Author Archives: Ahmed

  • Sheikh Ahmed Bin Baz is the son of the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and he has been saying some interesting things for someone with a famous lastname. Saudi Gazette profiles the young upstart scholar.
  • A Saudi embraces Islam. Seriously. He says his American mom, whom he has been living with for the past 23 years, did not mind because he is an adult and can do whatever he wants. Now imagine if it was the other way around. Would his Saudi father accept his son’s decision to become Christian? Hmmm… UPDATE: here’s the story in English from Saudi Gazette.
  • The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice detained two males and three females on charges of “khulwa.” How come?! They are five people! How in hell they were in “khulwa”? Somebody stops these morons before people start shooting them.

Prayers for Carol

It is with great sadness that I share with you that my friend and fellow blogger Carol Fleming, aka American Bedu, has suffered the loss of her beloved husband Abdullah al-Ajroush after a long struggle with lukemia. I met Abdullah at his house in Riyadh a few years ago and he was very kind and warm. He was a real gentelman. May he rests in peace.

Carol will contniue her own battle with cancer, as she still has about two months left of her own treatment program. Please keep her in your prayers.

  • It took a handshake between Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the UK and US, and Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to settle a seating spat at the Munich Security Conference. Depending on who you are, this may or may not be a big deal. Here’s the video:

  • King Abdullah is popular in Egypt and Jordan. Yipee! Woohoo! The King is also very popular here. What I really hope for is that he would take advantage of this popularity to push for more radical reform in Saudi Arabia. People say he has to be cautious, but I disagree. If you are this popular then you can certainly afford to make some bold moves.
  • Two TwitterCamps in Jeddah and Khobar today. Twitter users in the country are invited to discuss Twitter services, features, tips and tricks, as well as twitter clients.

Professional Brain Explosions

Whenever someone asks me about the Shoura Council, I quickly respond: “Shoura is dead to me.” I have lost hope that anything good for the people would come out of this institution. Some think I’m being too harsh on them but I beg to differ. Now this is old news, because a couple of days ago Dr. Fahad al-Aboud, a member of the Shoura Council since 2001, offered yet another reason to take the council less seriously.

In his weekly column for al-Riyadh daily, Dr. al-Aboud wrote about a new iPod from Apple. That confused me a little bit because last time I checked Apple’s latest iPod was introduced in September 2009. So I figured maybe he meant the iPad, which was unveiled by Steve Jobs last month. The “revolutionary device,” he said, is a “tablet” computer. Okay, it’s the iPad then, I thought.

But in the next paragraph he adds, “the new device is 3-in-1: a mobile phone, an iPod, and an internet browser.”

Um, I’m confused again. The iPad indeed includes an iPod app and an internet browser, but can’t make phone calls. The iPod Touch is, well an iPod, can browse the internet, but also can’t make phone calls. The iPhone, on the other hand, can do all that, but it’s not exactly a tablet. So what’s up Doc?!

Aboud iPad

Dr. al-Aboud, who holds a PhD in information sciences from Florida State University, goes on and on about the new mysterious iPod that we have not yet seen, saying the new nonexistent device has given Apple “a psychological victory over its peers.” He then asks the all important question: “how far this amazing technological advancement will go?” It is safe to say, he concludes, that the human brain will have a hard time keeping up with or following this advancement.

Well, I can tell you that my brain is exploding from all this gibberish that I’m reading.

But on a more serious note, I believe this article, in addition to showcasing the incompetency of Shoura members, also says a lot about the state of media in the country. The minister of information and top editors here keep talking about how blogs and internet websites lack professionalism and credibility, presumably compared to their newspapers, and then they go and run utter rubbish.

Publishing an article like the aforementioned shows clearly that these newspapers do no fact-checking whatsoever. Do they even know what fact-checking is? Have they ever heard of such thing? They should. They are, after all, professional.

  • We have no movie theaters, but that won’t stop young Saudis from making movies. BBC has a short reportage about these young men. I have met most of these guys who appear in this reportage, and got a chance to watch some of their work. They are talented, creative, and determined. Too bad that our government refuses to acknowledge their talent.

  • And speaking of Saudi talents, here’s that latest single from ReD CoasT, a band from Jeddah:

  • Surprise! Surprise! BAE Systems will plead guilty to offenses of false accounting to settle bribery allegations made over al-Yamamah arms deals. BAE will pay $400m but only in the US, and not in the UK where the SFO dropped their investigation into al-Yamamah due to a request by former prime minister Tony Blair.
  • All is not well in KAUST, apparently. I don’t want to talk about their last-minute cancellation on Saudi Barcamp last month because I don’t know all the details, but here is a view from the inside by a student there. Noah J.D. DesRosiers called it a “black hole,” where people are too afraid to say anything:

    I worry about being asked to leave KAUST. I worry that I will be booted in exchange for a student who will not speak their mind – or worse, a student who will not care either way for the vision of KAUST. Speaking your mind seems offensive and standoffish here; behaving, being grateful, and accepting what has been given appears to be all that was anticipated of us students. We can’t tell; the lack of transparency leaves our questions unanswered.

  • If you want to make something great then you need to be passionate about it. That’s true for almost everything in life. But there are things in life where passion is crucial, and one of these things is teaching. You must have some much passion just to be a decent teacher, let alone a great one. As we go through school, we are being taught by many different teachers, and usually very few of them truly stand out. Those who stand out will have a tremendous impact on our lives. Fatima is no exception, and that’s why she decided to become a teacher.
  • Fellow blogger Ahmed Ba-Aboud introduces Alternative Saudi Voices. His vision is to make the blog one of the best available windows to life aspects, issues and dreams in Saudi Arabia, and it will be will be open to any Saudi who would like to contribute. I think the new blog offers a good opportunity for people who feel they have something to say but don’t want to start a blog of their own. At least it’s much better than pouring your ideas in the comments section of blog like mine where they will eventually be buried or get lost in the noise.
  • A nice op-ed in the NYT by Tim Sebastian, host of Doha Debates. Talking about Egyptian bloggers, he quotes an influential editor in Cairo saying: “these young bloggers are the real bridge to a better, freer future in the Arab world. But, like the traffic, it may take a few years to arrive.” (via GB)
  • The Buraida girl has shockingly decided to accept her marriage to the 80-year-old man. The girl’s divorced mother also dropped a bombshell by withdrawing the lawsuit she had filed to annul the marriage. Abdulrahman al-Lahem says the government should intervene based on its power and commitment to international accords on child rights that it has signed. UPDATE: HRC said they have assigned a new lawyer to the case, and added that just because the mother withdrew the lawsuit doesn’t mean the case is over.
  • I have always said that the Kingdom of Segregation makes for some awkward moments, but this one is just hilarious: Al-Mass’ad lodged a complaint with the police calling on them to take Al-Rubai “under their wing” until he gives up his alleged “Satanic” views which reveal him as an “enemy of the religion.” Actually, this silly story offers a really good representation of the ideological crisis in our country.
  • Caryle Murphy takes a look at how Saudi women use the internet to interact, connect, learn, and express themselves in many different ways. The story includes a couple of quotes by yours truly.
  • Barack Obama has fundamentally altered the way a president deals with the news media, NYT says, as he has made a concerted effort to tap into alternative avenues, including blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. In his first year in office he gave more than 160 interviews. Now compare this to how Saudi officials and leaders deal with the media. I mean, seriously, do officials here even care to speak to people every now and then? They don’t.