Saudi Jeans

My friend Mahmood has just found that Manama is at No. 8 on the list of Top 10 Sin Cities in the world. According to the website, our Bahraini brethren should thank us, the Saudis, for putting their capital on the international sin map:

Manama is a popular spot for Saudis to kick back from their country’s restrictive laws. Here they can get hammered, go clubbing, mingle with the opposite sex, and if they’re really daring, they can pick up prostitutes — a practice that’s illegal but widely available. For many Saudi males this proximity to an open culture is irresistible and many jam the causeway and fill flights to the city every weekend. Do you want to see what happens when Saudis cut loose and leave the rules behind? You may need to get in line.

We rock, don’t we?

When I boarded the plane for Cairo, my first impression was that Egypt Air seriously needs to consider a rebranding. The brand is tired and outdated, and it does not live up to the country’s reputation as a tourist destination that attracts millions of visitors every year.

But speaking of first impressions, I have to say I was taken aback when the customs officer checking my passport upon arrival shamelessly asked for a bribe with a big smile on his face. I decided to act as if I had no clue what he was talking about; a tactic that I’ve had come to use several times during the trip to avoid situations like this. The officer repeated his plea a few times more but finally relented and gave me my passport.

The 2-day workshop was interesting and informative. I have already read a lot about the experience of bloggers in Egypt, but listening to the bloggers themselves speak about it was refreshing and inspiring. My favourite speaker was Alaa Abdelfattah of manalaa.net, who impressed me with his presentation and comments, not to mention his dark sense of humor. Alaa said that we must focus on the social effect of technology and not the technical effect, which means it is not enough to say that blogging made it easier for people to publish online but the real question is what kind of effect this technology have on people’s lives.

Another interesting idea was that sometimes it is necessary to break the laws, especially repressive ones, in order to change them. This idea was underscored by the words of attorney Hamdi El Assuoti who applauded bloggers and activists. “By defying some of these laws, you have given lawyers a bigger margin to move and challenge these laws at courts and change the way some judges look at laws which limit freedom of expression,” he said.

The session I took part in focused on activism in the GCC countries. I could have talked about my blogging experience, but I preferred to talk about other examples of using the internet to support human rights issues in Saudi Arabia. Most of my talk was based on the work of my friend Khaled Al Nassir who was supposed to speak at the event but had to cancel his trip at the last minute. The other two speakers, from Oman and UAE, also talked about similar issues and personal experiences. The public discourse and the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression in the Gulf is probably still in its early stages compared to the rest of the Arab World, but I think that activists here are making good strides in that field.

In addition to exposure to good ideas and sharing personal experiences, events like this one is always a good occasion to meet amazing people like Mina, Rawdha, Amr, Anas, , Nora, and Abdullah; and I want to thank all of them and everyone else for the great time in Cairo.

Outside the workshop room, my Egyptian friends have been nice enough to hang out and show me the city. Ahmed and Courtney took me to Zamalek where we met the one and only Sandmonkey. Later on we went to Wist Al Balad, which is the area where activists do their activism.

At the end of the 2nd day, HRinfo.net invited all participants for a lovely dinner at the Greek Club. The service there was not exactly great, but having all those great people on one table was absolutely more than great. After the dinner, I went with some friends to Khan Al Khalili where I have to say that I was haunted by seeing poverty manifested in that “in your face” manner, something that I’m not used to. I don’t mean that we don’t have poverty in our country, but in order to see it you need to visit certain areas and neighborhoods and it is not something that you encounter on the streets on daily basis. It is a pity that a country which used to play a leading role in the enlightenment and progress of the region and have many great resources is languishing because of poor leadership and corrupt politics.

On my third day I went to see the Giza Pyramids, but I didn’t have much fun there because I had to go by myself as everyone else has either left or was busy with work. Later I went with a friend to Sequoia where we had lunch and enjoyed cool breeze of the Nile. My departure was not all that different from my arrival: the last custom officer checking my passport before boarding the plane to Riyadh also shamelessly asked for a bribe with a big smile on his face. I played my “no clue” card again. The officer asked what was wrong with me, to which I said: “yes, it’s you!”

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?

You would think that in a country where the consumption of liquor is illegal, drunk driving won’t be a problem to deal with, but Molouk Ba-Isa got some news for you. She, like many who live near King Fahd Causeway, aka the Johnny Walker Bridge, is complaining that they have to deal with impaired drivers every weekend, and it gets much worse during the Eid week every year.

She goes into the details that I’m not sure if most of you need to know, but here is the money quote: “The problem is a lack of enforcement.” On both sides of the causeway, little is done to prevent the potential dangers of drunk drivers. Sadly, some people don’t know how to celebrate without putting others and themselves in danger.

Some very sad and disturbing news coming from Kuwait:

At Saturday 8pm Kuwait State Police abducted 2 Kuwaiti bloggers Bashar Al-Sayegh from Al-Ohmmah.org and Jassem Al-Qamis without the due protection of the Kuwait Constitution while leaving work. The reason being that an anonymous commenter wrote something criticizing the Emir yet even though it was removed immediately by Al-Sayegh they are still holding him responsible.

You can keep up with the latest updates from the Kuwaiti blogosphere through Safat.

Despite their frustration with our role in Iraq, the Bush administration seems more than willing to sell us $20 billion worth of advanced weapons. While the Congress is expected to oppose the deal when notified about it this fall, and some lawmakers have already said they plan to stop it, everything seem rather quiet around here.

I don’t have much more to say about this than what Mahmood said, but it is really sad that no one here seems to give two shits about this. Why no one is objecting to spending this huge amount of money on weapons which we can’t use when we better invest in our younger generations, the future of this country?

Iraq defeated Saudi Arabia to win their first AFC Asian Cup title. Congratulations to our Iraqi brothers, and thanks for our young side who beat all expectations and reached the final producing some unforgettable performances.

Saudi Arabia are through to the Asian Cup quarter-finals after they brushed aside Bahrain 4-0 in their last match in Group D. Korea also made it to the knock-out stage after they beat co-hosts Indonesia 1-0. Saudi Arabia and Korea will face Uzbekistan and Iran, respectively, in the next round.

First let me say that I have not expected our team to beat Bahrain easily, let alone with a big score like that. Bahrain have become such a rival in the past few years, and their team used to give us some hard time even when we won. Bahrain wanted to win in the time that they could have been through with a draw, and that’s where they made a huge mistake. I have never seen Bahrain play against Saudi Arabia in this kind of open play game before. It is true that such tactic has given them advantage in the first 15 minutes and they were very close to score on several occasions in the first half, but their attempts were blocked by a solid performance of Saudi defense and keeper al-Mosaileem.

Although Saudi Arabia were the younger side, they knew how to deal with the match. On the 18th minute, Yassir al-Qahtani passed a clever ball over Bahraini defenders to Malek, who barely touches the ball in the way of Ahmed Al-Mousa who enters the box and beats the goal keeper to take the lead for the Green Falcons. Bahrain tried to equalize and had some good chances but could not score.

On the last minute of the first half, Saudi Arabia proved how they can be very dangerous on the counter-attack, when Yassir passed a long ball to Malek on the right flank who sent a low cross to Abdul-Rahman al-Qahtani to easily score the second Saudi goal.

Bahrain have had a good start after the break and could have scored early in the 2nd half but were again denied by al-Mosaileem. It did not, however, take long for Saudis to kill the game on the 68th minute when Taiseer al-Jassim fired a beautiful 30-yard strike into the top right corner of the Bahraini net. With 10 minutes remaining in the game, Taiseer scored again after a sweet play between Malek and Omar. We could have scored more, but at that point of the match it didn’t matter anymore.

Upon a recent visit to Dubai, Tareq Al-Maeena confirmed what many people have been saying recently: the thriving city has become very expensive, crowded, with too much ‘bling’, and not much substance. I wonder what he would say when he learns that Hooters are coming soon In his conclusion, Al-Maeena suggests those can’t stand living in Dubai anymore should consider taking the nearest exit, hinting that Saudi Arabia can be heaven for those repelled by Dubai’s luxurious hell. Actually, this kind of argument is not exclusive to us; it is very visible in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar as well.

However, Al-Maeena does not forget to point out, though shyly, that in order for this to happen Saudis should relax their regulations and implements some changes and reforms before they can offer their country as alternative to our Emarati neighbors. Saudi Arabia is the largest market in the region after all, right? I wonder what suggestions Al-Maeena, and the rest of our distinguished intelligentsia, have on how we can make our cities more attractive than Dubai. I mean: with the fierce opposition against everything “different” and/or “liberal” we see in our country on daily basis, is this idea of competing Dubai even realistic?

I have been following with much concern what is going on with my Bahraini friend Mahmood Al-Yousef over the past few days. Mahmood was facing a libel case in connection with a blog post where he criticized a minister in the government. Mahmood said this morning that the case is “coming to an amicable conclusion due to sincere efforts of intermediaries,” which is a good thing, but what happened here should be a lesson for bloggers in the region on how they can practice their right to express their opinions without going to jail.

Like Mahmood, I believe in working within the system, but I’m afraid that things can be quite different on the other side of the causeway. Just last week, ten reform activists and academics were arrested for allegations that no one, except for some hypocrites in our mainstream media, believes. Of course it is always much easier and safer to go underground, but I for one can’t see myself doing that. I believe that being known and out the in the public is more effective when it comes to the cause I’m working in.

This case reminds me with a similar case that happened to a fellow blogger here in Saudi Arabia. The difference is, when our fellow blogger criticized some minister he did not face a lawsuit, but he was taken for a scary ride with some officials who told him to shut down his blog without giving much explanation, or else face the consequences. Since this blogger owned a business that dealt directly with the government and keeping the blog would directly affect his business negatively he stopped all activities related to blogging. It is a shame, because he was one of my favorite bloggers, and his blog was absolutely one of the best in the Saudi blogosphere.

I wonder what bloggers can do to avoid situations like these. Mahmood’s suggestion to arrange a workshop run by professional journalists to teach us how to criticize, but not get legally caught for their efforts is a good start, but I think there is more to do here, although I don’t know exactly what to do. More suggestions?

Reason 943 to love Sweden: In 2006, the U.S. allowed 220 Iraqis to emigrate to the United States. During the same year, Sweden accepted 9,700.