September 23, 2010 · 10:38 pm

Ministry of Culture and Information puts a damper on National Day

The spokeperson for the Saudi ministry of Information, Mr. Abdulrahman al Haza’a today came out on AlArabiya news network and announced that a new bill of laws will be coming out soon to monitor what Saudis write on the internet. When I first listened to it, it kind of made sense since at the beginning he was saying that news websites have to register and apply for a license and in return the ministry would assist with logistics and access. However he then moved on to talking about forums and blogs, saying that these too have to register and apply for a license. What does that mean? He didn’t elaborate and kept repeating that soon a detailed and clear bill will come out. No matter what it means, it is extremely worrisome. Twitter has been going crazy with outrage, questions and rumours on the hashtag #Haza3 which is the spokesperson’s last name. Aren’t our freedoms curbed enough? Am I going to need written permission from my guardian to maintain this blog? Do I need a paper from work too? Do I have to run everything by the ministry before posting? How about if instead of blogging, bloggers wrote the exact same stuff in consecutive Tweets and on Facebook notes, what are they going to do about that? Are we supposed to register our Facebook and Twitter accounts too? Seems to me that instead of fixing the stuff citizens complain about on forums and blogs, someone took it into their head to fix the citizens instead. That’s a twentieth century tactic that just won’t get anyone anywhere anymore.

Update 25 September

In case you missed it in the news, AFP contacted the ministry the very next day and the ministry denied that it will there will be any form of registration required from bloggers and forum owners.  They claim that the spokesperson Al Haza’a was misunderstood.

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Filed under Freedom of speech, Sept 23rd

September 22, 2010 · 10:38 pm

It’s Saudi Arabia’s Birthday!

Saudi Arabia was unified and pronounced a kingdom in 1932 so that makes it 78 years old. We’re getting older and wiser. This piece from Reuters covers how Saudi national day has only been recently celebrated because in the past some of our more prominent Shiekhs considered patriotism an unIslamic concept.  Fortunately now it’s deemed halal.

I’m going to play this all day tomorrow or at least until the kids scream for mercy. It’s my favorite song about Saudi even though it’s not the official anthem. The meaning is so majestic and passionate, it never fails to lift my spirit.

Google is also celebrating Saudi National Day with a doodle. Thank you Google!

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September 9, 2010 · 4:31 am

Dear Americans,

I occasionally get Emails and comments from non-Arab people asking what they can do to help. Generally there isn’t much that can be done by outsiders as it’s my belief that sustainable change is only change that happens from within. However in areas where West collides with East there are things that can be done to either hurt moderate Muslims or help us.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an area that has a lot of impact on the growth and recruitment of terrorist Islamic movements. This is a previous post on how young Saudis come to hate the West as a result of it.

Now with the Park51 Mosque, things have come to a head. This is an area where you can help. To lump Islam as one single ideology and 23% of the world population as terrorists is a grave mistake. To fight Islam in general is the single best backing position for the West to take in aiding fundamental Islamists. When you don’t support people like Imam Rauf and Tariq Ramadan, then in effect you are supporting people like Osama Bin Laden.

When outsiders  lump Islam into this one narrow interpretation that must be fought, they are playing their part on Osama Bin Laden’s world stage. Fundamental Islamists, from the nonviolent to terrorists all use the same effective argument to recruit Muslim laypeople. It goes along the lines of “see, see they hate us. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Where is their freedom and democracy?”

They use as examples for this argument America’s support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and discrimination against Muslims in western countries. The opposition to and cancellation of Park 51 looks like a future addition to the list alongside the burning of the Qurans in Florida.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone born in a Muslim country who only speaks the language of that country and who has never been anywhere besides that country. Your religious leader, your school teacher or any other person you might have reason to be drawn to tells you about the Palestinian plight illustrated with photos of maimed children and refugee camps. He then talks to you about the innocent civilians killed indiscriminately by American tanks and bombs. Iraqi women raped by American soldiers. He shows you pictures from Abu Ghraib. He talks to you about how Americans hate Muslims and illustrates about how thousands of Americans opposed the building of a mosque and how an American priest is going to burn the Quran. How would you feel?

Do Americans really want to feed into that argument? Islam is the second largest religion in the world, second only to Christianity. It’s not going away, you either help moderate Muslims or you feed into the fundamentalists’ view of the world. Who do you want to be proven wrong?

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Filed under Popular, Regional and International

September 9, 2010 · 1:12 am

Email Trouble

These past few days I’ve had two of my Email accounts lost. The first was the one related to this blog and then a couple of hours later I lost my main account on Hotmail. I was able to get my blog account back quickly. However the Hotmail account that I’ve had  since 1999 is still inaccessible.  I’ve contacted Microsoft Live, but I can’t convince them that I’m the owner of the account. Anyhow if you’re one of the people who I’ve given this account to, please change my Email in your contact list to the same address but instead of Hotmail, it’s at Gmail.com.

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Filed under Eman

September 3, 2010 · 8:40 am

More Saudi Heroes

A couple of weeks ago I was inspired by Dr. Al Gosaibi’s passing to honor not just him but also other Saudis who have chosen to risk condemnation and more to make an effort for the betterment of fellow Saudis.

Here are some more great Saudi heroes:

Dr. Huda Al Munsour

Dr. Al Munsour was bothered by how widespread the inherited condition Thalassemia was in Saudi Arabia so she decided to do something about it. She proposed that all Saudis considering marriage be tested for genetic diseases. Thus they can make an informed decision before. After years of campaigning and petitioning, she was able to see her idea implemented all across Saudi Arabia.

Amina Fatani

Amina Fatani at the young age of 21, started a campaign to preserve heritage sites. This is especially important as many Saudis do not see any value in these sites. I believe that many great things are to come from Ms. Fatani.

Haifa Khalid

Ms Khalid is a poet and a women’s rights activist. She is the mastermind behind a non-profit organization for divorced women. One of the main issues about divorce in Saudi is that the majority of women are unaware of their rights. Due to women not demanding these rights, sometimes both husbands and judges conveniently forget them too.  That’s where Ms. Khalid comes in. She is a regular on TV and newspapers. She educates women and also appeals to the judicial system to implement more safeguards for divorced women’s rights.

Abdulrahman Allahim

A lawyer unlike most lawyers, he represented the Qatif girl, Fatima and Monsour, the married couple who were forcefully separated, and he raised the first case in Saudi history against the PVPV on behalf of a Saudi woman. He was the 2008 recipient of both the International Human Rights Lawyer Award and the Human Rights Watch Award.

Reem Asaad

Ms.Asaad is a lecturer at a university in Jeddah. She started a campaign to allow Saudi women to work in lingerie shops as currently the majority of these shops are manned by expatriate male workers. I’ve written about her campaign in this post.

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August 26, 2010 · 5:42 pm

This is for the recent interest in my blog from within Saudi Arabia

المقال باالعربي the article in English

إلى كل قراء سبق والصحف الأخرى أقرأوا المقال كاملا في الصحيفة الفرنسية قبل التعليق. وأريد ايضا إضافة بعض النقاط:

أولا أنا لست ضد النقاب لمن أرادت ذلك فعلا عن علم ووعي ولكن كيف نتأكد من ذلك؟ قد أثبتت التجربة في السعودية فشل ذريع وازدواجية ونفاق ومن الأمثلة على ذلك ما يحصل في نظام التعليم حيث نلزم الطالبات بالغطاء و بطريقة معينة وكثير من المعلمات والمديرات في حياتهم الشخصية يتحجبون فقط.  فتتربى الأجيال على هذا وتتعلم أن النفاق جزء لا يتجزء من الحياة. وكم سعودية فعلا تحب غطاء الوجه؟ أصعد أي طائرة دولية من الرياض لترى بنفسك عدد النساء اللاتي يلتزمن به خارج الحدود. وهل نلومهم. أنا أدعي كل رجل يرى أن المرأة يجب أن تغطي وجهها ,وبالذات هؤلاء حليقين اللحى ومرتدين الجينز, أن يجربوا غطاء الوجه كل ما خرجوا من منازلهم. هل يستطيع هؤلاء وضع قطعة سوداء على وجههم كل صباح في الطريق الى العمل؟

وثانيا الناس الذين يدعون انني متسعودة أو ليست صاحبة نسب, أهذه تعاليم ديننا؟ أنا من النفجان من الرس من قبيلة بني تميم وأمي من التركي من بني خالد. وبالرغم من ذلك أريد أن أصرح أنني أيضا متسعودة وسنية وشيعية وخضيرية ونجدية وحجازية وجنوبية….الخ ماذا تفرق؟ كلنا مواطنين وكلنا لنا حق.

الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول من رأى منكم منكرا فليغيره بيده ، فإن لم يستطع فبلسانه ، فإن لم يستطع فبقلبه ، وذلك أضعف الإيمان . رواه مسلم .

إلى متى ونحن نشوه صورة الإسلام والدولة حتى أصبح التضييق على النساء وترهيب المواطنيين والمقييمين شعارنا ورمزنا في كل العالم بدل ما يكون التوحيد والأخلاق السامية؟ ويتهم المتشددون كل من حاول مساعدة المرأة السعودية بأنه عدو يتربص بها! كيف أكون عدوة نفسي وابنتي وأخواتي وطالباتي؟

وأخيرا هذا حقي كمواطنة مسلمة حرة أن أعبر عن نفسي ورأيي و لن أتنازل عنه

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August 23, 2010 · 5:16 am

Shiekh Al Ahmed issues a fatwa

Shiekh Al Ahmed is no stranger to the issuance of anti-women fatwas. He has made it his personal mission to be responsible for every single Saudi female. He first came on my radar when he went on TV asking that the Makkah Mosque surrounding the Ka’aba be torn down and rebuilt so that there would be complete segregation between the sexes when Muslims visit the mosque for any reason including the annual pilgrimage, Hajj. Another incident is when he took a group of muttawas to the Ministry of Education to ensure that their new policy of allowing boys to enroll in girls’ schools until third grade would be stopped.

Now Shiekh Al Ahmed has a new mission, and you got to admire him for the bold move at least. In direct opposition to the King’s new legislation that no fatwas be made public unless issued or at least pre-approved by members of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, Sheikh Al Ahmed issued two fatwas on TV. And of course he didn’t disappoint, they were about women. His new pet project is to sabotage HyperPanda Supermarket‘s initiative to employ women cashiers. So he said on a program in reply to a caller that first of all it is haram (Sharia prohibited) in Islam for women to work as cashiers in places where men can be customers and secondly he said that it is not only Jaiz (Sharia acceptable) to boycott the supermarket but also mustahib (Sharia advisable).

The project has started on an experimental basis in Jeddah where currently 16 women are cashiers. If found successful, it will be expanded to absorb 2500 women cashiers all across Saudi Arabia. The application conditions for women according to Arab News are that they be Saudi, above 28 years of age, have a financial need, be a widow or divorced and stick to a dress code.

Shiekh Al Ahmed is calling on all ultra-conservatives to boycott HyperPanda and informed the PVPV that it is their right to file a lawsuit against them. He is arrogantly confident in his followers and the power they have that he says let’s give them a five day warning before we start the boycott. He says that he had called an executive from HyperPanda and found him to be stubborn and insistent in proceeding with employing women. He claims that their insistence is a sign that it is most likely an American supported and plotted scheme to westernize the country. However, my favorite part  is when he says that ultra-conservatives from neighboring countries, like Syria, Egypt and Yemen, call him up to show their support and advise him not to allow what happened to their countries happen to Saudi Arabia.

I keep telling people that the more Saudi Arabia opens up especially when it comes to women’s rights, the more Islamic fundamentalist groups worldwide will too. It will have a dominoes effect on their approach and lifestyle. Because so many of these fundamentalists look to Saudi Arabia as the prime example as to how life should be lived. That’s why I’m going to do my part by supporting HyperPanda’s initiative. Although I’m a Carrefour regular since they are literally five minutes away, I will go the extra distance to buy my groceries from HyperPanda. I hope that others will do the same.

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Filed under Fatwas, Gender Apartheid, Popular, Women campaigns

August 18, 2010 · 8:06 am

Saudi Heroes

Dr. Ghazi Al Gosaibi’s passing got me thinking. There are certain people in every generation and era that make a person honored to have lived in their time. People who courageously push a nation forward even when the majority of their countrymen are standing still or worse pushing back. These people are rarely appreciated in their lifetime and their initiations only truly valued long after they are lost.

Besides Dr. Ghazi Al Gosaibi, these are today’s people who my grandchildren and great grandchildren will celebrate and honor, people who will be included in history books and classroom discussions. My future Saudi Arabia will be built on the foundation that they are laying. I can’t predict the future, but I can dream.

Wajeha Al Huwaider

An outspoken pioneer of the Saudi women’s rights movement. Unfortunately due to the standing ban on her writing in the local press, many of the women she is fighting for don’t even know her name.

Matrook Al Faleh

A political activist and writer who was threatened and jailed several times. He calls for a constitutional monarchy and more civil rights. Shortly after he was set free, he went back to writing about the terrible conditions other political activists were under in prison and was imprisoned again. He was freed seven months later. That’s what I call perseverance and courage.

Fouad Al Farhan

The first Saudi blogger to taste the bitterness of censorship. In history books, he will be remembered as the first Saudi to utilize the blogsphere for political change. Despite being warned by officials to tone down his writing about the conditions of imprisoned political activists among other topics, he persisted and was imprisoned from December 10 2007 to April 26 2008. His blog was blocked in Saudi Arabia and still is. He became active on other social media including Facebook and Twitter. Recently he has also started a new blog.

Dr. Mohammed Al Zulfa

A Saudi who put his plush and comfortable position as a Shoura Council member on the line by presenting to the government a well-prepared and detailed study calling for lifting the ban on women driving. This was in 2006 and he was severely attacked. There were even cell phonevideos showing how muttawas would crowd around him to “advise” him everywhere he went. You can read my post at the time here.

Abdulla Al Qaseemi

A thinker and writer whose books and name need to be brought back into the light. Al Qaseemi started out as a fervent defender of Saudi grown Islamic fundamentalism in the face of some Egyptian Islamic scholars he had met and studied under when he first left Saudi Arabia in 1927 to study at Al Azhar University. Twenty years later he retracted many of his former ideas and wrote several books and articles that greatly influenced thinkers and decision makers all over the Middle East except in Saudi Arabia where he was denounced and heavily censored.

A landmark book of his is (هذه هي الأغلال) These Are The Shackles

In this video Turki Al Dakheel catches a progressive sheikh, Ahmed Bin Baz, off guard as he reads aloud an unsourced quote from one of the sheikh’s articles that originally was written by Al Qaseemi. Apparently sheikh Bin Baz reads Al Qaseemi but is reluctant to put him as a source for fear of being attacked and rejected like Al Qaseemi before him.

There are of course many more Saudi heroes that I should have included, but these are the dearest to my heart for their sheerpatriotism and sacrifice.

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August 15, 2010 · 4:05 am

Nothing is worse for a Saudi man than imagining himself a woman

Every Ramadan for the past sixteen years a show called Tash Ma Tash, which means something in the literal lines of splash what may, is closely watched by almost every Saudi household. The show is a satire of Saudi society and it’s funny to say the least. It’s also been prohibited by several sheikhs as unIslamic especially due to the actors’ portrayal of those very same sheikhs.

Yesterday’s episode was even more controversial than usual, an episode that had the majority of Saudi men, both conservative and liberal, shocked to their bone marrow. In it a Saudi woman marries four men because she’s “financially and emotionally capable and therefore can’t see a reason why not”. Those very same words we hear over and over again from polygamist Saudi men. However when it’s a woman talking even the most rational Saudi man turns rabid. The expressions of disgust and revulsion were all over the place. One commenter wrote that he lost all respect for them ever since one of the lead actors wore a woman’s dress last year. As if that was the most degrading thing a man could do. We are so inferior as a gender that wearing our clothes, even as part of a comedy show, will demean you as an person.

The episode’s idea is not original. Earlier this year a Saudi writer, Nadine Al Badair, had a piece published in an Egyptian magazine titled “My four husbands and I”. For a good English coverage of the column and the outcry it caused read this Guardian article and this Al Arabiya article. Nadine Al Badair does not have four husbands and I doubt she wants four husbands. The whole point of the article was to put men in our shoes and tell them that if you are looking to polygamy out of boredom, sexual dissatisfaction, or my favorite “renew life” (as though a second wife would magically make hair grow back on his head and shrink his pot belly) then there’s a good chance that your current wife is feeling the same way except she does not have a muttawa sanctioned out like you do. But because Nadine Al Badiar expressed the fact that women have sexual needs and do get bored of their husbands she was called a whore by some and blasphemous by others. There was even talk of a lawsuit against her. The ugliness of the attacks grossly outweigh anything that she wrote.

So this was the inspiration for yesterday’s show and just like the column it too has caused an outcry. Seconds after the closing credits the #6ash went crazy on Twitter. And as I’m writing the morning after, I expect quite a few articles to be written on how low the show has gone to actually delve into something as repulsive as imagining what it’s like to be a Saudi woman in a polygamous marriage.

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Filed under Culture, Gender Apartheid

August 14, 2010 · 5:44 am

Welcome to the Middle Ages

Getting to the Middle Ages is not about time machines, it’s a geographical issue. Why have dinner at a cheesy Medieval Times when you can get the authentic experience right here in Saudi Arabia. We got everything you want.

I came across this chastity belt at a museum and it got me thinking. A man that asks his wife to wear this is basically saying your morals and character are not enough; I have to dress you in something to protect you. And that is the same argument that is used in our modern times Middle Ages to get women to wear niqabs!

Then there’s the guardianship system over adult women, the sponsorship system, that’s not unlike a master/slave relationship, over guest workers and finally the cherry on top is the latest decision to limit religious ruling to a legislative body that is made up of ultra conservatives and their friends. Did I hear somebody say “medieval Vatican”?! No, no this is Saudi Arabia, we’re Muslims.

This new decree by the King is supposedly to protect Islam from embarrassing fatwas like the recent adult breastfeeding fatwa and the much more serious call to kill all satellite channel owners who broadcast sinful shows. But to the ultra-conservatives, it’s a miraculous bestowal of victory and return to power. Recently average Saudis got a glimpse of the inner workings of religious fatwas and how even seemingly conservative long bearded muttawas think it’s ok to enjoy music and that gender segregation is not Islamic. People (or what our religious establishment calls “commoners” العوام) started thinking and looking things up for themselves. And that’s where this new legislation comes in, a return to the status quo. However the optimist in me does not think it’s all bad. First of all it’s too little, too late. With internet and TV in almost every home, you can’t control who people listen to anymore.  And secondly I’m hoping the whole thing is to appease the ultra conservatives in order to get them to pass something ultra liberal like …..fingers and toes crossed…..lifting the ban on women driving!?

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Filed under Culture, Fatwas, Freedom of speech, Gender Apartheid, Popular