Category Personal

Beirut, Again

I did not enjoy Beirut as much as I wanted when I went there for the first time last December. The schedule was tight, the weather was cold, and the political situation was tense. But now it’s summer, and I hope it will be different this time. I will be flying to Beirut tomorrow to participate at the Arab Bloggers Meeting, an informal gathering for online activists in the region organized by Heinrich Boell Stiftung Middle East. It should be interesting.

P.S. I want to thank Prof. Abdul-Rahman al-Obaid and Dr. Ashraf Mahmoud for their understanding and support.

Old Kout

My family used to live in the heart of Hofuf, the Old Kout neighborhood. My grandfather and his two brothers owned small adjacent houses in those narrow allies, before they moved out to newer areas of the city over 40 years ago. My grandfather passed away when my father was only six years old, and my grandmother had to work to provide for the family, but they could not even afford to have electricity.

The financial hardships have caused my father to think of dropping high school and get a job, but his mother firmly refused and insisted that he continues his education. He studied under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, and went to become teacher. May his soul rest in peace.

Roba’s recent post about her fascination in abandoned spaces has encouraged me to do something I have always wanted to do. I wanted to go downtown and take pictures of the old houses, although I have never lived in them but something about them just kept pulling me. Maybe it was the stories my family have told me, maybe it is something else, but I have finally decided to go there with my new camera.

Sadly, most of the muddy houses have been destroyed by rain and fires. Despite going there many times with my father when I was younger, I could not recognize the houses. The rest of the neighborhood is mostly deserted except for a few houses occupied by poor workers.






On Saudi Marriages

Summertime is the preferred season for marriages in Saudi Arabia. I don’t like going to weddings but I always find myself socially obliged to attend quite a few of those between June and August every year, and this year more than before, many people who see me there ask me if I’m getting married soon. No, I say, not anytime soon. But as more and more of my peers tie the knot, the pressure from family and society as a whole increases and keeps mounting.

When friends ask what is keeping me off marriage, I give these answers:

  • I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment yet; I want to learn more about life, I want to travel and meet new people
  • I don’t like the traditional way in which people get married here; it’s blind and random and I don’t think it will work for me

The next question on people’s minds is usually this: so if you don’t like the old fashioned way of getting married, how do you intend to get married? Well, I say, I have a plan:

I would go on with my life, somewhere down the road I would meet someone, I we would get to know her each other, fall in love and marry her get married.

The reaction to my seemingly simple plan is usually: “then you will never get married.” This could be true in a sense because the extreme segregation of sexes in our society makes the chances of meeting a potential spouse pretty slim, if nonexistent. But as with many other things in the magic kingdom, I try to remain optimistic and not lose hope.

My mother, who was first shocked when I told her my plan, has recently made her peace with it. She said to me: “I’m done arguing with you about this marriage thing, so I will let you enjoy your little funky plan for now, but I’m pretty sure that in two years time you will come around begging me to find you a good girl.” I smiled and murmured: we will see…

Normal Country

In a moment of frustration yesterday, I posted this rant on Twitter: “If only we were living in a normal country…” Apparently the short sentence struck a chord among my fellow twiterrers and a meme was born. Here’s some examples:

7anno: that’s “if”

CivilLizard: If only anyone can come up with what’s normal for the majority or can find me a country they can call normal.

mohamed: define normal…

weddady: in a normal country u don’t have to show marriage license 2 eat in a fish restaurant

krispijnbeek: in a normal country every one has a irrepressible quote on their site to remember freedom ain’t a free lunch http://bit.ly/2HrKpK

asad_wosaibi: in a normal country, I can choose what education program my kids go thru.. study science, math.. or have fun with arabic lessons

alfarhan: In a normal country, they don’t stop drivers in the highway for 20 min because a damn person is passing by

bianconeri4ever: In a normal country the Twitter experience is actually enjoyable, because Tinyurl.com is accessible :P

yazeez: in a normal country ppl dont start their tweets with “in normal country”

thecrazyjogger: In a normal country they don’t block all the links starting with tinyurl.com

thecrazyjogger: In a normal country they don’t ask all ur license n registration for a car if its going thru a checkpoint n the car is fulla teen guys

However, I have some great friends and thanks to one awesome friend of mine the day ended on a happy note, so I finally said: In a normal country, _great_ things can happen too :-D

Who Knows the Laws?

While waiting at the train station in Ahssa, I thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures of the arrivals and departures schedule so I can consult them next time I take the train. Well, maybe it wasn’t the best idea.

Police Officer: HEY YOU! What the hell are you doing?
Me: Taking a picture of the train schedule. Is there a problem?
PO: Don’t you know that photography is prohibited?
Me: As far as I know, there is no law banning anyone from taking pictures here.
PO: Says who? Photography is prohibited in government buildings.
Me: I’m sure the law clearly states that photography is allowed in all public spaces except military buildings and places which have a sign in view saying “Photography Prohibited,” and I haven’t seen one here.
PO: There is no such law! If there was one how come I never heard of it? Show me the pictures you’ve just taken.

I show him the four pictures, he tells me to delete them, I delete them, and he tells me to go back to the waiting area. I walk back to my seat, shaking my head in disbelief of what just happened. I hear the officer loudly calling me again.

PO: Why are you shaking your head like that? You don’t like what I have told you?
Me: It doesn’t matter if I like it or not. I just found the whole deal absurd and that’s why I was shaking my head.
PO: Are you Saudi?! Shoe me your ID!

I hand him my ID, he inspects my name and asks me where I live. I calmly and politely answer in the same manner in which I responded to all his previous questions. He stares at me and then angrily shouts: “Go back to your seat!”

What happened with me at the train station could happen to anyone. You do something seemingly harmless and you find yourself in for a stupid long questioning with one of those ignorant, incompetent and rude police officers. The difference here, however, is that I knew the law was on my side. My arguing irritated him, especially that he looked like he had no idea what law I was talking about. He expected me to apologize for an offense that I never did, and I when I didn’t he didn’t know what to do with me. It didn’t help that his younger colleagues where standing there watching the scene.

Similar incidents happen all over the Kingdom all the time and one problem is that most people don’t know their rights according to the law; the other problem is that some low ranking police officers seem to believe they can abuse people just because they carry a few stripes on their shoulders.

NSHR has been working to raise awareness by publishing and distributing booklets educating people about their rights according to the Law of Criminal Procedures, which is a good step, but they also need to work with law enforcement officials to ensure that police officers know citizen’s rights and respect them.

The Glorious Eighties

My brother Hasan has been asking me to change the header picture. I was hesitant to change it because I loved the “legs in jeans” header. But since many people were positively surprised by my new Facebook profile picture, I thought I would use it here too.

two_headers

This picture of me is unusual because I’m wearing thobe and ghotra instead of the usual jeans and t-shirt. The other thing is that I’m not wearing glasses; I was wearing contact lenses for the first time. The picture was taken by my brother Abdullah during my cousin’s wedding last summer.

Pictures can bring nostalgia, and nostalgia can bring more pictures. I took the chance of being home for the weekend and asked my mother to show me some photos from my childhood. I’m glad and thankful that my early years have been relatively well documented photographically by my parents.

I’ve posted one picture from when I was a kid here, and I thought I’d share a couple more of these old pics with you today:

This pictures was taken when I was probably 9 months old, some time around the winter of 1985. Apparently I was trying to eat what looks like a fork instead of the vegetables my mom allegedly cooked for me :-)

Here, I’m standing in front of the flamingo lake in Riyadh Zoo, summer 1987. Guess what? The absurd arrangement for having separate days for men and women at the zoo has been in place since the ’80s and still going!