A New Boulevard in Saudi

Qusay Politics 2 Comments

I guess with Ali Abdullah Saleh in Saudi now, Saudi needs a new boulevard of broken dreams.

A new remake of this classic is needed in the light of current events, but instead of Hollywood stars… it needs to have deposed leaders… or maybe they should remake the one with dogs playing poker.

Thomas Friedman – Saudi Wahabism

Qusay Politics 13 Comments

So Thomas Friedman says the reason for the appearance of Osama Bin Laden on the global scene is the wahhabi ideology, well that is either incomplete research or denial.

Having followed Friedman for a while, and having been in awe of his ”knowledge” when I first knew about him +10 years ago, I know personally how he seems convincing, but he does have an agenda which includes making everyone in the region look bad, and almost never finding fault with Israel.

Yes, the alliance between The Saudi family and Mohammad Ibn Abdulawahab goes back for decades, we learned that in school, that is no secret, what Friedman missed is a very big sign.

Maybe he never listened to Bin Laden speak, maybe he never heard his reasoning, if he did hear and analyse Bin Laden’s speeches, then he is denying and misleading his readers, if he didn’t hear or read the speeches, then he is BS-ing them, and on both accounts he should be ashamed.

I remember a Bin Laden speech after 911, it was the weekend in Saudi and my friends and I were planning on watching The Patriot, but like everyone we wanted to hear Bin Laden’s message, AlJazeera made everyone know what time it would air, he talked about Sykes-Picot, he talked about the Israeli occupation, he talked about the things the West does, and how when they are treated with the same they cry, the metaphor was something like when a sheep rams a wolf which is taking it’s young he cries foul play. That speech ruined the Patriot movie for my friends and I.

The carrot that extremist dangle in front of gullible believers is the Israeli occupation and the treatment of Palestinians. The promise to pray in the holy Al-Aqsa mosque, which they cannot go to, even Al-Oraifi tried to highlight that issue in his own special way.

Israel is an apartheid state, many are finally beginning to realize that fact and cutting funding, some Americans do not want their tax money to go to Israel, but it still flows, which is funny to me because I thought as a democracy, tax payers can say where they want their money to go. 6.8 million US dollars per day go to Israel, with nothing in return, at least the US is getting oil in return from Saudi, which of course they get their money back by Saudi buying American cars, and US franchises opening up all over Saudi, and of course arms deals, along with other things here and there.

I am an advocate for non violence, I disagree with many of the ”wahabi” ways, but I also understand that when you keep telling them to be peaceful yet non peaceful methods are being used against them… Well, most People are not from Nazareth and their conception was not immaculate, so don’t expect them to be able to turn the other cheek.

So will you, Thomas freedman, as an “expert” on the region, ever tell your country to see that they are helping the carrot grow.

Just in case you missed my point, you said America gives money to Saudi, Saudi gives money to extremist, let’s not give money to Saudi so they cannot give money to extremist.

America also gives a lot of money in return for nothing to Israel, Israel with its history of violence and continuing violence fuels the extremist, who then go look for funding, you see how you missed that big part of the picture?

America gets less than 10% of its oil from Saudi, which means that America’s dependence on Saudi oil is minimal.

You know, the vibe after the soviet retreat from Afghanistan was for the mujahideen to go to Palestine and liberate it, that was the carrot… And it still is, and you know what, even peaceful protesters (you know, the ones who took out Mubarak) are now willing to march peacefully into the Gaza strip, oh, and the Muslim brotherhood is not behind this, actually it is not in favor of it.

So either Israel becomes a real democracy (because it is going nowhere, not in any near future), and make every Arab envy the Arab-Israelis, or please stop the half-baked hypotheses… wait, no or… Just stop the half-baked hypotheses, you already bragged about how you do not really read the details of the policies you advocate… but then again, you have a mortgage to pay… come to think about it, no you don’t, you married into one of the 100 richest families in America.

Boycotting the Elections?

Qusay Politics 4 Comments

There seems to he a common consensus among the educated and liberal élite to boycott the coming municipal council elections in Saudi Arabia because they are a sham and do not represent what they want, on one hand I agree with that, on the other, it might result in what happened last time.

To make my self clear from the beginning, I think all elections are (insert appropriate bad word here), all over the world, the wealthy powerful individuals and corporations will continue to get their way in any system, and the poor squashed people will still be poor and squashed, that doesn’t mean the struggle should stop, nor that it ever will.

Last time, as I heard from someone whose uncle ran for whatever position he ran for, they were surprised with the results, it seemed the “conservative” party won, to everyone’s surprise. They have everyone’s ears five times a day, others do not have that accessibility, and can’t even dream of coming close to it. No they did not campaign in the mosque, but the people who always see them at the mosque, will vote for them.

Not that Saudi has any official political parties, last election had many people run campaigns in newspapers and street ads urging people to vote for them, the funny thing to me was, they all post a picture of themselves along with a list of credentials that had nothing to do with elections, and as I said before, they did nothing.

So will I be participating? My mind changes like a pendulum on this issue, I cannot fully embrace it, yet I cannot belittle the baby steps, no matter how little or small they may be, if anything, I will consider this a practice election, and I will optimistically say we need to practice more than once, after all, any unrest in Saudi will cause the price of a barrel of Oil to soar, and sitting where that is, no one wants that to happen.

One group that has my attention is the youth of Jeddah, the same people who volunteered during Jeddah’s times of need, are encouraging people to register to vote and later on will nominate or endorse someone they think is suitable to represent them.

So I will register to vote for now, what happens next? I cannot say, but at least I will have a voice… And that should count for something.

Dear Khaled

Qusay Politics 2 Comments

Dear Khaled,

a lot of people are looking for you, they have a hashtag out asking about you “Where is Khaled” #whereiskhaled, there is a Facebook page for you, and many people are calling you brave and courageous for speaking to BBC.

A part of me agrees with what you said, and find no reason to detain you, another part of me does not buy your story and feels like you are like the famous balloon boy.

I agree that we need more freedom of speech, but even those little freedoms are confiscated by people, usually regular people, even though the government, and those who are in charge of its official media channels are ok with what they say. I am of course talking about Aloraifi’s sermon calling some journalists traitors “westernizers” who hold a pen with their righthand and a cigarette, or god knows what else, with their left hand, and all they want is to see women on beaches with bikinis driving cars.

You of course have the right to complain, however, I have to say that you seem well off, you drive a new (or semi new) sports car while you have four kids (one is autistic) and you live on a teacher’s salary, my father was a teacher, he never drove a sports car after he had his first child (me), he didn’t drive a new car until he paid off the home loan, and that was only a few years before he retired a few years ago.

I know you complain about having the need to go to a the prince’s office to get things done, I never had to do that and I hope I never will, but as you know, in Saudi we have a job that probably exists nowhere else in the world called almo’agib, we pay him money to finish our governmental work, his only credentials might be he already had the three cups of tea with the guys, so they smile at him when they see him, while they don’t even answer our Salams when we try to finish up on a trivial matter.

A few weeks ago I renewed my national ID, they improved the way it is done, but I also wanted to renew my family ID because that big green ID is almost as big as a car’s license plate as you know, when I got to the window where the cleric is supposed to be, he got up and left, didn’t look twice at me, another guy came with his friend who came in from the back door, he printed a new ID while not even looking at me either, now a few people were standing in line (as much as possible) with me because they needed to renew their family IDs. Funny thing is, when he did finally talk to me, he told me that I had to have a new edition or a deletion to get a new ID and refused to renew it. As I was standing there, another friend of his, brought him the ID of his friend to renew it, I of course stood their and stared at him in a WTF manner, it worked, and he printed me a new wallet sized family ID, we no longer have to check if we have proper documentation before we leave the house, because you know, being caught with an unrelated woman is a crime, while being caught steeling the public’s money (either in KSA or the USA or anywhere in the world) is not a crime, but shoplifting and downloading music and videos is… It is a crazy world, rich white men got the world f’d-up, and I should give a F about a Styrofoam cup.

You also have an autistic son, my sister has an autistic son also, so I know the level of care is bad, they label every developmental problem as autism just to get your money, and care is not cheap. The doctors and care centers here are experimenting on the kids, I am sure they do not know what they are doing, most of the time the centers are run by bored wives of expats who have no credentials but their husbands have a lot of good connections, you know how it is I am sure, my nephew has not improved from those centers, but from my mother’s care, attention, and extensive reading on the subject, they couldn’t teach him a thing, but she is teaching him a lot, great mothers always do miracles.

By the way, my brother-in-law, my sister’s husband, is not Saudi, he works two jobs from 8am-11pm six days a week and drives a semi old Toyota corolla, not the rich BMW X6 driving expat, and not the poor not paid for months expat, just your normal regular hardworking non Saudi employee. Would you like to hear him describe how easy Saudi’s have it?

I do disagree with you on something, as a citizen I do not think anything should come to me, that thinking is what makes people throw garbage out of their windows at traffic lights and still expect to have clean roads, my son even asked if he could do the same.

You think you are not free, I know so many women who would disagree with you, you can go anywhere and do almost anything without blinking or thinking twice about what your behavior might do to your family’s reputation, would you like to try the prison our men (and women) impose on women (and their men)? I am sure as a married man you would know, and if you had a daughter you would really really really know.

I do not know how to end this letter, but I do hope you are safe, if I were the judge handling your case I would dismiss it, however, if it did turn out to be another balloon boy trick, I would put you in jail for a while, or better yet, I would sentence you to hours of community service.

Best regards,