The View from the Mecca Clock Tower
I was thinking ever since I saw pictures of the Mecca clock tower, that the view from up there would make for a great pictrue, especially a great night photograph, and oh how I would like to do a time-lapse video from that view.
Then my friend the Fashionisto :) Adnan Manjal posted this picture on twitter. His friend took it, and I would like to thank them both.
The Mecca Clock
Finally, a picture that puts it all in perspective.
Photo from the Boston.com Big Picture (here)
I Thought all Muslims are Extremist
“Rev. Bob: I used to be afraid of Muslims, I thought all Muslims are extremist”
A candid interview with Prince Turki (Turqi) Al-Faisal, which turned into Prince Turki turning the tables and interviewing the interviewer Reverend Bob, holding the camera and all 
I thought it was nice as an easy going interview which is about Christianity and Islam and a person’s relationship with God.
Now if we can all just have this type of dialogue with each other without being too one sided in our opinions, the world would be a whole lot nicer.
Paragliding in Abha – Saudi Arabia
Saw this on SUSRIStube.
I am not sure what the conditions of entry were for these guys, but it seemed like an interesting video to share here. The two paragliders are Andre Bernhard & Adi Ibanez, and they seem to have had a good time. (video)
I would’ve liked them to use a lens that wasn’t too wide which makes everything look almost like it was shot with a fisheye lens, and I wish the camera did not shake as much as it did.
Same Tash – Different Year
Seventeen years/seasons of Tash ma Tash, same tash, different year.
The show began as I heard once in a radio interview with one of the actors with little to nothing, he said they had to fund it from their pockets, I respect that, and I liked some of the shows as did the majority of Saudis, no other Saudi show has been going on for seventeen years, congrats to them, and I hope they keep up the good work.
However, I have to criticize the show for not improving beyond a certain level in those seventeen years, yes, they do deliver the message they want to deliver in each episode, ask any director and they would tell you the story and the message are the most important things that should come across, everything else is just aesthetics, and I agree, but not if you are going on strong for seventeen years and have people waiting for you year after year.
My modest attempts at movie making and that of the Saudi filmmakers group on vimeo have taught me a lot about the equipment out there, and to see students come up with better looking videos than a show which has been going on for seventeen years and is sponsored by many large companies who compete for commercial slots during the show’s airing… Makes me wonder to say the least at Tash’s own message.
The message in my opinion is they are holding up a mirror (a funny mirror) so society can see many of its wrongs and hopefully improve on them, not that I am sure any real difference is happening due to the show. So here I am holding up a mirror so the show can see itself, video wise, they need to get with the newer technology.
On twitter, Aysha Alkusayer (@ayshak) said “I am thinking, the most logical explanation for #6ash not hiring a consultant to review their scripts is that there’s none!” being a script writer herself, I think she knows what she’s talking about.
They only air a little more than 20 episodes each year, and they take almost a whole year to make them, I do not think they are rushed, I also think they should not still be made with this low quality after seventeen years.
But maybe that’s just me
New Saudi Labor Minister Adel Fakieh
Eng. Adel Fakieh (no relation to Rima Faqih) is the new Saudi Labor minister taking place of the late Dr Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, and he will need some of Tony Robbins motivational talks, unless he wants to get the Saudi version of Tony and get Rashad Fakiha, because that would help the Saudization efforts.
Again and again and again, Saudi has seen so much change over the decades, that, non of the so called known models in many subjects could be applied without further research or customisation. Whether it be an economist or a sociologist or a historian or a financial analyst, Saudi could be a place of prime interest for research and implementation.
Saudization is on the list, like the late Dr. Gosaibi, and like any government in the world, employment is a hot subject, especially now with the GFC still not over. How Can a country with so many foreign workers not be able to provide jobs for its own youth? With no minimum wage, and wages as low as 1800-2000SR a month, it is hard to get Gen-Y to do anything for that money, especially that some have parents who are well off like their baby boomer counterparts in the US, the idea of working for crumbs (to them) is not lucrative.
Some of the poorer families need those jobs, and do work in them and struggle like this guy who works as a security guard , a story like his is not rare, but with minimum education, and cheap foreign labor, their chances of finding a trade or working in construction are almost none existent, plus, every trade has a nationality that has a grip on it, the last thing they need is Saudi guys competing with them, so there is another barrier of entry for them.
Of course industry has the upper hand in all of this, they need laborers to conduct their business, while they could hire a Saudi guy who might work for little money, they could get an experienced person for that amount and that person would be locked in a contract (i.e. she/he won’t leave before it ends, or leave with a thirty day notice, not that at that minimum wage a severance package is anything to look forward to), and more often than not, that person would be able to save and invest his money back in his own country or send his children to the best universities there because that measly sum, goes a long way in many countries where most people live on less than $2 a day. I am happy for them of course, they struggle and sacrifice to make a better life for themselves and their families, and they have my utmost respect no matter what honest job they do, or what nationality they are from.
I wish the new minister the best in trying to find the never ending balance between the people on one side and industry on the other.
Eng. Adel Fakieh is under a lot of criticism from the people due to the Jeddah floods, I do not know the extent of his involvement in finding a solution, but I know the problem developed years before his time.
Of course due to the lack of political parties that tear each other’s policies up (and character and personal life, etc) on national television, radio, magazines and newspapers, this thing does not happen in Saudi, instead, people are using twitter #fagih but it is only to vent some pent up frustration.
It is not like people can vote for a minister anywhere in the world, they vote for a Prime Minister or President and that person chooses his cabinet, so if the King appointed him, I think he trusts him and has heard his ideas, I and everyone else for that matter can only wait and see when these ideas turn into policies.
Saudi Arabia Putting a Cap on Fatwas
I have to confess, I am not much of a follower of fatwas, but more a follower of P.H.A.T.W.A However, I am happy that King Abdullah stopped the fatwas from coming out… now this as everything is a double edged sword.
One of the problems I hope this decree solves is the clarification that not every word that comes out of a religious person’s mouth is a fatwa, like the so called Mickey mouse fatwa which was not a fatwa at all, or any similar ones, which are too abundant to even start mentioning. People in Saudi are guilty of hanging on to these words, as is the media that is willing to contort and run with any story.
Another problem I hope this solves is that now, the frequency we hear “Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa” saying this or that (ex. breastfeeding the driver or coworker) will now be zero, as this is now a government organized thing, and anyone who has tried to get a little paper signed at any government office anywhere around the world knows that bureaucracy is a staple of government, and so… any fatwa will take a loooooong time to be issued
I can imagine them now, going to the fatwa issuing office on the third floor, taking a number and sitting down, then when their number comes, they talk to a very uninterested employee who tell him he has to fill out form A, and get signatures from two references and put them all in a green folder, and not to forget to attach a passport size photo on top of form A without his glasses on, and include two photocopies of his national ID and university degree with the transcript all of course should be official copies of the original documents notarized by a registered notary public, and of course he should comeback in two weeks and when he does comeback, they tell him that his papers are still with the head of the department, please come back in another two weeks. (this paragraph is just my imagination running wild, do not take it seriously)
Now why did we not hear of all these fatwas a long time ago? well, now everyone has relatively more freedom to say what they want, including but not limited to people in the religious establishment, and since Saudi has no political parties and no celebrities (except a few soccer players and a few singers, yet it is not enough for a tabloid industry) to keep people debating or talking about this and that, the clerics have the limelight, and some know how to use it better than others.
I do not see this as a form of limiting the freedom of speech of those individuals, it is, in my opinion at least, a form of the government protecting it self from being associated with crazy fatwas that seem to be coming up more often these days then ever before.
Islam, since its early days had so many schools of thought and little branches… those debates will continue until the end of time, and people’s propensity to come up with strange laws in every culture is another never ending story
*Photo was designed by Ashraf AlFagih
Dr. Ghazi Algosaibi
Dr. Ghazi Algosaibi passed away at the age of 70, a career Saudi government man who held more high positions than anyone in my limited knowledge of government officials and ministers, what I know is he was criticized for reasons I thought were absurd, so I knew he was on the right track.
Recently the Information Minister Aziz Khoja lifted the ban which was imposed on some of his literary works, which made me wonder, how one can be a Saudi minister and still have some of his books banned from the market? I am sure I am not alone in wondering about that 
I also learned today from twitter that he has a son named Suhail and in his bio it says “Bahrain’s most outspoken entrepreneur, martial artist, and author” Suhail also has an interesting website.
Yes, how can a Saudi minister have a son who is “Bahrain’s most outspoken”? I asked myself that question also, but then I remembered, how can a Saudi blogger live in Australia? Well, because like many other nationalities, we can, and do, live in many different countries, some very close to home, and some… almost on the edge of the earth.
Rest In Peace Dr. Ghazi, I am sure a man of your caliber will be missed.
Mike Tyson in Mecca (Makkah)
Mike Tyson performing Umrah
This is a picture of Mike Tyson in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, after he performed Umrah. I am sure more pictures will surface or will be shared by him or his publicist.
I hope he does not go all Maureen Dowd on us, cause then I’m gonna have to… cause you know me, I mean… yeah 
Saudi Arabia and The Social Change Process
Intro
I hinted before that I would write about the Dissociative identity disorder that I and many others have noticed or experienced in my society, and I have been putting it off for way to long, but I’ve decided to give it a go.
Change, whether it is personal for fitness or health (inner or outer) or in a small business or big organization, is the subject of many books and some peoples life long study and income generator, just pass by the sections for self-help or business and you would know what I mean. The first thing they suggest is that small changes are introduced. If you want to run a marathon you cannot just get up and run it, you have to start by walking, then alternate between walking and jogging, then jog, then do half a marathon, etc. otherwise you risk injuring yourself.
As an engineer I understand that big things, need to be made first on a small scale before making them into massive structures, and that translates into social structures as well.
It is also nothing short of a miracle that Saudi is what it is today, no place in the history of the world has experienced this tremendous change in under a century.
Perspective
Almost everything is imported, and with the oil boom, the Saudi market was and still is very lucrative to manufacturers and marketers of every little and big thing. One country had the upper hand with imports into Saudi, and with trade, like early Muslim trade with the far East for example, comes products along with customs and language.
I am a product of that change, along with many others, just take a look at the Saudis writing in English. English is almost our first language, we grew up watching American shows and we dressed like the cool people we saw on TV. When we went out we ate fast food, and listened to American music, and watched Hollywood movies (not in theatres of course).
That is why, when you read blogs written by American ladies who married a Saudi, they would tell you that their husbands were at ease in the US, it is almost like going home for some.
Yet for others, it created a shock at what they or the society has become, and this is not unique. In the African American community, they label or tell a person that he/she are “acting white”, and it goes the other way also. The famous rapper Eminem was beaten at school for “trying to act black”. Then there is the Banana, and it goes on and on.
The Alternative
So what do those who experience the shock do? The only alternative would be to try to go back to the roots, quoting how glorious their people in the past were, and how if they embrace the old values, glory would be bestowed upon them again, forgetting that the only constant in life is change.
And again, there are those who make millions from promoting the old lifestyle, their books, tapes and lectures are sold, a TV appearance would make them a cool million, the mosque that they lead would be full, and what seems like a crazy fatwa would be the best advertisement, it makes people talk about them more, then they have to go on and explain themselves, and in this ever increasing traffic of media coming at us from every direction competing with their profits… a sheikh has bills to pay, kids to feed and a lifestyle to sustain.
The Negative
“They make us hate ourself and love they wealth” Kanye West said, while media in the western world makes people hate themselves for not being skinny enough, not having muscles that are big enough, not having the latest gadget and car or the biggest house or designer bag, those things are inflicted on our society, and a bit more.
That bit is the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims. As much as it leaves a negative impression on a person who has never met an Arab or Muslim, it also affects the psyche of a little Arab child growing up, making him/her hate what his/her culture represent, forgetting the many positive attributes that are available within the environment they live in and focussing on the negatives or the contorted realities provided by the media machine, and with the lack of balanced voices between the two extremes, it gets difficult, really difficult to get the positives from the past and the present to create a better now.
I have stumbled across a few Saudi blogs written by young Saudis and I could sense they suffer from what I just said.
Have a listen to this TED talk by Naif Al-Mutawa a clinical psychologist on why he created the Superheros, to better understand what I mean.
Equilibrium
Can it be achieved? Only time will tell, I believe that education and teaching people to think for themselves is a first step. No two generations are the same anywhere in the world, and each generation always tells the other they have it easy yet their generation was better
One has to be true to thyself first, as easy as it sounds it is not easy at all.
Questions
I think I have barely scratched the surface, as these are only my modest observations, can we get to where we want to get? and where is that and what does it look like exactly? I have many questions of my own, but I would love to hear your observations and questions.
