Monthly Archives: August 2008

Old Kout

My family used to live in the heart of Hofuf, the Old Kout neighborhood. My grandfather and his two brothers owned small adjacent houses in those narrow allies, before they moved out to newer areas of the city over 40 years ago. My grandfather passed away when my father was only six years old, and my grandmother had to work to provide for the family, but they could not even afford to have electricity.

The financial hardships have caused my father to think of dropping high school and get a job, but his mother firmly refused and insisted that he continues his education. He studied under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, and went to become teacher. May his soul rest in peace.

Roba’s recent post about her fascination in abandoned spaces has encouraged me to do something I have always wanted to do. I wanted to go downtown and take pictures of the old houses, although I have never lived in them but something about them just kept pulling me. Maybe it was the stories my family have told me, maybe it is something else, but I have finally decided to go there with my new camera.

Sadly, most of the muddy houses have been destroyed by rain and fires. Despite going there many times with my father when I was younger, I could not recognize the houses. The rest of the neighborhood is mostly deserted except for a few houses occupied by poor workers.






Too Much to Ask?

More than 75 days have passed since the arrest of Matrook al-Faleh, the political sciences professor at KSU, who was taken from his office at the university in a manner that is inappropriate and unacceptable, to say the least. No official statement has been released on why he was arrested and what are the charges against him. He remains in solitary confinement and he is yet to be allowed to meet his lawyer.

Jamila al-Uqla, al-Faleh’s wife, has issued a statement today saying what her husband is put through violates Sharia, as well as international laws and accords which oppose any kind of treatment that degrades human dignity. She also called on human rights organizations and activists around the world to speak out for him and ask for his release because his demands are peaceful and public.

There is not much more to say other than repeating what I said here two months ago, and also what 140 intellectuals and activists wrote in a petition to the King that was published in early June. Either release him, or present him to a fair public trial.

Commission Ban Cats and Dogs

I have been trying to avoid writing about the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice lately because, frankly, why beat a dead horse? But this one is just too good to miss:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Now I’m not particularly a fan of cats and dogs. My friends who are pet owners know this, and they usually keep their pets away when I visit them. It’s not like I have anything against these animals but I just have this fear of getting too close to them. Still, this decision is just idiotic.

But before we get more into this, let’s go back a little bit. This whole ban thing has actually started in Jeddah two years ago. At the time, Jeddah’s Commission said that young Saudis who go out in streets with their pet dogs are violating of the Kingdom’s culture and traditions, and allegedly causing distress especially to families with young children. Interestingly, and luckily for my friend Rasheed who has since moved to Abu Dhabi, the ban has never implemented. “All pet stores are still selling cats and dogs,” one pet owner told Arab News.

However, although Riyadh and Jeddah are two big cities in the same country, they can be quite different on matters like these. The Commission is much, much more powerful in Riyadh than in Jeddah and therefore I expect this ban to be fully implemented in the capital.

Of course it is needless to say how ridiculous this whole thing is. The reason the Commission presented for the ban is kind of a joke, really: “because of men using them as a means of making passes at women,” they said. So you go and ban dogs and cats? How about punishing those so-called men? I guess you are too busy invading people’s privacy and controlling their lives to bother with few men who use their pets to annoy others.

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