are useful in helping to determine the course of climate change.

Oxford University team conducts archeological and climate studies
in Saudi Arabia

There is an ancient network of rivers and lakes in the Great Nafud Desert in northern Saudi Arabia, Professor Michael Petraglia, co-director of the Center for Asian Archaeology, Art and Culture at Oxford University and head of an international scientific team conducting archeological studies in the kingdom said.

“The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) has granted a five-year permission to Oxford University to conduct archeological research and we started with the Jubba Oasis in the Nafud,” he told al-Eqtisadiah newspaper.

In Jubba, Petraglia explained, the team found the remains of an old lake that they found out dates back to the Paleolithic Age.

“We also found several buried archeological sites that date back to the Middle Paleolithic Age, around 75,000 years ago.”

For Petraglia, fishermen and harvesters most probably lived around this lake which was also surrounded by trees and grassland at that fertile time.”

Pictures taken by NASA and Google Earth showed that similar lakes and rivers dating back to the same era existed and that the areas around them were populated.
…

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 Highet

Egyptian 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.”
…

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 Metwaly

When 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.
…

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.
…

Saudi Arabian society is facing an issue that confronts all medically-advanced societies: what is death?

Saudi Gazette reports on discussions focused on ‘brain death‘ as well as the traditional Islamic concept of ‘clinical death‘, that is, the cessation of breathing and heart activity. The issue is complicated because medical technology allows breathing and heart function to continue through the use of machines.

The question takes on added importance due to the costs of maintaining a patient who meets the criteria for brain death, but whose heart or lungs continue their normal activity. The problem is also pertinent to the matter of organ donation and transplant as it is not acceptable in any religion, to harvest organs from still-living people.

The question is far from definitively answered in Western cultures, as the controversy over Terri Schiavo proved in the US, in 2005.

When is a person brain dead?
RIYADH – During a recent religious debate on organ transplants that was attended by religious scholars and doctors in Riyadh, it was recommended that a joint committee be formed to discuss the issue of patients being declared brain dead.

Participants also recommended that the committee visit hospitals and medical centers to acquaint themselves with the reality of the matter.

The issue of whether someone on a life support machine but clinically brain dead can be considered dead in Islam is something that is left for the sheikhs and religious scholars to discuss.

Traditional Islamic jurisprudence defines death as complete cessation of the heart or respiration. However, a further dimension has been added to this with the introduction of life-support systems which allow bodies to function even though a person might be brain dead.

This development raises the question whether someone who is brain dead can be considered dead according to Islam.
…

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.
…

The American journal Foreign Policy runs a surprisingly speculative – and, I believe, not very well informed – article on stability in Saudi Arabia. Simon Henderson, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an organization with strong affinities toward Israeli policies, offers a lot of ideas about what might happen in the Kingdom following the death of the current king. Sure, his predictions are possible, but he make so many offhand remarks that he loses credibility.

There’s no doubt the the sons of the country’s founder and hitherto the only ones to become kings, are an aging group. Inevitably, there will be none of them left to succeed to the throne. When that happens (I think it likely within ten years), there will be a generational change. It’s probable, too, that members of the Al-Saud family are discussing succession within the family, but no one has a slightest clue who they might choose. I’m very confident that this is because none of them have made any decisions. They will wait until making a choice approaches necessity. I don’t think this makes the country any less stable than a country that changes leadership every four or eight years. No one knows who will be the next President of the US, or even when. It could happen as a result of this year’s elections or those four years from now. That’s hardly a cause for panic or even much concern.

Saudi Arabia has had six kings. The five successions have all occurred smoothly and promptly. The legacy of the Second Saudi State (1824–1891) shines brightly within the ruling family. They know that intra-family dissension leads to bad things and will work hard to ensure it doesn’t happen again. The arguments and consensus building may be opaque to foreign analysts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

The Man Who Would Be King
Saudi Arabia’s ruling clique is dying off. It may be up to the new defense minister to guide the kingdom through a turbulent Middle East
Simon Henderson

The senior members of the Saudi royal family are looking increasingly frail, and the buzz in the Gulf is that there will be not just one, but two, changes in the kingdom’s leadership during the course of the next year. Although there is no fixed succession plan if that comes to pass, the newly minted defense minister, Prince Salman, looks well-placed to ascend to the throne.

The evidence suggests that Saudi Arabia’s current ruling clique is on its last legs. This week, the 89 year-old King Abdullah presided over the usual meeting of the council of ministers from the vantage point of his own palace in Riyadh rather than travelling to the council building. Propped in his chair, a cushion supporting his back, he looked as uncomfortable personally as he probably was politically with the state of the Arab world. It grieves him that Syria, a country with which he has family ties, is in such bloody turmoil, and it infuriates him that Washington does not share his view of the danger of Iran.

Within a day or so, the Saudi heir to the throne, the 79 year-old Crown Prince Nayef, is due to return home after more than a month away from the kingdom. He initially went to Morocco on “vacation,” but within a week traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, for “routine” medical tests, before flying to Algeria. Such an itinerary — and an absence of photographs of him since leaving Cleveland — has raised speculation that he is unwell. In recent months, he has added a stick to his wardrobe and regained a steroidal puffiness, renewing speculation that cancer, probably leukemia, has returned after an apparent respite of several years.
…

I had the chance to watch the film ‘Arabia: IMAX’ last night. For those with a Netflix streaming account, it’s now posted. For others, the film may still be difficult to find. I note it is available for purchase as a Blu-Ray DVD, however.

While I do not have an IMAX screen in my home, I was able to see it clearly enough on my computer screen. I’m sure I lost a lot of the impact that size itself brings; not having a plethora of speakers, I’m sure I lost something in the sound department as well.

The film was absolutely beautiful. Photography, whether of the cities of Riyadh and Jeddah or the vast landscapes was terrific. Underwater along the reefs of the Red Sea or from the air over some of the deserts, the film certainly showed Saudi Arabia to its best. Scenes of Mecca and the Haj were excellent. The use of different sorts of animations didn’t do the film any great favors, though. They often seemed gratuitous, there for their own sake and not doing much to move the story along or inform the viewer.

I was less thrilled with the content of the film. It came across as a rah-rah piece, full of hope and promise for a potentially new Golden Age of Arabia. The problems of Arabia were never discussed and barely alluded to. The aerial photography of King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) was good and the first to show the huge expanse of the campus. There were scenes of students walking around or standing talking, but nothing on the work the university is doing. We’re left with having to take the narrator’s word on its importance and potential.

I found the way the film defined the two previous Golden Ages of Arabia a bit off-putting. The first claim, that the Nabatean led the first Golden Age, squeaks in, I thought. Mada’in Saleh, the southern city of the Nabatean Kingdom is in Saudi Arabia. The second Golden Age, though, the one that brought forth the flowering of Arab science and philosophy took place in Baghdad. Arguably, Baghdad is in ‘Arabia’, but the focus of the film was on the peninsula, not Mesopotamia. It felt like the film was claiming credit for the accomplishments of a neighbor.

Disappointing, too, was the short shrift given to the Eastern Province. There’s nothing on Dammam, Al-Khobar, or Al-Khafji; nothing on the Gulf. The only references are to the discovery and exploitation of oil.

The film, all 45-minutes of it, was entertaining and opulent in its photography. But it was, at heart, a travelogue.

In his column for the Saudi-owned Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi takes a look at identity politics. He launches his piece with a discussion of Amin Maalouf’s 2009 Killer Identities (sold in the US under the title In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong). The book, and the column explore how the quest for a particularized identity poison politics on local, national, and international levels. Al-Zaydi warns that identity politics can ruin whatever positive promise ‘Arab Spring’ might hold.

They are both right. By focusing on only one aspect of identity, individuals and groups forget that they are part of larger identity groups, ultimately, the group known as ‘mankind’. Forgetting that the person next to you is human, has the same rights as you do – including the right to be wrong – leads only to confrontation. ‘Identity’ is important; we cannot act without having a clear idea of who we are. But we have to acknowledge that we have multiple identities at all times. One can be, simultaneously, a member of an ethnic group, a member (or non-member) of a religious group, a citizen of a particular nation, a member of a particular culture or society , male or female, a parent, a child, a brother or sister, a neighbor, a worker, a member of a party, and so on. Each facet of identity has its own obligations, its own expectations. One of these group identities may be more important in a given time and circumstance than in another, but all of them continue to work simultaneously. No element goes away while we focus on another. By forgetting this, by allowing ourselves to be identified or to self-identify by only one facet of identity, we run very serious risks of both dehumanizing others and painting ourselves into corners.

Are these “killer identities”?
Mshari Al-Zaydi

Will the prediction by the famous Lebanese-French Novelist Amin Maalouf – that we are embarking upon an era of wars between “killer identities” – turn out to be true?

“Killer Identities” is the title of a well-known book by Maalouf, a writer and intellectual who focusses on the religious, historical and social intricacies of the East.

Maalouf’s life itself embodies such intricacies. In a recent interview conducted by “Middle East online” with him in Dubai, on the sidelines of the Silver Jubilee of Al Owais Cultural Foundation, Maalouf explained how the multi-layered and complex climate he lived in has had a huge impact on him. Maalouf was born in Beirut; his mother was born in the Egyptian city of Tanta while his maternal grandmother was born in Adana, Turkey. Maalouf was mainly raised in Beirut but spent some of his childhood in Egypt. His mother’s family moved from Tanta to Cairo to live in the Heliopolis district, and up until the age of three, Maalouf spend most of his time residing in Heliopolis. Then he moved to Lebanon where he lived until 1975. He studied in Lebanon and upon graduating he worked in the field of journalism, contributing to the Lebanese daily newspaper “Al-Nahar”. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, he moved to France and continued his journalistic pursuits, working for “Economia” magazine and serving as editor-in-chief of “Jeune Afrique”.
…

While Saudi Arabia is a very developed country, it is not developed in the same way as, say, Germany or the US. In addition to shopping malls and supermarkets, souks – the traditional marketplaces – continue to exist and even thrive. I suppose that the souks are the grandfathers of malls. Merchants of various goods would set up stalls from which they would vend their products, whether food, spices, rugs, fabrics, consumer goods, or jewelry. Over time, the open air markets frequently became enclosed shopping areas like the Al-Hamadiyah Souk in Damascus or the Kapalçarshi in Istanbul or Khan Al-Khalili in Cairo.

Saudi Arabia’s souks are similar, though on a smaller scale. They also continue older traditions in which merchants – often women – simply throw down a carpet along the side of a street, spread their goods on them, and sell to passersby. This is a route frequently taken by Bedouin women who come in from the countryside with their food or handmade products. This is viewed as a bit unseemly, though. It can congest the streets, impede traffic, and seems somewhat disrespectful of the female merchants.

As a result, various municipalities have tried to ‘up-grade the selling experience’. They’ve built stalls, complete with running water, air conditioning, and electricity and sought to move the women into them, off the pavements. That’s very nice. The municipalities have also sought to rent those spaces, though, to recover both construction costs and ongoing utility bills. That’s not so nice. The women in Hail, Saudi Gazette reports, are pretty unhappy with the scheme. The monthly rents charged, SR 400 (US $107) are simply too high. Now, that’s not a lot of money to charge for an attractive and comfortable stall. But it is more than these women can afford to pay. They are selling goods on the street because they need the money. They would need to sell an awful lot of henna, pastries, or hand-made scarves to cover the rent.

Now, I’m sure that the government is subsidizing a lot of the costs associated with these stalls. Should they do more? Pay the entire cost? I think that depends on the goal intended. If it is to get women literally off the street without knocking them out of business, then it probably should pay the whole cost. That does introduce a question of fairness – why pay for the women, but not men? – but I think an argument can be made that those on the lowest rung of the economy need a different level of support.

Women’s souk in Ha’il comes with a high price
Amal Al-Sibai | Saudi Gazette

The municipality of Ha’il has constructed a large complex of small shops to rent out to women who have been running their businesses on the sidewalks of shopping areas, schools, and mosques.

The objective of founding this souk by the municipality and reserving it for women was to ease the plight of the women who opened and operated stalls under the scorching sun in the summer and merciless cold winds in the winter.

However, some of these simple businesswomen are complaining that the souk has missed its purpose and that it has failed to help them because the store rental fees that the municipality has demanded are too high.

Under the roof of this shopping complex, that is similar to the traditional Saudi souks,there are a total of 104 stores to be leased at a fee of SR400 per month. Many women who have been asked to transfer their sidewalk stalls to stores in the souk claim that they cannot afford to pay the monthly rent.
…

Adulateef Al-Mulhim offers his thoughts in Arab News on the announcement that Saudi women will be taking part in the next Olympic Summer Games, being held in London this July and August.

I know there are capable female Saudi athletes, but I suspect a lot of Saudis aren’t aware. Sports for women – athletic of any kind – are viewed with skepticism, particularly from cultural and religious traditionalists. Some women, with supportive families, are able to ignore the social issues. Some schools, private for the most part, ignore them as well in realizing that healthy bodies help produce healthy minds, not to mention even healthier bodies. Still, it is only now that state schools are considering formal programs of girls sports and athletics. As a result, it’s mostly privileged Saudi women who are competent in sport; they or their families had to pay for everything from the most basic training onward.

Saudi Arabia has been blackmailed, essentially, by the International Olympics Committee. It was told that if no women participated, no men would be permitted to participate either. That would be an embarrassment too far for the Saudi self-image.

Even a token participation, though, is worthwhile. Millions of Saudis will see one or more Saudi women taking part in international competition. Perhaps no Saudi woman will win a medal… that’s okay, as no Saudi male has either. It will be a major step in demonstrating for international audiences, but most importantly for Saudi audiences, that Saudi women are competent, competitive, and able to be Muslim, female, and athletic at the same time without bringing about the end of the world. That’s a lesson many Saudis need to learn at a visceral level.

Saudi women and the Olympics
Abdulateef Al-Mulhim

The world is getting smaller by the day. People and societies have to adapt to the changes. And it is better to have the initiative from within rather than having outside elements and voices direct the changes.

Just a few months ago, there was talk about the participation of the Saudi women in the next Summer Olympics in London. But, did the talks start few months ago or was it discussed earlier? As far as I know, it was discussed on very low level as side conversations during the past Olympic games four years earlier. Thus my article will not reflect what I think should be done, but I know that some International Olympic Committee members are thinking seriously about banning Saudi Arabia from participating in future Olympics if there are no women in our team. I am a great fan of the Olympics, summer or winter games. And I have been to few of them. However I also am not the one who is authorized to say yes or no to the participation of Saudi women. This is about my personal experience with questions, which were asked regarding Saudi women’s lack of participation during these games.
…