Edge of Arabia

I hear that London is full of Saudis these days. A friend recently told me that Leicester Square now looks like Tahlia St., with Saudi boys occupying all the tables at all restaurants and cafes. The only difference, probably, is the presence of uncovered women, a breed that is too rare in our Tahlia back here in Riyadh. Those boys show a usual face of Saudi Arabia, one that I’m not particularly proud of.

But comes October, London will be the venue for another face of this country, and it is certainly one that we are all proud of and glad to show to the whole world.

Edge of Arabia, is a pioneering exhibition that is set to shed new light on the largely unknown contemporary art culture of Saudi Arabia. A new generation of artists will be in London this october to take part in the first ever comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Saudi art staged in the UK. It will feature the work of 17 Saudi contemporary artists, male and female, whose work explores the complex and diverse identities of 21st century life in the Middle East.

The exhibition is organized by the award-winning Offscreen Education Programme and will run from 16th October – 13th December 2008 at the SOAS Brunei Gallery, University of London. For more info, check out the press release (PDF).

Too Centralized?

One of the courses I’m taking this summer is Pharmacy Law. The current law was issued few years ago to replace the first law that regulated the profession of pharmacy in Saudi Arabia which has been used since the 1960’s. There is no such thing as a perfect law, and this one is no exception. My professor has repeatedly criticized it throughout the classes, pointing out many of its loopholes and shortcomings.

While many of the law’s problems lie in the details, one major flaw stands out because it is not limited to the pharmacy law but rather universal and is directly related to how our government is functioning.

Many (all?) laws regulating different professions in the country are issued by a single authority that is the Council of Ministers, chaired by the King. Saudi Arabia is a huge country, and this centralized approach of governing is overwhelming to the Council of Ministers which has to approve every little detail in a very wide variety of laws and regulations. Even a tiny change in one article of a preexistent law takes years to be approved and implemented. Keep in mind that we don’t even have a parliament which could stop the government from doing whatever they want to do. Yet, the process remains slow, and this slowness is bad for people and bad for business.

The government should consider moving some from their responsibilities to other entities such as civil society organizations and independent government bodies. Unfortunately, we severely lack such institutions in our country.

Saudi Arabia has recently passed a new law for regulation of civil society organizations. The new law has received a lukewarm response, but hopes remain high that it would propel the creation of new organizations and bodies. However, the concept of civil society is closely connected to democratic systems. Considering the current political situation in the country, it is debatable if civil society can flourish here and lead to significant changes.

Judges Gone Wild

If writing about the Commission is like beating a dead horse, then writing about the judicial system is like… beating a dead mule. There is much to say, but I will leave these recent examples talk for themselves:

How are we supposed to trust that our cases will end up in the right hands?

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.






Too Much to Ask?

More than 75 days have passed since the arrest of Matrook al-Faleh, the political sciences professor at KSU, who was taken from his office at the university in a manner that is inappropriate and unacceptable, to say the least. No official statement has been released on why he was arrested and what are the charges against him. He remains in solitary confinement and he is yet to be allowed to meet his lawyer.

Jamila al-Uqla, al-Faleh’s wife, has issued a statement today saying what her husband is put through violates Sharia, as well as international laws and accords which oppose any kind of treatment that degrades human dignity. She also called on human rights organizations and activists around the world to speak out for him and ask for his release because his demands are peaceful and public.

There is not much more to say other than repeating what I said here two months ago, and also what 140 intellectuals and activists wrote in a petition to the King that was published in early June. Either release him, or present him to a fair public trial.

Commission Ban Cats and Dogs

I have been trying to avoid writing about the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice lately because, frankly, why beat a dead horse? But this one is just too good to miss:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Now I’m not particularly a fan of cats and dogs. My friends who are pet owners know this, and they usually keep their pets away when I visit them. It’s not like I have anything against these animals but I just have this fear of getting too close to them. Still, this decision is just idiotic.

But before we get more into this, let’s go back a little bit. This whole ban thing has actually started in Jeddah two years ago. At the time, Jeddah’s Commission said that young Saudis who go out in streets with their pet dogs are violating of the Kingdom’s culture and traditions, and allegedly causing distress especially to families with young children. Interestingly, and luckily for my friend Rasheed who has since moved to Abu Dhabi, the ban has never implemented. “All pet stores are still selling cats and dogs,” one pet owner told Arab News.

However, although Riyadh and Jeddah are two big cities in the same country, they can be quite different on matters like these. The Commission is much, much more powerful in Riyadh than in Jeddah and therefore I expect this ban to be fully implemented in the capital.

Of course it is needless to say how ridiculous this whole thing is. The reason the Commission presented for the ban is kind of a joke, really: “because of men using them as a means of making passes at women,” they said. So you go and ban dogs and cats? How about punishing those so-called men? I guess you are too busy invading people’s privacy and controlling their lives to bother with few men who use their pets to annoy others.

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