Sheikh Hasan al-Saffar, one of the main Shiite leaders in the country, told Arab News that he is expecting a meaningful change to come in a slow, deliberate matter, because that is how the Saudi policy works. Al-Saffar was talking in the presence of Mohsen al-Awajy, a Sunni scholar from Riyadh, who agreed with al-Saffar.

Al-Saffar could be right. However, I don’t think it is supposed to be this way. We need to move now, and we need to move fast. We need a democratic reform, where Shiites and other minorities (or call them ‘madahib’ if you want) can have their rights naturally. If we have democracy, all minorities will gain their rights, and they don’t have to get their rights given to them by somebody.

“Some of the followers of certain Islamic schools, however, complain of abuses of their religious rights as well as some of their civil rights,” al-Saffar said. He attributed these abuses to “inaccurate practices from certain parties who monopolize religious representation to them and want to cancel the others’ (representation).”

Al-Awajy has ignored admitting there was discrimination, and thinks we all should forget about the past. “Start anew, and assure all citizens their rights,” he said. Sounds fair enough? OK, how about this: Give them their rights first, and then they can think about forgetting the past and all the suffering.

In his first speech, King Abdullah vowed justice for all. Does this mean stopping all kinds of discrimination in the country? I’m looking forward to this, but I’m trying to keep my expectations low. Change is coming, but the question is: how long it would take to come?

Deema, a new Saudi blogger, is celebrating her birthday. Happy birthday, Deema. Your gift in on the way to you! Well, I think it got lost in the mail or something :-)

Microsoft are trying to find a new name for RSS. It is not the first attempt to rename it. It seems that RSS is too geeky to some (most?) people. Here is a quick question: Do you know what RSS is?

Mohammed Khatami, the former Iranian president, told al-Hayat newspaper in an interview, that he is convinced that a woman could become a president in the Islamic Republic.

Why consumers order a smaller size of Coke when passing through the drive-through than when ordering indoors at the counter?

Blogrolling’s Hot 500.

Juan Cole has written a good post. He says: “The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists.”