Category Blogging

Twenty-Four

I’m turning 24 today, and I don’t know what to make of it.

Usually, I’m not so big on birthdays. Why should people celebrate getting older, especially that few years later they will wish they were younger?

Living for almost quarter of a century, I have come to realize how useless my life has been so far. Not that I’m not trying, but I just fail. Again and again. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough? Or am I trying too hard that I can’t put things in perspective anymore?

I don’t know.


My birthday cake from last year. Courtesy of my roommate.

When I think about the past year, and despite all disappointments and failures, after all is said and done, I believe that I am blessed and lucky. Blessed because I have people in my life who made it their mission to see me happy and content; and lucky because although I have not done anything impressive, many good things happened to me.

I have made great friends, I have traveled to new places, and above all I have been overwhelmed by people’s kindness. Whether those people know me better than I know myself, or total strangers who recognized me in airports and restaurants, I have come to see and feel the goodness inside them, and it was a reminder that no matter how hard life can get, that it is with love and compassion that we survive.

Saudi Jeans Turns Four

So, four years, huh? Who would have thought? :-)

Looking back today, I can’t help but feel nostalgic about the good ole days of 2004-05, when there was only a handful of Saudi blogs out there and almost everyone knew each other. I miss the over-excitement of Farooha over a lot of things, I miss the deliberately-politically-incorrect dark sense of humor by Wasma, and I certainly miss the shining thoughtfulness of Riyadhawi.

But don’t get me wrong. I am proud of the fact that I’ve worked to help create the active lively community that is the Saudi blogosphere, and incidents like Fouad’s detention and Hadeel’s illness have proved what a long way we have come. I just miss the good smell of freshness, witnessing the birth bangs of something new.

I wanted to say that this blog has changed my life, but I think it makes more sense to say that this blog is changing my life: it is introducing me to interesting people, it is opening doors of opportunity for me, and it is an amazing ongoing learning experience.

I never planned for any of this, and sometimes it can be overwhelming and exhausting, but I know one thing for sure: I don’t want to stop now.

NY Times on Saudi Youth

I am often asked what does it mean to be a young man living in Saudi Arabia, and my answer has always been that this is a tough question to which I have no clear answer. So when reporters from the New York Times came to Riyadh last year to explore the question, I sarcastically told them, “good luck with that.”

They spent a few weeks in the Kingdom trying to find some answers, and today they published their first piece on Saudi youth on a special blog they set up in order to collect reactions from readers. The piece is the second installment of an ongoing series on Arab youth published by the Times. They started with Egypt, and now Saudi Arabia. A second piece from Saudi Arabia will be published shortly and will focus on young women.

NYTimes

The interesting story, somehow unconventional and unusual for stories from the Kingdom, features two cousins, Enad and Nader, aged 20 and 22, respectively. Nader is also engaged to Enad’s 17-year-old sister, Sarah.

I believe the story portrays to a good degree the kind of identity crisis that many Saudi youth go through. They found themselves born in a time when their country is changing, and they are having a hard time trying to define themselves in the midst of changes. That leads to the huge amount of fear and uncertainty I see when I look at the mirror or talk to my friends.

In particular, the piece nicely captures the contradictions — or dare I say the hypocrisy — that govern the the lives of our youth. Nader, the guy we see at the beginning of the story trying to hook up with the girl at the front desk of a dental clinic despite the fact that he is engaged to Enad’s sister, shares his disgust at the woman they saw at a restaurant because they thought she was not accompanied by a man, and when a man, apparently her husband, joins her they keep making gestures at them until the couple moves to another table.

Now the important questions is, how much these two young men are representative of the male youth in the country? That’s a whole different story. In a country as large and as diverse as the Kingdom, it’s really difficult to make a general assumption based on an article like this one. True, Nader and Enad are not the kind of people I would usually hang out with, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. How many of them out there, though, is an open-ended question.

One more thing: the NY Times are doing some sort of an experiment with this series. They are posting the stories on their Arabic blog in order to get feedback from Arab readers, and they will try to include some of the readers’ comments when the piece is published in the newspaper later this week. So if you can read Arabic go there and let them know what you think.

Top Ten Saudis I Want to Meet

Five days before Fouad al-Farhan was detained, he posted a list of ten least favourite Saudis that he does not wish to meet. At the end of that post, he wrote: “Coming soon: top ten Saudis that I love and wish to meet.” As a tribute to Fouad, I decided to give it a shot.

I thought it would be a piece of cake; and oh boy I was wrong! I was unpleasantly surprised that I could easily come up with 3, 4 or 5 lists like Fouad’s, but I could not find 10 Saudis that I really would like to meet. It did not help that I’ve already met some people who would otherwise have been on my list.

After borrowing the brains of few friends and several attempts to write and rewrite this list, I present you with my list of the ten Saudi personalities that I would like to meet in person:

1. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz
Although I’m pretty sure that his majesty’s schedule for the coming four years is totally full, I would really like if I get a chance to meet him, and if I ever get this chance, it would be one of the rare occasions where I’m looking forward to meet someone in order to talk to him more than listening.

2. Abdul-Rahman Al Lahim
A fellow blogger once called the human rights lawyer an “angel,” and I think that her description is not far from truth. Despite all the hardships that he has had to go through, including jail and travel ban not to mention being severely attacked by some ignorant idiots, he stood firm to defend the defenseless.

3. Khalid Al Dakhil
I’ve been a fan for the sociopolitics professor for a long time. When he was having a chat with Washington Post readers I was lucky to get to ask him a question, and I even have had a chance to talk with him on the phone last year, but I’m still waiting for the right time to have the pleasure of meeting him in person.

4. Sheikh Hasan Al Saffar
After spending some time as a dissent in exile in the 80’s, he returned home in the early 90’s and emerged as one of the most prominent Shia leaders in the country. Today, he represents one of the few voices here calling publicly for tolerance, moderation and a greater role for civil society.

5. Ghazi Al Gosaibi
You can say whatever you want about his performance in his different ministerial positions, but my admiration of Al Gosaibi has more to do with his writings as a novelist and a poet than his work for the government.

6. Maram Meccawy
Our newspapers are filled with aging editors and writers, the kind of people Fouad used to call “dinosaurs.” This is not the case with this young columnist and, I’m glad to say, fellow blogger who represents a breath of fresh air and gives the rest of us hope that the future of this nation may not be completely dark after all.

7. Buthaina Al Nassr
After being the first Saudi female news anchor to welcome viewers on Al Ekhbariya, she left the deteriorating channel and now works with Al Hurra. We spoke on the phone a couple of times and because she know that I’m constantly consuming junk food in Riyadh she was nice enough to invite me to try her cooking; something I’m looking forward to as she is also known for being a good cook :-)

8. Samia Al Amoudi
A brave, courageous woman who fought breast cancer and then made it her mission to raise awareness about this disease that kills hundreds of women in a society where talking about such issue is usually surrounded with shame.

9. Ebtihal Mubarak
The Arab News reporter has been described by CNN as “fearless” and her work on many stories during the past few years is simply groundbreaking. Ebtihal comes from a conservative background but that did not stop her from becoming one of the leading female journalists in Saudi Arabia.

10. Abdullah Al Hamed, Matruk Al Faleh and Ali Al Dumaini
The three reformists who were jailed for demanding a constitutional monarchy and later pardoned by King Abdullah soon after he ascended the throne are some of the most courageous political activists in the country. Al Hamed, and his brother Eisa, are now jailed in the aftermath of the women’s demonstrations in Qassim last summer, while Al Faleh and Al Domaini continue their efforts to promote human rights in the country.

Honorable Mentions: Turky Al Hamad, Badria Al Bisher, Wajiha Al Huwaider, Dima Al Azem, Othman Al Omair, Sami Al Jaber and Hatoon Al Fassi.

How about you people? Who’s on your list?

Little Stories from Jeddah

“You are so lucky to present in front of the beautiful girls of Effat,” my friend Faiza told me with a little wink as we were waiting for our drinks at Teayana of Atallah Center last Thursday. Maan, from Saudi hip-hop band Dark2Men, quickly interjected, “I hate Effat girls!” He didn’t explain why he hates them, but his friend Tamer, the shy slow-talking other member of D2M, said that just because he hates them doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

Indeed, they are beautiful; not just their looks, but also their confidence, eloquence, intelligence, hard work and dedication. It was my first time to speak in Saudi Arabia, and the first time to give this kind of presentation, and I couldn’t ask for a better audience.

Still, I was very nervous and I stayed up late the night before the opening day, rehearsing and trying get over my fear. I slept for a few hours only to wake up on the message telling me that Fouad has been released. “This will be a good day,” I said to myself as I opened my laptop to write down some final notes that I thought I would need when I speak. I didn’t use the notes because I forgot the little notebook on the small table at the center of the stage, and when I came later I couldn’t find it!

I started my talk with a few words about my friend Hadeel, praying to God to grant her a speedy recovery. Then I went on to tell the background story of how I started my blog; a story I rarely shared with others, but I thought this was a good opportunity to do so. I talked about the growth of the local blogosphere and the diversity in the Saudi bloggers community. The last part of my talk focused on the lessons that I learned from my experience as a blogger for the past four years.

Speaking after the hilarious Baba Ali, I think I sounded inevitably boring. Obviously, and no matter how hard I may have tried to be funny, I knew I can’t compete with a real comedian, but since I’m already a fan of his that wasn’t a problem.

Elisabeth Bosely, our moderator, asked both of us a few questions and ended the discussion 30 minutes after we started, 15 minutes shorter than the official time announced in the schedule. Due to some organizational hiccups they were off to a late start and had to make sessions shorter in order to catch up with their crowded schedule.

Unfortunately, cutting the panel discussion short meant that students were not given any chance to ask questions despite the fact that many of them were eagerly raising their hands. Some students came after the session to talk outside the main hall, but as one speaker told me later, most students would be too shy to come and ask after you left the stage.

Most of those who talked to me after my presentation were really nice, and it certainly felt good to be at the receiving end of praise, but the truth is that I didn’t give the presentation just to impress. What I was trying to show is that I didn’t do anything extraordinary and that any of them could do it, and do much better actually.

Since most sessions at the symposium were concurrent, I did not attend many of them. But I did attend the opening presentation by Naif al-Muttawa, the creator of The 99, who has a good story although I think he could have told it better than he did. I also attended the iTunes U presentation by my friend Mohammed Milyani as well as a videoblogging workshop by Baba Ali and Yusuf Chowdhury.

Aside from the symposium, I have had a chance to hang out with my friends: Bandar, Yousef, Milyani, and Mohammed. I wanted to meet Fouad but by the time I talked to him he was already on his way to see his mom in Taif. I’ve also met Abdullah Thabit, author of al-Irhabi 20 (Terrorist 20), one of my favorite novels.

While standing in a line at Jeddah Airport, a lady approached me asking if I was “the blogger.” She said her daughters, who stood 200 meters away, have recognized me. She made me blush with her sweet compliments and later told me about her 16-year-old son who wants to be the first Saudi to play in the NBA. Seeing the hope and pride in her eyes filled me with joy and left me in high spirits, a feeling I never experience flying back home before.

Introducing Guest Blogger Lubna Hussain

Lubna HussainOld timers on this blog probably know that I’m a big fan of Lubna Hussain, and they probably remember how I used to link to her articles in Arab News frequently here. Unfortunately, Lubna stopped contributing regularly to Arab News sometime ago. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure to meet Lubna for the first time, and I told her that I miss her potent and strong articles. She asked me if she can write in my blog, and I, surprised by her kind gesture, immediately said: “yes, that would be great!”

Lubna Hussain currently runs NBC Universal Riyadh bureau, and she is the host of Bridges, a weekly political talk show that airs every Saturday on Channel 2 of Saudi TV. I’m extremely honored to have her as the first guest blogger on Saudi Jeans and looking forward to read her posts here.

Welcome, Lubna!