Saudi Jeans

When the French government decided to ban all religious symbols in schools few years ago the decision hardly went unnoticed, especially by Muslims as many of them found the rule directly targeting the hijab. While I find this French rule idiotic, I find it equally if not more idiotic what some Saudi female students who got scholarships to France have to say about the implications of this rule on their education.

“There should be a clear agreement between our two governments by which Muslims going there for education could keep their hijabs on,” one of them told Arab News. After spending SR 7,000 to study French, she is now asking the officials to sort it out.

The only way I see for our “officials” to “sort it out” is this: one of them gets the French citizenship, he wins the presidential elections there, and then he makes the parliament change the law. Pretty straight forward, huh? No offense to Ms. Abdulhadi, but don’t you think you could have spent a few hours learning some general information about France and its laws before you apply for a scholarship there?

Another student went as far as asking the government to stop scholarships to France altogether. Sorry Missy, just because you think French laws contradict what you believe in doesn’t give you the right to deny others the chance to go and pursue a better education in that place as long as it suits their beliefs.

I think this story says a lot about the political awareness of our youth and how they view the world. They somehow seem to believe that it can be modified to become more in line with their liking, and that a simple call to the so-called officials disguised in the name of religion is enough to change everything as we often see around here. This should be a rude awakening to Ms. Abdulhadi and her friends, as well as for the rest of us who are still delusional about where we stand in this world today.

UPDATE: According to John Burgess, there is some confusion around this issue. Apparently wearing hijab in French universities is not forbidden, but medical schools have rules which ban head coverings as unhygienic. However, this doesn’t change much of what I said here.

Abdullah Al-Obeid, the Minister of Education, is all over the front pages these days to brag about the new e-learning initiative his ministry has recently launched.

I think he can brag. After all, the man has single-handedly solved all the problems that have plagued our education system for decades. Female teachers no longer get killed on the road to their schools in God-forsaken remote places; all the textbooks have been fixed to be moderate and up-to-date; and extremist teachers have been kicked out for good.

That’s why it comes as no surprise to read about their latest genius decision: they will not issue any renewals for permission for Saudi students to attend international schools. Not that it was easy to enroll your kids in international schools in the past. I am told that it takes a hellova a wasta to do that, but now even your big ‘wow’ can’t save your kids from the Saudi education system.

Moreover, they say British schools will have to accept only British pupils, German schools German pupils, Indian schools Indian students, and so on. Nonsense. Because most international schools will not be able to operate without Saudi students who make up the bulk of enrollment.

Earlier this week, Tariq Al-Maeena published a letter from a distressed mother who says she would rather have her kids home schooled or move to Dubai or Bahrain. I don’t know what MOE has to say about the reasons behind their ruling, but in a country where the government think they can tell you what (or what not) to name your kids, it is only understandable that they know what’s best for the kids once it is time for them to go to school.

“You are so lucky to present in front of the beautiful girls of Effat,” my friend Faiza told me with a little wink as we were waiting for our drinks at Teayana of Atallah Center last Thursday. Maan, from Saudi hip-hop band Dark2Men, quickly interjected, “I hate Effat girls!” He didn’t explain why he hates them, but his friend Tamer, the shy slow-talking other member of D2M, said that just because he hates them doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

Indeed, they are beautiful; not just their looks, but also their confidence, eloquence, intelligence, hard work and dedication. It was my first time to speak in Saudi Arabia, and the first time to give this kind of presentation, and I couldn’t ask for a better audience.

Still, I was very nervous and I stayed up late the night before the opening day, rehearsing and trying get over my fear. I slept for a few hours only to wake up on the message telling me that Fouad has been released. “This will be a good day,” I said to myself as I opened my laptop to write down some final notes that I thought I would need when I speak. I didn’t use the notes because I forgot the little notebook on the small table at the center of the stage, and when I came later I couldn’t find it!

I started my talk with a few words about my friend Hadeel, praying to God to grant her a speedy recovery. Then I went on to tell the background story of how I started my blog; a story I rarely shared with others, but I thought this was a good opportunity to do so. I talked about the growth of the local blogosphere and the diversity in the Saudi bloggers community. The last part of my talk focused on the lessons that I learned from my experience as a blogger for the past four years.

Speaking after the hilarious Baba Ali, I think I sounded inevitably boring. Obviously, and no matter how hard I may have tried to be funny, I knew I can’t compete with a real comedian, but since I’m already a fan of his that wasn’t a problem.

Elisabeth Bosely, our moderator, asked both of us a few questions and ended the discussion 30 minutes after we started, 15 minutes shorter than the official time announced in the schedule. Due to some organizational hiccups they were off to a late start and had to make sessions shorter in order to catch up with their crowded schedule.

Unfortunately, cutting the panel discussion short meant that students were not given any chance to ask questions despite the fact that many of them were eagerly raising their hands. Some students came after the session to talk outside the main hall, but as one speaker told me later, most students would be too shy to come and ask after you left the stage.

Most of those who talked to me after my presentation were really nice, and it certainly felt good to be at the receiving end of praise, but the truth is that I didn’t give the presentation just to impress. What I was trying to show is that I didn’t do anything extraordinary and that any of them could do it, and do much better actually.

Since most sessions at the symposium were concurrent, I did not attend many of them. But I did attend the opening presentation by Naif al-Muttawa, the creator of The 99, who has a good story although I think he could have told it better than he did. I also attended the iTunes U presentation by my friend Mohammed Milyani as well as a videoblogging workshop by Baba Ali and Yusuf Chowdhury.

Aside from the symposium, I have had a chance to hang out with my friends: Bandar, Yousef, Milyani, and Mohammed. I wanted to meet Fouad but by the time I talked to him he was already on his way to see his mom in Taif. I’ve also met Abdullah Thabit, author of al-Irhabi 20 (Terrorist 20), one of my favorite novels.

While standing in a line at Jeddah Airport, a lady approached me asking if I was “the blogger.” She said her daughters, who stood 200 meters away, have recognized me. She made me blush with her sweet compliments and later told me about her 16-year-old son who wants to be the first Saudi to play in the NBA. Seeing the hope and pride in her eyes filled me with joy and left me in high spirits, a feeling I never experience flying back home before.

When the organizers of the L&T Symposium asked me few months ago who they should invite to speak about blogging in Saudi Arabia, Hadeel was on top of the list that I recommended. It would be hard for me to speak on the stage knowing that she is supposed to be there with me, but I will keep her in my thoughts and prayers.

I fly to Jeddah in a few hours. The symposium won’t kick off till Saturday, but I thought I would arrive a bit earlier to hang out with my friends and meet some people. I found out that fellow blogger Mohammed Milyani will also be speaking at the event but in a different session.

The symposium blog confirmed yesterday that Queen Rania of Jordan will be the opening night keynote speaker. If you want to follow the event keep an eye on their blog and this page. The sessions will be broadcasted live on ART (probably the open-to-air Ein channel), and it will also be webcast courtesy of MeduNet.

I’m not sure how often I will be able to update the blog while I’m in Jeddah but you can always check out my Twitter page to read some fresh bits and pieces.

Many people in the KSU community have been excited about appointing Abdullah al-Othman as a new rector. Although I despised all the ass-kissing published in the university newsletter after he took the helm at Saudi Arabia’s oldest university, I must give the man some credit for many good initiatives that he’s been pushing. One of the these initiatives is opening the campus for new voices rarely heard around here.

As part of their regular weekly events, the student affairs deanship at KSU will host tomorrow a discussion panel featuring Mufleh al-Qahtani and Saleh al-Khathlan from the National Society for Human Rights. It should be a good chance to raise awareness among ignorant students — if they show up, that is — and also talk about the current state of human rights conditions in the country.

Unfortunately, I have a practical exam at the same time so I won’t be able to attend, but I will try to finish early and catch what’s left by the time I’m done with my exam.

This is an open event, so if you are interested I highly encourage you to come. Girls are out of luck because AFAIK this event won’t be transmitted to the girls’ campus in Olaysha. Unless, of course, you have the ovaries to come to the boys’ campus and try to find a seat there. A few female journalists were allowed to attend Prince Turki al-Faisal lecture last month at Hamad al-Jassir auditorium.

What: Human Right — Between Reality and Ambition
Who: Mufleh al-Qahtani, VP of NSHR; Saleh al-Khathlan, member of NSHR
When: Monday, April 21, 2008. 12:30 PM
Where: Building No.7, Auditorium 7A, opposite to the College of Arts

Although I have tried to register to participate at the 7th National Dialogue, I never received to a response from the organizers and therefore I have had to watch the dialogue on television.

This round of the National Dialogue, which took place earlier this week, focused on the dilemma of employment from different angles. The hottest topic, of course, was women’s employment. Now almost everyone agrees that we need to create more job opportunities for women; the disagreement, however, arises when it comes to how to approach and address this problem. More specifically, the disagreement is over how to define the proper work environment for women.

Two trends can be seen here. First, there are those who believe that in order to encourage more women to join the workforce we have to provide separate workplaces for them. They cite the example of the education sector, the field where 85% of working women in the country are in, and argue that the government should push in that direction.

However, I believe these guys are ignoring two important things: the fact that following education, the second field where most women are employed is the healthcare sector which is not segregated, and also the fact that many women chose to work at the education sector simply for the lack of other options, even if that choice means sometimes working in remote areas and being away from their families and putting themselves in danger of lethal car accidents.

The other trend regarding women’s employment in the dialogue argue that strict interpretations of religion and old social norms have only halted the development of the country and slowed down the growth of our economy. The insistence on providing separate work places for women, they say, is costly and impractical as it makes it difficult to keep a smooth workflow. Moreover, even if the government decided to go with that option, they won’t be able to force business to do the same.

Instead of separate workplaces, what they propose instead is writing new laws and regulation to create and maintain safe work environments that give equal opportunities and protect employees, especially women.

I expect this debate to continue, and I think we need to wait and see which argument of these two will attract more followers and prevail, or probably we will have to make some compromises and end up with a third way and a middle ground. The economic factor will be decisive here because, as one participant pointed out, the ever increasing living costs will mean that the one salary (currently the man’s) will no longer be enough to support a family.

I agree with Fatin Bundagji when she says that the idea of the national dialogue, even if it did not amount to obvious immediate results, is a good idea. And even though I was not invited to attend the dialogue at Makarem Ballroom in the Marriott, it was certainly refreshing for me to follow it and see my countrymen and women debate and take part in this conversation, which signifies, among many things, a change in mindset and a newfound respect for diversity, as well as a better understanding between the different faction in our society.

The patient education course I attended on Monday was OK. It suffered a lack of organization and they were lucky the number of participants was small. It could have been chaotic, and it didn’t help that the presentations were lame. Not much to say about the sessions, and I’m pretty sure you are not even remotely interested in knowing stuff such as the fact that 24% of the Saudi population have diabetes and 28% of those are not even aware they are diabetics!

But what I want to say is that I was really impressed by the female pharmacists. Despite being locked kept in the upper deck of the otherwise mostly empty auditorium, they were very vocal and gave the speakers a hard time with tough questions and critical remarks. Fellow male students tried to keep up with them (or was it to get the girls’ attention? but to no avail.

After the end of the course, and since the weather was nice and sunny, I went to take a walk inside the King Abdulaziz Historical Center area, one of my favorite places in Riyadh. I had a good time but I missed a friend of mine that I used to enjoy walking and taking pictures with. Speaking of pictures, I have taken some many of these during my walk; a couple of them are shown above and you can find the rest here.

For some reason, Arab News chooses not to name KSU when they write about the stifling restrictions Saudi Arabia’s oldest university impose on their female students. Considering how this country is obsessed with segregation, there is no surprise here. And the ironic thing is, they say the university “is supposed to be a place where young women experience greater freedoms.” Says who? Wake up girls! This is freakin’ K of SA you are living in. The university, as you may expect, claim that the point of these restrictions is to protect the students. Again, no surprise. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, where everyone claims moral authority over the rest.

In the other hand, the newspaper chooses to name another university in Riyadh, Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University, which supposedly is even more strict than KSU. It is said that IMSIU is to launch a new college of medicine, but according to Ali Al Mousa in Al Watan daily, the university president could not answer the question of whether female students would be accepted in the new college. Al Mousa tends to cut the president some slack because answering that question might put him in confrontation with the extremists who would, for sure, use the ’segregation’ card. Let’s wait and see how this drama is going to play out.

And in case you didn’t know, the extremists are not only controlling the campuses in Saudi Arabia, but they also managed to extend their notorious control to the press in neighboring Kuwait, where this article by Dalaa’ Al Mufti was banned from Al Qabas daily, apparently because Al Mufti dared to comment on the ridiculous decision of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to spend SR 700,000 on a study that examines the mingling of the sexes and its “harmful effects” on the society. I’ve told you that these people are obsessed, right?

The groundbreaking of KAUST was the biggest news in Saudi Arabia during the past two weeks. King Abdullah officially broke ground for the promising project in a huge event attended by thousands of dignitaries. I wasn’t invited, but fellow blogger John Burgess was there and he wrote about it here.

Since I have been offline for the past few days I have not closely followed what has been said about it, but I have written previously about KAUST, way before anyone in the local media had the slightest idea what the acronym KAUST stands for. I have a few more things to say, though, so here it goes.

There is no doubt that if KAUST delivered all of its promises, it will be the most important achievement that King Abdullah will be remembered by, and many people here feel that the king is very determined to make it happen. But not all people are excited, as some are afraid that a huge project like KAUST could be plagued by the three common symptoms of higher education institutions in the country: corruption, bureaucracy and mismanagement. Now I don’t want to be skeptical, but I think a certain amount of skepticism is required to keep people’s feet on the ground in order to turn big dreams like this one into reality.

Nevertheless, most of the initial indications are good. For example, KAUST will be independent from MOHE. Actually I was surprised that MOHE was not involved in the project at all, but it was a good kind of surprise as MOHE never really impressed me. It was Saudi Aramco who engineered this project from scratch. Despite what many people, including some Aramco employees, say about how Aramco changed to the worse after the Americans left, it remains one of the few government bodies that I trust and expect to preform excellently.

Now I have speculated before that megaprojects such as KAUST and the new economic cities might change the culture of the country. However, it seems that such change may not be a result but rather a condition for these projects to success.

For instance, Saudi Arabia used to be a very closed society with a what can be viewed as hostility towards foreign ideas. On the day after groundbreaking, KAUST hosted a special academic symposium discussing the role of the research university in the 21st century, and the keynote speaker was Dr. Charles Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering and President Emeritus of MIT, who said: “science can flourish only in an open environment.”

It is the hope that KAUST would produce a positive effect on the economy, education and culture of the Saudi society, but hope is not enough. This a huge undertaking to our country and there is a lot of hard work to be done here by everyone. Let’s not blow it.

For Saudi students who would like to pursue education in the United States, the US Embassy in Riyadh offer you a chance for a web chat with Council Kathleen Riley to talk about the visa application process. According to the Embassy website, she will discuss how to schedule an appointment for a visa interview, the documents that students should bring for their interviews, and the entry and registration requirements for Saudi students studying in the U.S. The discussion will take place on September 9th at 15:30, and you can join in here, but you need first to login using the address: student_visa@state.gov. No password is needed.

Are student councils becoming a trend on Saudi campuses?

In short: No. Just because three universities in the Kingdom, two of them private, have decent student councils does not mean such thing has become a trend. Just take a look at the country’s oldest university: except for the occasional lame religious activities, student councils in KSU are either inactive or nonexistent. The rise of Sahwa in the ’80s and ’90s have brought most, if not all, non-religious activities on the campus to a nearly complete halt.

Of course most people outside don’t know anything about this because, unfortunately, my university is a locked box. And after studying here for four years, I can tell you for sure that the atmosphere and culture of KSU does not encourage its students (and staff) to think outside the box.

Since I’m fasting these days to compensate for the week I spent in Jeddah last Ramadhan, I was still up at the early hours of the day and decided to take a quick tour on the headlines before going to sleep. This item in Arab News was particularly of interest to me:

More Saudi Pharmacists Needed

Saudi Arabia requires more than 100,000 pharmacy graduates to replace the foreign workers employed in hospitals and other establishments in both the private and government sectors, according to an expert in the field of pharmacy and medical education in the Kingdom.

Being a pharmacy student, my interest in this item should not be surprising. Sure, knowing there is a huge demand for pharmacists should be assuring and make me feel comfortable about my future, but truth is, reading this has left me confused rather than assured.

Why confused, you might ask? The answer is: because my brother has graduated with a degree in pharmacy since the beginning of this year, yet he still can’t find a job. Despite the fact that he has had his degree from a college managed by the Ministry of Health, he could not find a job in their hospitals or in any of the private hospitals where he went seeking employment.

I really can’t see where the real problem lies here. If there is this huge demand on pharmacists in the country, how come my brother and a large number of his colleagues are still sitting frustrated in their homes after knocking every door only to return disappointed? Today, my brother is going to KFU to apply for a job there after he read in the newspaper that they were seeking employees for a few health-related positions. Will he get the job? Considering the limited seats and the competition his chance might seem slim, but I want to wish him all the best. Good luck Hasan.

I have previously posted about the album I compiled for images of the new projects under development in Saudi Arabia. One of the projects that does not appear there is King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which is described as a unique world-class graduate research university that will provide significant support for scientific discovery and human advancement within Saudi Arabia, the region and around the globe.

The core campus, located on more than 36 million square meters on the Red Sea near Rabigh, is set to open in September 2009. This project, as well as Knowledge Economic City (KEC) in nearby Medina, show some features of the future face of this country. It is the hope that such megaprojects would achieve their goals and help our nation to move forward. You can see more pictures in the virtual tour KAUST website provides here.

Tariq al-Maeena points out to some many flaws in our education system. He, as usual, makes some valid points there, but the thing that I want to emphasize here is numbers. “Although the figures being touted by the Ministry of Education on the number of graduates annually may provide them a false sense of pride, very little is debated on the quality and marketability of these graduates,” he wrote. Unfortunately, this problem is common in all of our educational institutes.

Take KSU, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and where yours truly is studying, for example. They always brag about the fact that more 60,000 students, male and female, are studying at the university at any given time in the past few years. No one, however, dares to ask about the quality of education these students receive there. I have been studying there for the past four years, and I can tell you for sure that the word ‘quality’ does not mean much, if anything, in KSU.

Moreover, the false sense of pride over misleading figures is not restricted to education. Many government sectors here like to talk about such numbers without actually asking themselves what these numbers actually mean. Oh, and yes, out of the eight skills he mentions in his column, I got only two of them, and I’m not so good at any of these two. But of course, I don’t blame our education system because I already talked about how dysfunctional it is, so I only have myself to blame (via xrda)

One of the most pressing questions of last year was about the state of unemployment and if the worries on that regard were realistic and justified. The issue was more and more in the limelight especially after the efforts of the Ministry of Labor (MOL) to employ more women in the workforce was faced by fierce opposition from many conservatives who argued, in one of their many invalid arguments, that MOL should first work to provide jobs for unemployed men before even thinking about women.

Of course some conservatives were simply trying to take cheap shots at the liberal minister of labor Dr. Ghazi Al Gosaibi. You can say whatever you want about him, but I think Al Gosaibi should not be blamed for the mistakes of the Ministry of Planning and our dysfunctional educational system, because thanks to them and only them we have an army of unskilled college graduates and high school dropouts who their sole dream is to become pencil-pushers as a part of the government bureaucratic machine in order to receive big money for doing nothing.

The Ministry lack of planning which caused unemployment in some sectors has also led to a very high demand of local human resources in some other sectors. Take healthcare for example: less than 20% of workers in healthcare are Saudis. Compare this to the very small number of graduates from medical colleges here and you have a real dilemma. It is said that with the current numbers of graduates we will need about 500 years to come anything near Saudization of the healthcare system. Ironically, the biggest spending in the national budget goes to education and healthcare .

It is not hopeless, though, or at least that’s the hope. We are enjoying a second boom, and the mega projects launched recently are impressive and promising but we should not repeat the mistakes of the first boom because we might never have another chance; we simply can’t afford it. I pray that the lessons were learned, and please let us not fool ourselves again. Let’s work, and let’s work hard. It’s about time.