Saudi Arabia’s discomfort with the idea of women taking part in sports is well known. The arguments against it are social, though cloaked in religious reasoning. James Dorsey, who writes The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, points out that not even all ‘Wahhabis’ are alike. Qatar, a state also dominated by the strict interpretation of Islam that prevails in Saudi Arabia, is sending women to the Olympics while the Saudi government has all but pulled back its permission for women to participate.
Qatari Olympic women athletes spotlight Wahhabi schism
James M DorseyThe question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the first group of Qatari women to ever compete in a global sports tournament at the 2012 London Olympics but how she will handle the fact that the competition will take place during Ramadan.
The question whether Ms. Al-Malki would be able to compete was resolved when Qatar, alongside Saudi Arabia and Brunei the only nation never to have been represented by women in a global sporting event, decided last year to allow women to compete in the London Olympics.
The decision was the result of Qatar’s concerted effort to become a sports power and mounting international pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not to allow countries to compete that discriminate against athletes on the basis of gender.
It saved Qatar, already threatened with a global trade union campaign against its hosting of the 2022 World Cup because of the conditions under which it employs foreign labour, from becoming the target of yet another attack on its reputation, already dented by controversy over its successful campaign to win the right to host the World Cup. The bruising debate over the soccer tournament bid contributed to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate Qatar as a candidate for the 2020 Olympics.
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It’s not just on the Olympic front, though, that Muslim women face challenges. Al-Arabiya reports that FIFA, the international soccer/football federation, is expressing qualms about the intrinsic safety of the hijab worn in women’s competitions. There is concern that the zippers used to fasten the hijab so that it doesn’t dislodge during active play represents a danger of cutting the wearer if a ball or another player makes contact. There’s also a worry that a hijab, grabbed from behind by an opposing player, could lead to broken necks or even death. FIFA’s expression of concern has riled some:
Mshari Al-Zaydi writes in Asharq Alawsat about how tourists dollars are disappearing from countries riven by Arab Spring. In choosing to avoid areas of political conflict, often accompanied by violence in the streets, tourists end up depriving local economies of major sources of income. Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria – and now spilling over into Lebanon – depend heavily on tourists, not only for their direct spending, but also for the thousands of jobs they sustain. The politics of the region may be getting sorted out, but there is a very real cost being paid while the politicians argue.
The death of Arab tourism
Mshari al-ZaydiOne of the common features that can be seen in Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon, and perhaps also Syria to a large extent, is that tourism is viewed as a major resource for the national economy.
Another common feature of these countries is the fact that they are experiencing tremors, or rather political and security earthquakes, which means that tourists have fled and there is now a drought in the tourism market; a sector where security is considered an essential requirement rather than a complimentary condition.
Last week was a wretched one for tourists and tourism inside Lebanon, and even outside of it for some Lebanese.
After the unrest in Tripoli and Beirut, the imprisonment of an Islamic activist hailing from Tripoli, the death of a Sunni sheikh, and what was reported about a Qatari national being arrested in the midst of the security tensions there, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait all issued warnings to their citizens about the danger of the security situation in Lebanon, which constitutes a painful blow to the Lebanese tourism market as we enter the summer.
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An example of what’s keeping tourists away is provided by this article from Al-Arabiya:
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.
Saudi Arabia has an enormous amount of potential solar energy. Vast areas receive intense sunlight throughout the year, little encumbered by clouds or rain. As a result, the Kingdom is planning on spending over $100 billion to develop this alternative energy source.
But the Kingdom also has a few factors that work against the collection of solar energy, dust being one of the biggest. As it is a desert country, and has been for thousands of years, the sands of its deserts have been ground down, creating huge amounts of dust that is picked up by the slightest breeze. There’s no part of the Kingdom – except, perhaps, in the mountainous Asir – that is not subject to mammoth dust storms.
Heat, too, presents problems, particularly when it comes to efficiency and energy storage. The effectiveness of solar collectors can be reduced as much as 20% due to heat factors alone. And then there’s the matter of energy storage. Energy converted from sunlight needs to be stored until it is needed. That implies batteries of some sort and batteries just don’t do well when they’re kept hot. Battery technology is one of the ‘next horizon’ opportunities for businesses, with new developments coming along, but at a much slower rate than other technologies. For now, they’re a problem. Saudi Gazette runs a piece reporting on the issue:
KSA battles excess heat, dust to build solar power
RIYADH/DAMMAM — Saudi Arabia is getting serious about overcoming the technical and financial hurdles for tapping its other main resource: sunshine.
Thousands of solar power panels have sprung up across Europe over the past few years, thanks to generous subsidies that make the technology an attractive alternative to conventional energy.
Saudi Arabia too, wants to generate much more solar power as it lacks coal or enough natural gas output to meet rapidly rising power demand.
Doing so would allow it to slash the volume of oil it burns in power plants bankrolled by billions of dollars worth of saved oil earnings.
“At world market prices, solar is competitive if you use crude oil to generate electricity,” said Maher Al-Odan, a senior consultant at King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Research (KA-CARE) which was set up to plan Saudi Arabia’s energy mix.
Saudi Arabia has said it wants to become a major solar producer before, but its investments amount to much less than 50 megawatts versus several countries which have added thousands of megawatts a year.
This month, KA-CARE set forth a much more ambitious plan, recommending that the kingdom aim to get more than a third of its peak-load power supply, or about 41 gigawatts (GW), from the sun within two decades at an estimated cost well over $100 billion.
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A reader pointed me to a very strange article he’d come across:
As this made no sense, I took a look to see what it was all about.
I’m not sure how an article could come out wrong-headedly. The article it cites, from the UAE’s Gulf News, says nothing about dropping English. Instead, it reports that the Saudis are insisting that the Hijri or Islamic calendar be used for dating purposes on all official and business documents. This does makes sense because the Hijri Calendar is indeed the national calendar. Translations from one calendar to another already create problems when they’re necessary. Performing those translations when not necessary just creates more problems.
The Gulf News article also quotes an unnamed Saudi daily saying that hotels and the like should use Arabic to greet customers on the phone. That’s a suggestion, not a ban. It makes sense, too, because Saudi Arabia’s population speaks Arabic, though English has certainly become an unofficial second language.
English is the language of instruction at both King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. It is taught in Saudi public schools starting at the fourth grade.
Two recent articles in Arab News also stress the importance the Kingdom and its residents place on English:
Development is going on at such a rapid pace in Saudi Arabia that the government has to play catch-up with infrastructure. Two articles in today’s Arab News point to how the government in Jeddah has lagged behind the growth curve.
The first reports on efforts to connect more than 100K homes in the northern part of the city with the municipal sewage grid. Currently, these houses use septic tanks. Septic tanks can be adequate, but cost-cutting builders and the geology of the region make them less than optimal. In fact, they frequently present a major health issue through overflows. But, because there are large gaps in planning and regulation, houses get built before the infrastructure is in place.
Network of sewers to be connected to 132,000 city homes
Jeddah: Badr Al-Qahtani & Naif Al-TurkiThe National Water Company (NWC) has started installing sewer lines at homes in Jeddah’s north-central area and said it would finish connecting 132,000 homes to the municipal sewer system by the end of 2015 as scheduled, when the phased operation of the system is set to start.
The company says it will finish installing sewer lines in 25,000 houses this year.
While residents in the city’s north-central area have welcomed the news they hope the projects will be completed on time, so that the current practice of calling the septic tanker to clean up the tanks could be done away with.
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Similarly, the area’s water distribution system has not kept up with development. Many, if not most houses in the Jeddah region have to store water in individual, roof-top water tanks. The homes may have connections to the municipal water system, but private water company trucks drive around, filling the tanks. During periods of water shortage, houses can go without access to drinking water for weeks or months. Sanitary issues with the tanks present another problem.
Now, the municipality is in process of developing storage tanks for entire regions of the city. Direct pipelines from the numerous desalination plants will connect with massive concrete tanks. Exactly how the water is to be distributed from these central tanks, however, is not discussed. It’s likely that distribution will continue to be done by tanker trucks. This is inefficient, but more easily done than tearing up the city to lay water pipes. It’s a solution, but not a really great one, just one that can be done now.
Strategic water storage plan for Jeddah
Jeddah: Arab NewsThe National Water Company (NWC) has drawn up a strategic water storage project for Jeddah that will store 1.5 million cubic meters. The project will cost about SR 500 million, business daily Al-Eqtisadiah reported yesterday, quoting the director general of the NWC in Jeddah.
According to Abdullah Al-Assaf, the project would be completed within 24 months once the contractor received the land alloted for the purpose. “This is the first phase of an integrated project for storage of about 6 million cubic meters of water in Jeddah at a cost of more than SR 2.2 billion. The entire project will be completed within 3 to 5 years,” he said.
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The case of Ahmed Jizawi (spelled ‘Jizawee’ in this Saudi Gazette article) raises an interesting issue. I’m not writing so much about his arrest for drug trafficking, but about how we, as humans, tend to prefer tidy and clear definitions while in life, most definitions are all but tidy or neat.
Here, we have people, including the Government of Saudi Arabia, alleging that Jizawi was smuggling drugs into the Kingdom. They say they he was caught with 23K tablets of the prescription drug Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication that is popularly used for recreation in the Arab Gulf States – illegally, of course.
Others, however, point out that Jizawi is an important human-rights attorney, working to alleviate prison conditions in Saudi Arabia. His arrest, these claim, is nothing but an expression of Saudi animus toward human rights.
So, which is he? How are we supposed to think or feel about his arrest? Is his arrest a sign of heavy-handed government oppression? Is he a drug smuggler who acts to corrupt societies?
Null-A, or non-Aristotelian logic, suggests that we don’t actually have to make a choice: he can be both at the same time. Jizawi, like all humans, is multidimensional. In addition to being an attorney and an alleged drug-dealer, he’s also male; he’s possibly married; he’s possibly a father; he’s Egyptian; he’s an Arabic-speaker; he likes or dislikes kushari or ful medames. To understand him means that one has to understand, or at least acknowledge, many of his dimensions.
So, what do we know about him? We do know, as a fact, that he’s an attorney. We are learning, though the evidence mentioned in the article, that he also appears to be a drug-trafficker. How do we treat him or think about him, then? I can only conclude that he’s a person with very serious legal problems at the moment, no matter what he may be in other dimensions. He’d hardly be the first person to combine admirable behavior with despicable behavior.
He presents, however, another example of how reductionist thinking, the insistence of seeing all things as black or white, presents its own problems as we try to understand the world around us. We are surrounded by attempts made by governments, media, our friends and families to force us to choose one or the other interpretation of events when in reality they are far more complicated. We have to make the effort to see the complexities of life and hold back on premature judgments.
Huge remittances and telephone calls further expose Al-Jizawee
Muhammad Talib Al-Ahmadi | Okaz/Saudi GazetteJEDDAH — Egyptian human rights lawyer Al-Jizawee, now under detention in the Kingdom on charges of trying to smuggle 23,380 Xanax narcotic tablets, has been further exposed with the revelation that he received huge sums of money in Egypt through his contact in the Kingdom, sources said Sunday.
Al-Jizawee was arrested at Jeddah airport in March.
Huge remittances to Egypt where Al-Jizawee was the beneficiary were revealed in the investigation dossier completed by Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution (BIP) after several sessions of questioning Al-Jizawee and two other suspects involved in drug trafficking.
The Emirates Pharmaceutical Company which was supplying medicines to Al-Jizawee was found to be nonexistent with its commercial and health registrations forged, the BIP dossier claims.
Investigations, sources said, revealed that the other Egyptian implicated in the case was working as a driver in an investment company in the capital and was not a pharmaceutical technician and an agent of the bogus company as was claimed earlier.
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Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has been on the throne for seven years now. Saudi media is pretty busy writing up encomiums for the changes and developments he has pushed. One, particularly noteworthy, has been the expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Arab News reports that the most recent expansions are greater than all expansions before. Ever-increasing numbers of pilgrims seek to take part in the annual Haj, already the greatest annual religious gathering in the world.
Credit for biggest expansion of Haram goes to the king
Jeddah: Badr Al-QahtaniThe biggest expansion of the Grand Mosque in Makkah was carried out during the reign of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
In 2011, the Haram’s capacity was raised to accommodate 1.6 million worshippers, one-and-half times more than all the expansions put together in the mosque’s history. This latest expansion cost SR 80 billion and is part of Makkah’s many development projects, including work on the mosque’s central zone and surrounding areas.
Speaking on the seventh anniversary of King Abdullah’s accession to throne, Dr. Muhammad Bin Nasser, vice president of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs, said developing the mosque’s area is an ongoing project.
“Every year the Grand Mosque witnesses more development in the services provided to visitors. This year, the King Abdullah Expansion Project is being carried out.
It includes the latest and most sophisticated electrical and mechanical systems. The expansion is linked to the first Saudi expansion and to the masaa (running area between Safaa and Marwaa) via several bridges. A new system of elevators and escalators is being installed,” he said.
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Writing in Saudi Gazette, Khadijah Bawazeer offers her qualms about Saudi Arabia’s moves toward nuclear energy. While Saudi demand for energy, particularly electricity, is unmatched in the world, she’s hoping that solar energy might come to the rescue and nuclear power plants be avoided.
Saudi Arabia’s potential for solar power is also unmatched, with some areas showing an insolation of up to 7,000 Watts [9-pg PDF] per square meter. There are several problems, though. The primary one is storing energy collected until it is needed. Battery technology is still lagging behind other aspects of solar power. It’s not as though you stick a solar collector in the ground like a lollipop and suddenly have available electricity. It needs to be transmitted, too. Areas best suited for solar collection aren’t necessarily near the areas where the electricity produced is most needed.
By all means, Saudi Arabia should continue its development of its solar potential. But it cannot devote all its efforts there. It needs to look at nuclear power, no matter the potential problems. A handful of nuclear disasters over the past 50 years should not serve to halt planning.
Alternative power sources
KHADIJAH BAWAZEERLike all other countries, Saudi Arabia is working toward diversifying its energy resources. One of the popular areas of development is nuclear power. However, we have to weigh the risks carefully before we plunge into something risky while we are naturally given other resources in abundance.
After the disaster of Fukushima, Japan is backing down on nuclear energy as are some European countries under the pressure of popular demand to stop the building of new nuclear plants and to dismantle existing ones. In the current unexpected eruption of volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes, a completely safe nuclear power plant can become hazardous. Consequently, people demand a move toward cleaner, safer power.
Furthermore, we have learned from Fukushima and Chernobyl that the radiation from nuclear plants can spread very far within a single country or to other countries as well. In both cases, the wind took nuclear radiation thousands of miles away across land and water.
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Arab News runs a very interesting article about how labor disputes will be settle in the future. Rather than the Ministry of Labor handling matters, as it currently does based on its regulations and customary practices, the Ministry of Justice will take on the resolution of conflicts. It will do so through a series of uniform laws – yet to be written – that will regularize practices and make them enforceable with the power of imposing criminal penalty. This, in addition to being an acknowledgement that the current system has failed, is a major step toward improving the plight of foreign workers.
All will depend on just which laws are written and how well they are enforced, of course.
Justice Ministry to settle labor disputes in future
RIYADH: ARAB NEWSMinister of Labor Adel Fakeih announced his ministry would transfer labor disputes to the Ministry of Justice within three years after the issuance of the new criminal procedures law.
He also disclosed that the number of foreign workers in the Kingdom has reached 9 million, including 1.5 million domestic workers.
Speaking to Alsharq Arabic daily, Fakeih said the ministry received 9,956 complaints and cases involving workers last year.
“Of these, the majority of cases were related to foreigners. There were 5,715 cases (57.4 percent) involving foreigners while cases involving Saudis were 4,241 (42.6 percent),” he said, adding that the ministry was able to settle 8,628 of these cases.
The minister said transferring labor issues to the Ministry of Justice and subsequently to various courts would be more beneficial.
“There would be a legal basis while settling labor disputes if they are taken to the courts. This would, no doubt, improve the efficiency of the judicial process while handling labor litigation in addition to expediting their settlement,” he said.
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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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