During my first months in Riyadh, I noticed a lot of things that were unusual to me. As time passes by, everything is becoming more usual and nothing seems to be awkward or surprising. However, there are some behaviors here that I still cannot understand.

One thing is why/how most of the young women here never leave home without their maids. They take their maids everywhere. When I saw this for the first time at Al-Azizia Market, I thought “maybe those spoiled girls of Riyadh are just too lazy to pick up goods and push the trolley themselves.”

Then I started to see that everywhere. The maid will open the car door for her lady, and walk behind her in the shopping malls like a dog just to carry the bags. Meanwhile, her lady will be shopping recklessly at all the high street retailers, buying the ugliest pieces for the most expensive prices without taking a moment to think what the hell is she doing.

OK, I said everywhere, but here’s a place I never thought a girl will take her made to. Some girls cannot come to the university campus without their maids! A student told Asharq Al-Awsat that bringing the maid is “necessary to carry the abaya.” Moreover, some students will come with more than one maid “to open and close doors, carry the bags, the cellular phone and the sunglasses.” Yeah, sure, all these impossible missions will take more than one super maid to be done!

Ironically, the maids have one advantage at the campus, where they can wear whatever they want. Meanwhile, the ladies/students are obliged to wear some kind of uniform, “to prevent discrimination between the different classes of the society.” Really?

I was talking with a Syrian classmate/friend of mine this morning, and he assured me on some viewpoints I had in mind for a while but I wasn’t sure about.

When someone visits Riyadh for the first time, he could be fascinated with how a huge city this is. A city that was built to be XL at everything; huge streets, two high skyscrapers and one of the biggest universities in the world. However, deep down, Riyadh is a weirdly divided city. When you get to know people and experience the lifestyle of this city, which is unstylish at all, you will come to understand what my earlier description was all about.

Before going into some details, I want to make it clear that whenever I use the word “conservative” in this post, I don’t use it as opposite to the word “liberal” but as opposite to who I like to call “anti-conservative”. Anti-conservatives are people with no traditions; no principles, no values, and all what concerns them in life are the little stuff. Those people who I’d like to call “empty souls“.

The majority of population of Riyadh is extremely conservative. This is no wonder if we kept in mind that this city was the starting point and the main center of Wahhabism. Those people are in control of almost everything in the city, from shopping malls to social events.

In contrast, the remaining minority is extremely anti-conservative. I don’t know how this kind of people could grow up in such an environment and educational system, but they exist, despite all the odds. And yes, they are minority, but you can easily recognize them.

In this city, you have the chance to run into the extremist fundamentalists, and the in the same time you have the chance to run into the empty souls; the smuttiest boys and the sluttiest girls. Sure, there are some people in between. But to me, these people are not interesting enough to write about. They are just so… ordinary.

My friend, born and raised in Saudi Arabia, agreed with me on the above, but he was arguing that some freedom could be dangerous to this city. He says that if the conservatives loosen up a little, the chaos and confusion will be overwhelming. Maybe, but freedom does not come without a price, and I think no matter how expensive it is, it will be worth it.

Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal, the chairman of The Kingdom Holding, and the richest man in Saudi Arabia, announced that his company recruited the first Saudi woman to work as a pilot. Prince Al-Waleed told the press that captain Hanadi could be the pilot of his private jet someday.

Earlier this year, the first Saudi female pilot tried to get a job at the government-owned national airline, but they rejected her.

The first elections ever in Saudi Arabia is becoming more and more visible. Take a quick tour in the streets of Riyadh and you will see all the ads that promote the coming municipal elections and urge citizens to register, because “unless you register, your voice will not be heard,” the ad says.

However, I don’t expect a high voting rates. It is the first time Saudis have the chance to vote and participate in making decisions. Plus, Saudis never seemed to be, at least to me, interested in politics.

I don’t know if there’s any Saudi readers for this blog, but if you are Saudi citizen, 21 or older, and want to know the important dates and places, please head to Elections.gov.sa.

I will be voting in the second stage, scheduled after three months, and I’m only worried that when time to vote comes, I may not find any candidate good enough to vote for! Let’s wait and see.

I occasionally link to Asharq Al-Awsat website to comment on news and stuff, and for you who can read Arabic, and maybe some of you who can’t but were curious enough to take a look, I know that you feel sick every time you visit the website. It is ugly, it is slow, and it could hurt your eyes. I can say for sure that this website is a huge violation to the web design usability rules.

I had enough of that, so I sent an email to the editor-in-chief to complain about the awful state of the website. They did not reply to my email, but about a week after I sent it, they put a banner on the top of their homepage says “Get ready for the new look of our website… Coming soon!”

I don’t know if you ever heard about Rai music, but currently I’m enjoying the latest album of Khaled, the king of Rai, and one of the pioneers who brought this kind of music to Europe and helped to spread it around the world.

Khaled, formerly known as Cheb Khaled, took a long time to make this album, due to some problems with his former producer (Universal, I guess). Khaled wanted to make an album attached to the roots of Rai; while the producer insisted that he should go with the latest trends of Rai, which I think are lousy and dull.

So, he decided to leave the company and sign a deal with a new producer. Khaled stuck to his idea, and the result was impressive. A good album of true pure Rai, with some neat touches of Soul and Jazz. Khaled, who was the first to mix Rai with Pop, Rock’n’Roll and Hip-Hop, worked this time with the National Algerian Orchestra to give this album its original taste.

The album is available at Amazon, and I’m sure this album, alongside the other smash hit album 1,2,3 Soleils, could make a good addition to enrich your music library.

One wise man once said:

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

In light of the injustices committed by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, concerned members of the advertising and media community in Jordan have produced a media campaign (Palestine. Dying to Live.) to mobilize public opinion, to open the world’s eyes to the various violations of basic human rights, in an effort to bring forth the plight of the Palestinians to the Western world, in a language they understand.

Check out the website and the campaign gallery.

(via Subzero Blue)