In the NY Times story on the first-ever municipal election in Saudi Arabia, the mayor of Riyadh Prince Abdul-Aziz Bin Ayaf “cited the example of the late shah of Iran as an area ruler who pushed modernization on his people too fast and paid the price by losing his throne.” This is interesting. So, the royal family is organizing elections to keep the throne, and I thought the purpose of the elections is to give people a chance to participate in the process of making decisions, and to be the first step on the road of democracy. Oh, sorry, I was so wrong.
And another thing. How the religious police allowed all those candidates to stick posters of their faces in the streets, while the poor Ronaldo is still standing near Holiday Inn with no face!
Saudi Jeans 
he he :) It was very interesting! Yes It seems you was wrong! We often are wrong when we think our rulers can understand modern concepts well! I agree with the mayor that Shah in iran didn’t know what would happen to his throne! What a stupid Shah we had!
Iranian Reader
By the way, why taking photos is forbiden in SA? I remember that when I was taking photographs or recording a video in streets, someone came and tell me very seriously :”Taswir, Haram”!!! specially women didn’t like their pictures to be taken, why? I saw many newspapers with big photos of king and princes in supermarkets, Isn’t it Haram or mamnu’ ?!
( But young girls and boy love to stand in front of me for taking photos!)
Iranian reader
Iranian reader
Actually, it’s really hard to know what’s forbidden and what’s not in this country.
Hehe, you know, I never thought of the link between how candidates/government/monarchy pictures are in plentitude while poor babies and Ronaldo are always blurred out or cut off… God, how ironic.