Category Politics

Who Needs Doctors?

Saudis comprise around 20% of the workforce in the healthcare sector. Considering this very low figure, the government have decided to open new colleges of medicine and health-related sciences to cope with the increasing demand of healthcare services in the country. It seems pretty much straightforward and it should make sense to almost everyone. I say “almost” because there is one particular man who strongly disagrees.

Sheikh Saleh al-Fowzan, a senior cleric and member of the Ulema Council, recently wrote to Al-Riyadh daily expressing his dismay at this approach by the government, which included opening health colleges even at Imam Mohammed bin Saudi Islamic University, and asking the government to open more religious colleges at the “civic” universities. I thought we already have large Islamic studies departments at all of our universities but what do I know.

Sheikh al-Fowzan argues that people need Sharia more than they need medicine and science, and that they need muftis and preachers more than doctors and scientists. (!)

With mentalities like this one, no wonder our country is still struggling to join the modern world. Such statements readily exposes that there are still some people in the religious establishment who seem so detached from reality. I have to say that at first I was laughing and thought nobody would buy his argument, but going through many comments on the newspaper’s website had left me frightened. This man owns a seat in the body which has the highest religious authority in the country, and his opinions — bizarre and foolish as they maybe — exert much influence on how regular folks here think.

I don’t want to ask him to be more responsible and act according to what is in the best interest of our nation because apparently that doesn’t concern him at all. But please, cut the nonsense and stop insulting our intelligence. Oh and btw, I think he could really use a doctor.

Legal Matters

Abdullah Al-Alsheikh, the Minister of Justice, has recently given a lengthy interview (Arabic) to Asharq Al-Awsat where he made some interesting comments about the performance of the ministry and other related issues. MOJ has become under increased scrutiny following bizarre judgments in some high profile cases such as the Qatif Girl case.

I was disappointed to read that a committee from MOJ is working on the US$ 1.86bn plan the King ordered to overhaul the judicial system in the country. How can the very same people who created, or inherited, the current system, and didn’t see anything wrong with it until the King spoke, be responsible to implement the kind of radical changes proposed in the plan when they seemed for a very long time rather comfortable with the status quo?

I think it would have been better to bring people from outside the establishment to fix it as I don’t expect much from those who didn’t produce much in the first place. Actually, using the word “system” to describe the present situation of the legal process is some sort of a compliment. “Chaos” is the word I would use to describe what citizens have to endure in the courts.

We suffer from a sever shortage in the number of judges: the idea of having only 600 judges to serve the needs of 25m population is simply incomprehensible. According to legal experts, this shortage is the result of the current method of choosing judges which is based on regional, tribal and religious considerations, instead of qualifications and experience. The direct effect of this situation is that most cases takes years and years to be resolved, violating the basic human right of access to a fair speedy trial.

Another urgent matter that MOJ must take care of is the obvious need to a clear set of codified laws. Currently, people are at the whims of judges who can in the absence of any specific reference pass completely different judgments on very similar cases. Say someone stole a car; he could be lucky to catch a pleasant judge who happens to be in a good mood that day and sentence him to three weeks of community service, or he could be unlucky to catch a cranky judge on a bad day and sentence him to 150 lashes plus 2 months in jail.

The minister said they are still studying codifying the Sharia, and they will continue doing that over the next few months. I am afraid that after they take forever to finish this study they may conclude that they don’t need to codify anything. Unlikely, but possible considering the recent history of this ministry.

Why We Are Happy

When John Burgess published a recent post on Crossroads Arabia titled “Happy Saudis!” I was like “Huh!” The post links to a chart from a study conducted by the World Values Survey based at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research which states that Saudi Arabia is the 26th happiest country in the world. “It’s widely believed that it’s almost impossible to raise an entire country’s happiness level,” says Ronald Inglehart, political scientist at U-M and the director of the World Values Surveys.

The “surprising finding” has prompted me to think what possibly could be the reasons behind the overwhelmingly positive attitude of my countrymen…

See? The list is endless!

How about you fellow citizens? Why are you so goddamn happy?

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.

Dirty Games

I never liked the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF). Not just because of their lame policy of erratically and irrationally sacking one coach after another, but also because the overall performance of our sports teams is simply not comparable to the talent pool we have in this country. I can’t think of any reason for this situation other than mismanagement of resources available at the disposal of this federation.

A long running saga of SAFF involves building a new football stadium in Jeddah. The current Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium in the coastal city was built in 1980. I could not find any solid numbers regarding the stadium’s capacity, but Google thinks it’s somewhere between 25,000-35,000 spectators, which is considered medium by today’s standards. Jeddah is the home of two major football clubs in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli, which means a large number of matches is played on the stadium every year. Add to that poor maintenance and lack of any renovation effort and you get an outdated, ugly mess.

Rumors about the new Jeddah stadium, expected to be named after Crown Prince King Abdullah, have been circulating for, I don’t know, like the past ten years or so. SAFF claim that they have all plans ready for the new stadium but they are waiting for the Ministry of Finance to allocate the needed money for the project. SAFF have been blaming MOF for taking such a long time to approve the budget of the project and allocate the money.

However, if what Arreyadi sports newspaper has reported today is true, then I don’t blame MOF for putting the plans on hold. The newspaper cited sources at MOF saying the delay in approving the plans is based on their conviction that the estimated budget by SAFF is quite exaggerated. SAFF say they will need SR 10 billion to build the new stadium.

For the sake of comparison, the construction cost of the Emirates Stadium, one of Europe’s newest and most expensive football venues, is £430 million (~ SR 3 billion). Why SAFF are asking for this exorbitant amount of money when they actually need just a fraction of it remains a mystery, unless we get a chance to see their plans for the new stadium, which better include some architectural miracles and never-seen-before technologies to justify this huge budget.

I understand that Arreyadi is not very friendly toward SAFF for reasons beyond the scope of this blog post, but even if their report is not accurate, it nevertheless sheds the light on an important issue that has been long overlooked. Saudi Arabia has not built any new football stadiums since the opening of King Fahad International Stadium in Riyadh in 1989.

On Saudi Students and Hijab in France

When the French government decided to ban all religious symbols in schools few years ago the decision hardly went unnoticed, especially by Muslims as many of them found the rule directly targeting the hijab. While I find this French rule idiotic, I find it equally if not more idiotic what some Saudi female students who got scholarships to France have to say about the implications of this rule on their education.

“There should be a clear agreement between our two governments by which Muslims going there for education could keep their hijabs on,” one of them told Arab News. After spending SR 7,000 to study French, she is now asking the officials to sort it out.

The only way I see for our “officials” to “sort it out” is this: one of them gets the French citizenship, he wins the presidential elections there, and then he makes the parliament change the law. Pretty straight forward, huh? No offense to Ms. Abdulhadi, but don’t you think you could have spent a few hours learning some general information about France and its laws before you apply for a scholarship there?

Another student went as far as asking the government to stop scholarships to France altogether. Sorry Missy, just because you think French laws contradict what you believe in doesn’t give you the right to deny others the chance to go and pursue a better education in that place as long as it suits their beliefs.

I think this story says a lot about the political awareness of our youth and how they view the world. They somehow seem to believe that it can be modified to become more in line with their liking, and that a simple call to the so-called officials disguised in the name of religion is enough to change everything as we often see around here. This should be a rude awakening to Ms. Abdulhadi and her friends, as well as for the rest of us who are still delusional about where we stand in this world today.

UPDATE: According to John Burgess, there is some confusion around this issue. Apparently wearing hijab in French universities is not forbidden, but medical schools have rules which ban head coverings as unhygienic. However, this doesn’t change much of what I said here.