Ray of Hope

Following my latest post, Khaled has written that although we have plenty of good blogs, we are still far behind our counterparts in countries like Egypt and Kuwait when it comes to using blogs as tools for stimulating political and social change. I agree with him, but I think this is not surprising, and I have written about it on previous occasions.

There are, imho, two main reasons behind this. First, the process of making decision in our country has always been restricted to an exclusive circle. Normal people hardly have any history of political participation, and our first, and only so far, democratic experience took place two years ago when we voted to elect half the members of municipal councils that we yet to see their effect on improving the quality of our everyday life. Second, I think that we as a society, as I perviously wrote here, lack the concept of collective action, even in fields that might be considered much less sensitive and dangerous than politics.

However, this is changing. The past few years have witnessed a notable increase in political awareness, and thanks to the revolution of communication and new media, people now have greater access to information and more outlets for free expression, and they are more willing to voice their opinions and discuss issues that used to be taboos. Just look at our blogosphere today and you would see a new rising generation of young tech- and political-savvy Saudis who consider reforming their country a noble cause that is worth fighting for and should not be let go, and are more than determined to make the change they dream of a reality everyone can touch. They are the hope of this nation, and we cannot afford to lose this hope.

10 Must Read Saudi Blogs

Here is a list of ten blogs that I think one should read in order to get a sense of the Saudi blogosphere and feel the real pulse of streets in the country. This is strictly my opinion; if you think there are other blogs that should have been included in the list please do leave a comment or, even better, you can make up your own list and post it on your blog. Note: blogs from 1-5 are in Arabic, while those from 6-10 are in English, however, the list is absolutely in no particular order.

‬1.‭ ‬Heaven’s Steps‬:‭ ‬Hadeel al-Hodhaif is one of the few‭ (‬the only‭?) ‬Saudi female bloggers to use her real name online.‭ ‬Her blog was mentioned on several big websites such as‭ ‬BBC Arabic, and she was interviewed on Al Jazeera‬.‭ ‬Earlier this year,‭ ‬Hadeel was invited to speak at a media conference in Oman,‭ ‬where she talked about her experience in the Saudi blogosphere.

‬2.‭ Mashi97‭:‬ ‬Khaled al-Nassir’s frankness and courage have gained him popularity in a short time,‭ ‬but also cost him a temporary brief absence after writing some fierce posts a few weeks ago.‭ ‬Fortunately,‭ ‬he is back now,‭ ‬with a much cooler head‭ ‬:-‭)

‭3‬.‭ A Tribe Called Sarah: ‬This blog,‭ ‬written by a student studying in Bahrain,‭ ‬is a homogeneous mixture of love,‭ ‬poetry,‭ ‬and humor.‭ ‬Many readers feels that Sarah’s memoir-style blog is some kind of a novel in the making.

‭4‬.‭ MagicKingdom‬:‭ Mohammed’s blog does not only ask good questions and start interesting conversations, but also offers a much needed view on the scene of culture and arts in the country.

‭5‬.‭ Entropy.MAX: ‬Entropy has been blogging for only few months,‭ ‬but over that short time she has proved what an outspoken,‭ ‬articulate blogger she is.‭ ‬It is not only about the issues she touches on,‭ ‬but also in the way she explores the different sides of these issues.

6‬.‭ SaudiSphere: ‬Aya is a young Saudi woman blogging from New York City,‭ ‬and her critical,‭ ‬angry blog is one of most interesting blogs written by Saudis who live abroad.‭ ‬One thing you would find on this blog that you can’t find anywhere else in the local blogosphere is Aya’s occasional selections of cartoons from newspapers all around the world.

7‬.‭ ‬Annals of a Space Cowboy‬: ‬The name says it all‭? ‬Nah‭! ‬In this blog,‭ ‬Fahad al-Butairi,‭ ‬aka Fedo,‭ ‬a student at the University of Texas,‭ ‬comments on news and posts some interesting YouTube videos.‭ ‬He is also a‭ ‬contributer to Global Voices‬,‭ ‬covering the Saudi blogosphere on semi-weekly basis.

‭8‬.‭ An Englishman in Saudi Arabia‬: I wrote about this blog for the first time in last December, and now he is back after some hiatus. This British blogger moved to Riyadh a while ago, and started this blog to record his adventures with tailgaters on our streets and ninjas in our shopping malls. Quite amusing.

‭9‬.‭ ‬Crossroads Arabia‭‬: ‬It is not the only Saudi blog written by non-Saudi,‭ ‬but definitely the best one in this category.‭ ‬Blogger John Burgess is a former US foreign service officer who has had two tours in Saudi Arabia.‭ ‬He describes his work as an effort to put the country into context,‭ ‬and his experience makes this blog one of the invaluable sources about Saudi Arabia on the web.

‬10.‭ ‬Rasheed’s World‭: ‬Rasheed Abul-Samh is a Saudi-American journalist.‭ ‬He is a senior editor at Arab News,‭ ‬and also reports for Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times.‭ ‬His ability to bring us the-story-behind-the-story is what makes his blog stands out.

Honorable mentions: There is also a few many Saudi blogs that I consider worth reading. Here’s some of them. In English: American_Bedu, S as in Saudi, and Kingdom of Lunacy. In Arabic: Bandar, OS X Arabia, Arab Tech Channel vlog!, and Prometheus.

My Bad

I did not see that coming. I mean: I really, really did not see that coming. On the opening day of the fourth Saudi Media Forum organized by SAMC here in Riyadh, the minister of interior has made some bold statements:

Interior Minister Prince Naif yesterday urged the Saudi community not to endorse the culture of segregation between men and women. The remarks were met with applause from members of the audience where the prince was speaking.

“Segregation of men and women is not correct,” Naif told an audience consisting of officials, academics and media persons, who were attending an annual communication forum organized by the Saudi Association for Media and Communication here.

Don’t get too excited, though. Arab News have emphasized on these statements and decided to use them as one of the main stories on their front page today, but unfortunately they failed to mention this: these statements were made as a response to a question on the need for a Saudi women’s media forum. Of course we will read all kinds of (mis)interpretations of these few words by our pundits over the coming few days, but, and before what is going to be a media hoopla, I believe there is only thing I should say here: I’m not holding my breath.

Announcement

This post was supposed to appear almost two weeks ago before some changes take place here, but somehow I totally forgot about it, and for that I apologize. The thing is: although I have owned the domain saudijeans.org for some time now, my blog has been hosted on Google’s blogspot.com domain. The blog is still hosted by Google, but I decided to use the new feature from Blogger to offer the blog under my own domain. You can still access/link to the blog using both domains: saudijeans.blogspot.com and http://www.saudijeans.org, but I prefer that you would use the latter one. The old feeds are still working, but you are advised to use the new ones. Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience.

Who Can Outshine Dubai?

Upon a recent visit to Dubai, Tareq Al-Maeena confirmed what many people have been saying recently: the thriving city has become very expensive, crowded, with too much ‘bling’, and not much substance. I wonder what he would say when he learns that Hooters are coming soon :-) In his conclusion, Al-Maeena suggests those can’t stand living in Dubai anymore should consider taking the nearest exit, hinting that Saudi Arabia can be heaven for those repelled by Dubai’s luxurious hell. Actually, this kind of argument is not exclusive to us; it is very visible in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar as well.

However, Al-Maeena does not forget to point out, though shyly, that in order for this to happen Saudis should relax their regulations and implements some changes and reforms before they can offer their country as alternative to our Emarati neighbors. Saudi Arabia is the largest market in the region after all, right? I wonder what suggestions Al-Maeena, and the rest of our distinguished intelligentsia, have on how we can make our cities more attractive than Dubai. I mean: with the fierce opposition against everything “different” and/or “liberal” we see in our country on daily basis, is this idea of competing Dubai even realistic?

Arab Summit = Long Weekend

The best part about the coming Arab leaders summit in Riyadh is that the government have decided to give students and employees two days off in order to ensure the smoothness of traffic in the city as some major roads are to be blocked.

Now coming to my expectations of the summit, I would say “not much.” I mean it would be great if our leaders could do something about the political deadlock in Lebanon and the civil war in Iraq, but this seems very unlikely to happen, despite the speculations about a Saudi package engineered by Arabia’s Kissinger. The situation is all too similar to the latest GCC leaders summit: big speeches and big ambitions, but nothing that actually touches the lives of citizens or something they would look forward to.

Most probably I would be leaving Riyadh to enjoy the long weekend in Bahrain or to spend some time with family and friends in my hometown.

New Coach, Same Old Story

Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) have announced earlier this week that they sacked Brazilian coach Marcos Paqueta from his position as manager of the national team, and subsequently signed a contract with his compatriot Helio Dos Angos to prepare our national team for the Asian Cup in July. Paqueta, who still had nine months left in his contract when it was terminated, learned the news from newspapers. This is, imho, unprofessional on the behalf of SAFF, who should have at least told Paqueta earlier of their intentions to replace him.

However, it is not very unusual for SAFF to act this way. They have become very well-known for sacking managers irrationally since the 1970’s. An official at SAFF who spoke to the press described sacking Paqueta as a “tough decision,” which doesn’t seem to be the case, but whatever. He said they were not satisfied with the performance of the team during the World Cup, but decided to give him a second chance. When the team lost the Gulf Cup semifinal in December they could not take it anymore, and they “had to sack him,” he added.

I can’t for the life of me understand what SAFF were expecting; he is a coach, not a magician. I mean: were they seriously thinking that our team could go to the next round in the World Cup? This is just unrealistic; this is wishful thinking. Six months later, the team goes to Abu Dhabi as a favourite to win the Gulf Cup, but they find themselves out in the semifinal after losing to the hosts by a late goal of UAE’s wonder boy Ismail Matar, who went to win the cup in the first time in his country’s history. I think this should not be considered a major failure, especially when all critics in the region agreed that Saudi Arabia (and Oman) offered the best performance in the tournament.

Local sports press, in what has become some kind of a norm for them, began to circulate rumors and speculations about the fate of Paqueta and who is the next manager of the Green Falcons, in a fashion very similar to what we have seen with his predecessor Gabriel Calderon of Argentina. Obviously, it was only a matter of time, and SAFF, as usual, did not disappoint their ever decreasing base of fans. They remained faithful to their tradition of changing coaches before we even get familiar with the name of the last one.

Ironically, SAFF always talk about how they are committed to “scientific methods” when they make decisions on the future of our first national sport. However, I think the only progress they have made in the past ten years is this: we used to sack managers “on the spot” when our team don’t win, now we give them a few months to enjoy our sunny weather before sacking them.

Thanks to their “scientific methods,” Saudi Arabia have acquired such a bad reputation in the football market that most world class managers would decline to work here despite the large sums of money offered to them. Just take a quick look at the long list of managers who took the helm of the Saudi team since 1998 and you would not see any name that can be considered an internationally top manager. Why would any self-respecting manager compromise his history only to be sacked a few months later in a manner that will only damage his reputation?