Lubna Hussain and Abeer Mishkhas, as well as John Burgess, were all really angry at what happened in Riyadh last week during an international medical seminar: a presenter called Dr. Yousef Al-Ahmed from King Saudi University insisted that all women — including medical and media professionals — leave the room before he would enter the room to give his presentation. I can’t blame them. It was outrageous.

However, I don’t agree with Hussain and Mishkhas that the female attendees are to blame for leaving to the request of the organizers, who are the only to be blamed for this ridiculous incident.

Dr. Al-Ahmed knew well there will be women at the event. He for sure knows that KFSH has a mixed work environment, unlike KSU and King Khaled University Hospital. If he was offended by the presence of women then he should have rejected the invitation. The organizers should not have agreed on his request to kick women out, and if he had a problem with that then, well, this is his problem not theirs, as one of the attendees, a Saudi female neurologist, told Arab News.

Considering that he comes from KSU, I should say I was not totally shocked by his actions. Those of us familiar with the environment of Saudi Arabia’s oldest university, and its medical colleges in particular, would come to expect the most bizarre things. Do believe me when I say that despite the strict segregation at KKUH, there are some teachers in the College of Medicine who are not satisfied with the situation and demand the current dean to be sacked in order to implement their views.

I know that some people would jump down my throat for simply writing this post, and to that all I can say is: I don’t care. They would bash me as Westernized, un-Islamic, etc, and whatever they can come up with of their sorry accusations, and you know what, I don’t care. Silencing critics and sugarcoating mistakes would only set back our country, and if we want to move forward we should never give in to the nay-sayers. Now if you excuse me, I would like to make sure that no woman will comment on this post.

Muhammad Sadiq Diyab: “What cinemas face is no different to the type of objections that other modern inventions such as cell phones, televisions, and the Internet once faced. Ironically, many of those past rejectors are the ones who now use and benefit from these modern developments.”

I feel bad every time I see Dr. Sami Angawi on TV speaking about our bulldozed history, raising awareness so we do not neglect what is left of historical locations in Hejaz, especially in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. I feel bad not for the man, as he is a man to be respected and admired and not to feel sorry for, but for ourselves and this miserable situation that we have reached, and for a past that some people have destroyed. Forever.

In addition to the random, and not-so-random, destruction of the houses of the Prophet and Companions, and other important historical locations, it seems that we are moving toward a day when the visitors of Mecca won’t be able to see the Ka’aba unless they are staying at one of the fancy towers which started to surround the holy mosque from every corner. Some would blame the ideology that dominated our country for so long, an extreme ideology even when it comes to dealing with mud and stones; some would blame businessmen and their greediness without any regard to the holiness of the place; and some would blame officials and their corruption which allowed this to happen. I blame all of them, excluding nobody.

From the Washington Post: “A record number of nearly 11,000 Saudis are pursuing higher education in the United States, reversing a years-long decline in students coming from the oil-rich kingdom, particularly after the 2001 terrorist attacks.”

Ikbis: Share your life.

The Washington Post had run a story on Saudi bloggers last week, and they finish it with a quote yours truly: “I want our society to move forward, and I want to be part of that change. I don’t want to be 40 and still struggling with the issues we’re dealing with now.” Read what other fellow bloggers have to say about it, and if you can read Arabic you may want to see how AlArabiya.net manipulated the story and how their readers reacted to it.