Category Politics

Today’s Links

  • This is awful: after Michael reposted the abaya pictures, he received death threats via his BlackBerry. The phone calls did not shake him, but later he later received an email with a link to an extremist website that had his images. He had to take the pictures down, again. That’s a real shame, but I can’t blame him. I recently received some hate mail as well after my post on al-Barrak’s fatwa.
  • As I said before, Maureen Dowd was here. I don’t know what to say about her column. Today I don’t feel particularly optimistic. Hell, I don’t feel optimistic at all, actually. It seems that Dowd met only the fancy people. Also, what’s up with this: “He has encouraged housing developments with architecture that allows families, and boys and girls within families, to communicate more freely.”?

Kill Me Now

For someone who would probably enjoy the lifestyle of a caveman, Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak has an impressive ability to occasionally make news headlines with his ridiculous, albeit dangerous, fatwas. His latest fatwa called for opponents of the kingdom’s strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Some people think the best way to deal with this fatwa is to simply ignore it, because the more media attention it gets the more weight it will carry. I disagree. It might be true that al-Barrak is an old man who is still living in the past, but failing to address his fatwa might lead to serious consequences. This guy has a loyal following who admire him and regard his opinions highly.

What if one of his enthusiastic fans decided to act upon this fatwa and killed somebody? What if someone from those who spoke in favor of mixing like justice minister Shaikh Mohammed al-Eisa, Shaikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, or Shaikh Ahmed Bin Baz got killed over this?

That is unlikely to happen, but it remains a possibility nevertheless. As Ebtihal Mubarak tweeted earlier today, “there is a huge number of unemployed men who are agitated, and it’s easy to rally them using the argument that the government is focusing on women and mixing of genders while ignoring them.”

I think all those concerned should speak out against this fatwa and denounce al-Barrak. The official religious establishment, namely the Council of Senior Ulema, should take a stand and make a statement here. But based on their recent history with the mixing at KAUST drama, I’m pretty sure they won’t say a single word about this.

I hate to repeat myself, but here is what I said two years ago when al-Barrak released another one of his insane fatwas:

I can imagine that neither the government nor the official religious establishment would speak out on this issue, but if they fail to address this properly then they should stop whining about extremism and how terrorists are simply a “misguided group.” It is this kind of dangerous messages that feed extremism and donate fuel to terrorists to continue their lethal destructive acts. Keeping silent and later blaming “external influences” for what happens here will be a hard sell…

  • The minister of justice said his department is drafting a law that would allow female lawyers to argue legal cases in court for the first time. Progress, I guess.
  • Finally al-Ahsa is getting its share of the development cake. I was hoping that SAGIA would choose the region for its new project, but it’s actually SCTA that decided to invest here. Al-Oqair beach, one of my favouirte spots on the east coast, will be the home for a SR50b tourist city that is expected to create 80,000 jobs and generate SR100m in annual revenue.
  • Hani Naqshabandi: “We Saudis are not greatly different from anyone else, in money or knowledge or health. Poverty has no homeland, for it thrives in every country, ignorance exists here as it does everywhere else, and health problems that others have elsewhere are also found here. We might be better than others at some things, but they are also better than us at others, but no one is “better”, in an absolute sense, than anyone else.”
  • Popular Mechanics correctly notes that King Fahd International Airport in Dammam is the the largest airport in the world in terms of landmass. It is so enormous that it is actually about 28.5 square kilometers larger than Bahrain. What they fail to mention though is that it’s so empty most of the time it feels more like a ghost town than an international airport. The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) is rarely in the news, but it’s actually one of the worst performing government departments. (via jb)
  • Speaking of ghost towns, Nathan Deuel writes about life inside the DQ. Few weeks ago I wanted to visit Nathan’s wife Kelly at their house in Riyadh and he had to come pick me up at the checkpoint at the DQ entrance. He wrote about it here.
  • How do KAUST students entertain themselvesUPDATE: After speaking with the video owner, I decided to remove it because it might compromise her safety. She did not ask me to remove it, but I thought it would be better for everyone. Sorry.
  • Jeddah United basketball team has joined efforts with automobile distributor Haji Husein Alireza & Co. Ltd. to launch Khobar United, the first of its kind women’s sports organization in the EP. When I visited Jeddah two years ago I had a chance to attend a kids tournament organized by Jeddah United where I also met the team’s captain Lina al-Maeena. Sports in girls’ schools is still being debated, but what these guys have been doing is really impressive.
  • I have been following this photoblog for a while. Michael is a Swiss photographer who works with a publishing company in Jeddah, and he has been posting different pictures from the Kingdom. I have frequently linked to them on my link blog, but today I was dismayed to read that he removed a series of abaya pictures that he previously posted because he was afraid that his “association with KAUST could get the university in trouble.” I’m not a KAUST basher, but I’m a KAUST skeptic, and removing these pics only deepens my skepticism. UPDATE: I talked to Michael and he said he will repost the pictures.
  • Indonesian housemaids who want to come work in Saudi Arabia must take a Sharia crash course before they can come here. The course will include prophet’s teachings about black magic and the punishment of those who might use it, as well as some basic Arabic vocabulary. The Saudi government hope that such program would reduce the number of runaway maids who eventually get employed in the housemaids black market.
  • Arab News reports on the campaign to boycott ‘manned’ lingerie shops that I wrote about a couple of days ago. Fellow blogger Eman al-Nafjan is quoted in the story.
  • Tariq al-Maeena: “Yes, tomorrow is different to some. And depending on which side of the fence you sit, the color red will definitely have some say.”
  • The young Bin Baz continues to make headlines. Here, he is interviewed by al-Watan daily where he reaffirms his not-so-orthodox opinions about women’s driving, mixing, khulwa, and birth control.