Robbery in skies, Routes of Arabia, Weddady’s response to Khouri

Have you heard of the Air France flight attendant who was arrested for robbing passengers? Muhammed al-Ahidib provides four reasons why this woman would not have been able to steal if she were working for Saudi Arabian Airline.
Here is another good review for Routes d’Arabie, this time from Bloomberg.
Nasser Weddady offers another fine rebuttal to Rami Khouri’s op-ed in NYT. At the end of his blogpost, Weddady comments on a part of Khour’s article that I chose to ignore, which is about the “hypocrisy” of US government’s interest in social media while it supports the very same dictatorships that crush liberties. This is an old and overused argument, and something I have touched on in my op-ed in the same newspaper last year.

Blocked in UAE?

There have been some conflicting reports yesterday over the blocking of Saudi Jeans in the UAE. The blog Emirates in Style reported the block and provided this screenshot:

When I asked people on Twitter to confirm this, some of them said the blog was indeed blocked, while others said they can still access it. I’m still not sure what exactly is going here here, but I would like to know more. So readers in the UAE, can you please check if Saudi Jeans is blocked where you are or not?

Routes d’Arabie, Rami Khouri, Reverse culture shock

The Saudi Routes of Arabia exhibition in Paris has been receiving some pretty good reviews. Hundreds of artifacts never before seen outside Saudi Arabia are currently on view at the Louvre. I have seen most of these pieces at the National Museum, and I’m glad the whole world is getting a chance to see this part of our history. I wish they would do more to promote the museums and exhibitions like this inside the country for the locals who only get to hear about such events when they take place abroad.
Rami Khouri thinks the new media in the Middle East synonymous with the Al Jazeera effect of the 1990s, i.e. it is merely venting and therefor will not lead to any real change in the Arab political landscape. I’ve heard this rhetoric many times before. If he thinks that the current wave of activism is useless, then what exactly does he suggest? Should we just sit down, keep our mouths shut, and wait for his generation to bring about change? Based on their history, this seems pretty unlikely. But lamenting this whole phenomenon as merely venting is naïve. Khouri and other old media people obviously still struggle to understand new media and their influence. I never said blogging will change everything, but I think it is the start of something good, something that our predecessors were not able to do. The evidence is his comparison to Al Jazeera, which is a one-way medium just like the one he comes from, unlike new media where people are actively engaged and involved and not simply passive consumers.
My friend Ben has been living in Saudi Arabia for a year, and now he is back to the US and is suffering from a “reverse culture shock.” Thankfully, he says, his condition is treatable. The doctor has prescribed him movies, lots of bacon, and a few happy hours.

Pop culture, funny lawyer, summer festivals

Saudi Dawn aka the Eternal Philosopher thinks Saudis are brainwashed with a certain pop culture that “is filled with half-truths and out of context religious information that is promoted to control the masses.” I agree.
Lawyer Ahmad Al-Rashid said he will sue Riyadh’s summary court after it refused to consider his lawsuit against MBC for what he called “encouraging deviant behavior in Saudi society.” The court told him to contact the Ministry of Culture and Information’s media violations committee, but he said he won’t. Funny. As a lawyer he should be well aware of this. Citing the example of Mazen Abdul Jawad case doesn’t make much sense here. That case was against Abdul Jawad not LBC, although the channel later got punished for operating without a permission (which is also funny because none of the other non-Saudi channels working in the Kingdom have such permission).
Lou K has another good post. This time about so-called Saudi tourism and its so-called summer festivals. “Basically, our summer festivals are nothing but shopping festivals.. There’s nothing more to it..” he says. There is a lot of truth in what he says, but there are also exceptions. The local summer festival here in Al-Ahsa, known as Hasana Falla, tries to mix culture (folklore, arts, traditional crafts, etc.) with entertainment and some shopping. I made a short visit last night to the event, ironically to meet some American visitors, and I thought it was okay. In the words of a Hassawi girl on Twitter, it’s “not half-bad, but nothing much to do.”

Abdullah al-Eyaf, Ahmed Bin Baz

If you enjoyed reading about Abdulmohsen al Mutairi and young Saudi filmmakers, you probably want to read this interview with director Abdullah Al-Eyaf. His latest film, “Ayesh,” has been well received and won the first award of the Gulf Film Festival that was recently held in Dubai.
In the second part of a series on Saudi Arabia, GlobalPost runs this piece by Caryle Murphy who profiles the upstart scholar Ahmed Bin Baz. I have been reading for the young Bin Baz for a while now, so I’m not surprised by the opinions he offers in this interview. However, I’m a bit surprised to see Dr. Mohammed al-Hodaif, father of the late Hadeel al-Hodaif, likens Bin Baz to Paris Helton in the sense that he is using his father’s name to become famous. Totally uncalled for.

Land-grab, Saudi vuvuzela, and tasting weird drinks

According to recent stats, about 60 percent of Saudis do not have their own homes. The main reason behind this situation is the prohibitively expensive cost of buying land where you can build a house. Of course this is crazy because Saudi Arabia is a vast desert. You would think lands would be dirt cheap, right? Wrong. Why? Land-grabbing. Fellow blogger Essam al-Zamil has been on a roll with a series of thoughtful blogposts about the problem of land-grab in the country. He recently crunched some numbers to estimate the fair price for land, and his findings are nothing short of astonishing. Per his estimate, citizens pay between 5-10 times the fair price when they buy a small piece land in most decent areas.
Now that the World Cup is over, I’m looking forward to enjoy watching football without the deafening noise of vuvuzelas. Or so I thought. The vuvzela will find its way to our stadiums because although it might be an African tradition, it is actually made with Saudi materials. The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) waited until the end of the competition to proudly announce that the plastic horns are manufactured using its high-density polyethylene products. So yeah, Saudi Arabia did not reach the World Cup finals, but they still somehow managed to make themselves heard in this global event. You are welcome.
Since drinking alcohol is illegal in KSA, the Burdened Mary decided to sample some of the weird non-alcoholic drinks available in the local market. Her verdict: “These drinks were mostly duds compared to fresh fruit juices or Saudi Champagne.”

KSA joins the first world, marketing to Muslims in Riyadh

Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the Governor of Mecca, has repeatedly said that our country is on its way to join the first world. Fouad al-Farhan says he would like to join the Prince in his optimism, and has some ideas on what it would take to move Saudi Arabia from the third world to the first world.
My good friend Abdulmohsen al-Madani will be joined by Roy Haddad, Chairman & CEO of JWT MENA, for a presentation called “Marketing to Muslims – Unseen Opportunities.” The presentation will be given today, July 6th, at 7PM. The venue is Riyadh Chamber of Commerce on Dhabab St. It should be interesting. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it because I’m in the EP, but if you are in Riyadh and you care about marketing, advertisement and content creation then you probably want to be there.