MTV, beauty queen camels, flirting with books, and more…

As part of their True Life series, MTV has broadcasted a one-hour documentary on Saudi youth last Monday. Even before it was aired, Resist the Power, Saudi Arabia has attracted big attention. Over the course of last week, I have received many emails asking me to watch it, and more emails later asking what I think of the episode. I have not watched it yet. I will probably watch it, but only after this silly hoopla dies off. Local media, as expected, jumped in with the usual mixture of conspiracy theories and anger caused by the documentary. Very typical. There are rumors that some people who appeared in the show could be prosecuted, but nothing is confirmed at this point. Many bloggers reacted, and most of what they said have been balanced and well worth a read: here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Forget about MTV, and watch this short video by local artist Abdulaziz al-Muzaini which pokes fun at Riyadh rains:
Remember the guy who was suing Aramco over the death of his beloved beauty queen camel? He has actually won case. Saudi Gazette reports that the General Court in Khobar has ordered the oil giant to pay 1 million riyals to the heartbroken owner. Aramco’s lawyer said they intend to appeal the verdict with the Court of Cassation.
Based on her experience with a public library where she lives in Dubai, Badriya al-Bisher believes that opening more public libraries will encourage Saudi boys and girls to flirt with the books instead of flirting with each other. That’s an interesting theory which I would love to test in Riyadh. It will make for one hell of an experiment.
The first patch of graduates from private medical colleges in Jeddah were previously told their can intern in university hospitals. Now they are told they can’t, and that if they want to intern then they have to pay SR60,000. Unbelievable. Shada Ahmadi, a student who is yet to start her internship, told me “it’s a big frustrating issue in our college.” UPDATE: Intern doctors graduating from government universities, who had their monthly reward cut in half by a decision from the Council of Higher Education five years ago, have launched an online petition asking the government to reconsider that decision.

Street Terror

According to WHO, Saudi Arabia has the highest road accident death toll in the world. It is very rare that you will meet anyone here who has never lost a friend or a relative in a car accident. Inspired by the death of his cousin, Ala’a al-Maktoum aka McToom made this impressive video illustrating the magnitude of the problem. Check it out:

Khashoggi Resigns

Jamal Khashoggi has resigned from his position as editor in chief of al-Watan daily. The newspaper website has carried a brief item last night saying the resignation has been accepted, and the reason given was that Khashoggi wants to focus on his “personal projects.” The resignation comes less than two weeks after the progressive paper launched the latest iteration of its website. On the occasion, Khashoggi wrote an editorial proclaiming “Al-Watan is the new media,” which did not go well at all with many bloggers and online activists.

The reason offered here for the resignation is unconvincing, to say the least. People on Twitter and elsewhere have been speculating about the real reasons behind the sudden departure of Khashoggi, who has an interesting career in journalism including a short stint at the helm of al-Watan few years ago that lasted for only 52 days. Some people suggested that his resignation is just a step on his way to hold a new position at the new Alef Alef company, the broadcast arm of Aseer Media and Publishing company, which owns the newspaper. Alef Alef has recently won a license to start one of the first private FM radio stations in Saudi Arabia.

However, this explanation does not ring true to me. Neither what Fouad mentioned about this article by Ibrahim al-Almaai. It seems that Khaoggi was forced to resign, according to one source in the newspaper. This forced resignation is not the result of one article, but rather due to the accumulation of several articles, stories and other circumstances. “It could be that al-Almai’s article was just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” my source said.

Curiously, the resignation was accepted on Jamal Khashoggi’s wedding night.

Read more:

Arabizing the private sector, more on discrimination at KAUST

Essam al-Zamel has a very insightful post discussing an important part of the unemployment puzzle in Saudi Arabia. Employers in the private sector avoid recruiting Saudis because they accuse them with lack of productivity. Essam believes this lack of productivity is not related to education or scientific degrees, but rather due to their inability to communicate in English. “How can we expect anyone to be productive when they work with a language different from their mother tongue?” he asks. We can either change our first language to English and make it the main language for communication and eduction even if that means losing our identity, or we can Arabize our economy especially at the private sector to make it more suitable to our youth
After Nathan, here is another KAUST blogger writing about discrimination in the new community. “The problem is that the way KAUST is now run, the university is a beacon of oppression and exploitation to many,” says Richard Denny. Yes, I do realize that such practices are widespread in the country. However, I believe this is not a good excuse for such thing to happen at KAUST.

Sultan al-Qahtani’s newest crush, MOCI and their law

Elaph’s Sultan al-Qahtani has a piece on the increasing popularity of Qatar’s first lady Sheikha Mozah Al Missned. She has recently visited the country and met with King Abdullah. Apparently Saudi girls have a crush on her, hanging her posters on their walls and looking up to her as a role model. The Sheikha is popular, no question about it. My question is: does Sultan al-Qahtani have a crush on Karen Elliott House? The former foreign editor and publisher of WSJ is currently in Riyadh, working on a new book about Saudi Arabia. Al-Qahtani quotes House in his piece, saying when they met in Khozama Hotel her eyes were “beaming beauty and hope.” Al-Qahtani quotes three other women in the short article, including fellow blogger Sarah Matar, but he fails to mention anything about their eyes.
If you think that I have been overreacting to MOCI’s proposed plan to regulate the internet, go read this article by Iman al-Guwaifli. In the article, Iman quotes the aforementioned Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa saying the new regulation will include “all websites, blogs and forums.” Once the new law is enacted they plan to list all websites, and in the future they hope site owners will contact them before launching their websites. “Everybody will be given a chance to register, but the law will be enforced on everyone,” he said. Fouad is waiting for MOCI to come out with a clarification to what Iman wrote, but I doubt they will do such thing. MOCI just don’t get it.

Fouad is back, Why are we never ready?

My good friend and fellow blogger Fouad al-Farhan has finally decided to restart his blog after more than two years of hiatus. During these two years, he experimented with Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, but he eventually admitted that there is nothing like blogging as a platform for personal publishing. Fouad is one of the most prominent people in the Saudi blogosphere, and I’m sure the whole blogging community is delighted to have him writing at length again. Welcome back, Fouad! You have been missed.
Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa, deputy minister of information and culture, keeps pushing for MOCI’s proposed law for regulating news websites in this column for Okaz daily. His latest argument: we are not ready for the freedom offered by such websites. We’ve heard this argument before. Government officials like al-Hazzaa keep telling us that we are not ready for civil society, not ready for elections, not ready of democracy, etc. We are pretty much not ready for anything, until they say we are, which, depending on their whims, can be next decade, next century, or sometimes never.
A little housekeeping note: the short linky posts are open to comments again. When I redesigned the blog earlier this year, I decided to close comments on these posts as an experiment. As part of the experiment, all posts are open to comments now. Let’s see how that goes.

Saudi Jeans Turns Six

I celebrate the sixth anniversary of Saudi Jeans today. The blog that I started just for fun has claimed a life of its own, and has in many ways become central to my own life. It has been a great journey. Like a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, turns and twists, joy and fear. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes nice, sometimes nasty. But always, always interesting.

Some argue that although I say the goal of this blog is to push for change in Saudi Arabia, little has changed in the country and this little has nothing to do with Saudi Jeans or blogging. That could be true, and I’m okay with it. Changing a nation is too great of an endeavour for a humble blog like mine to meet. But for me the question is not if blogging has changed (or can change) Saudi Arabia or not. The question I keep asking myself is: is it wroth trying? And my answer is absolutely yes.

I know that I aim too high. That’s just me. I can’t settle for less, I want everything. I’m greedy like that, but I don’t accept injustice and I believe that we, as people, deserve better. My dreams are big and wild, but I will never suppress them. You can share those dreams, or laugh at them, but you can’t stop me, and you can’t shut me up.

What the future holds for Saudi Jeans? I don’t know, to be honest. After I wrote this blogpost on new year’s eve, some readers had the impression that I was laying the ground to announce later the end of the blog. It certainly wasn’t the case. Saudi Jeans will be around for at least one more year. There is a big chance I might leave the country in the coming few weeks. I will be away from KSA for a while, and I’m still unsure what is that going to mean for Saudi Jeans. I, however, plan to continue blogging from abroad.

Allow me in the end to express my gratitude to my family and friends for I’m nothing without them, and thank you readers for giving me some of your attention over these years.

The kid in the video is my little brother Mohammed. I took this video about two weeks ago in an amusement park here in Hofuf, east of Saudi Arabia.