Back to Basics in Saudi for Ramadan

Fazia Saleh Ambah writes in today's Washington Post that many young Saudis are turning to self-sacrifice (in a good way) and charity works to get back to the real meaning of Ramadan. Some of this shift is attributed to a "cool" young preacher named Ahmed al-Shugairi. In my opinion, the best thing for places like Saudi are educated and modern young lay-preachers who encourage young people to practice their religion in an intelligent and involved way, rather than an unthinking and archaic way. By using Islam to stress civic and personal responsibility, such preachers can make far more change in a society like Saudi than any other means of public diplomacy or education.

Like many Saudis, Jiddawi used to mark the Muslim holy month by shopping, eating lavishly and watching television until the wee hours. Then she slept, sometimes all day until sunset prayers signaled the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.
"That's what everyone did, but that's not really fasting," said Jiddawi, 28, a bank teller. "Fasting is about feeling your hunger, getting close to God and helping the poor."

In Saudi Arabia, one of the world's wealthiest Muslim countries, some people have started to criticize how many here observe Ramadan by essentially turning day into night to make fasting easier. Work and school hours have been shortened, shops stay open until right before dawn, and doctors and dentists offer appointments until 2 a.m.
But Jiddawi and many other young Saudis are trying to revive the holy month's original spirit of sacrifice and giving by volunteering during the day, attending religious lectures at night and spending more time reflecting on their faith. ...

The trend has partly been inspired by Ahmad al-Shugairi, a popular young preacher who for the past couple of years has been speaking out against the excesses of Ramadan. ...

Some young Saudis viewed a more puritanical interpretation of Islam as "cool," said Ali Ghazzawi, 22, a clinical pharmacology student. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, which were carried out mainly by Saudis, many gained a more moderate and spiritual understanding of the faith, and "now preachers in jeans, like Shugairi, are Muslim cool," Ghazzawi said.
"Spirituality is not about abstaining from food or performing physical prayers. It's about a closer connection to God. It's about intentions," he said.
"Are you doing this to perform a set of movements you are meant to do, or are
you doing it for God?" ...

For Jiddawi, the shift came after she became a fan of Shugairi. His nightly TV program, the most popular religious show among young people, encourages viewers to focus on their civic duties as part of their religion and to become more productive members of society. Several of his shows this year have stressed a need to watch less television, eat less, shop less.

Shugairi started a Ramadan campaign to get young Muslims to do 1 million good deeds this month, such as feeding a hungry family, donating clothes or buying medicine for someone in need.
"He's one of us. He speaks the language of my generation. He's not judgmental and he wasn't always as religious as he is now, so he understands," Jiddawi said.

Freedom and Responsibility

Michael Slackman published another article today in the New York Times on social issues in the Arab world. This one is about Dubai and the freedoms young Arabs have there. Some of the comments lead me to wonder about the effects of freedom or lack thereof on personal initiative.

In "freedom," I mean two things. There is the freedom from government restrictions or coercion, which in large part exists in Dubai on many, but not all, issues. But more importantly, the Arabs Slackman talks about are socially free. They are expats living outside of the social networks, norms, and pressures that guide them in their more conservative, often rural, or poor urban homes.

I wonder if there is any sociological research on the effect of restrictive and guiding societal pressures on personal initiative and responsibility? Just from the statements in the article, I would be interested to see if one could correlate higher levels of personal initiative and responsibility to a lower level of group determination of actions and decisions. That is, if your family decides everything for you, are you more likely to have little initiative to carry out those decisions and to feel less responsibility for your actions? If this correlation could be demonstrated, it might explain some behaviors in the Arab world, especially those attributed to the "inshallah" mentality.

From the article: (I've bolded key phrases)

In his old life in Cairo, Rami Galal knew his place and his fate: to become a maintenance man in a hotel, just like his father. But here, in glittering, manic Dubai, he is confronting the unsettling freedom to make his own choices.

Here Mr. Galal, 24, drinks beer almost every night and considers a young Russian prostitute his girlfriend. But he also makes it to work every morning, not something he could say when he lived back in Egypt. Everything is up to him, everything: what meals he eats, whether he goes to the mosque or a bar, who his friends are.
“I was more religious in Egypt,” Mr. Galal said, taking a drag from yet another of his ever-burning Marlboros. “It is moving too fast here. In Egypt there is more time, they have more control over you. It’s hard here. I hope to stop drinking beer; I know it’s wrong. In Egypt, people keep you in check. Here, no one keeps you in check.”

But I wonder, how long has Rami been in Dubai? Will he learn that he can keep himself in check and stop drinking beer? Is this a life lesson that will give him greater self-control and self-reliance in the future? He seems to blame his fault on the lack of societal pressure, absolving himself of some degree of responsibility. Can he step beyond that and take full self-responsibility given enough time away from his society?

According to Slackman, this freedom cuts both ways in Dubai. You're free to be less religious, but also free to be more religious. I'd caution his optimism in the first sentence. He notes elsewhere that Dubai is unique demographically, with a huge proportion of expats. I think that and the development model, more than the level of economic growth, have made Dubai somewhat unique. But it is true that other Arab countries could become more socially free in the future.

Dubai is, in some ways, a vision of what the rest of the Arab world could become — if it offered comparable economic opportunity, insistence on following the law and tolerance for cultural diversity. In this environment, religion is not something young men turn to because it fills a void or because they are bowing to a collective demand. That, in turn, creates an atmosphere that is open not only to those inclined to a less observant way of life, but also to those who are more religious. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria, a man with a long beard is often treated as an Islamist — and sometimes denied work. Not here in Dubai.
“Here, I can practice my religion in a natural and free way because it is a Muslim country and I can also achieve my ambition at work,” said Ahmed Kassab, 30, an electrical engineer from Zagazig Egypt, who wears a long dark beard and has a prayer mark on his forehead. “People here judge the person based
on productivity more than what he looks like. It’s different in Egypt, of
course.”

Perhaps the most important effect of economic prosperity in the Gulf in places like Dubai could be the diffusion of social freedoms through the cadre of Arab expats that come to work and will eventually return to their home countries, some as successful businessmen.

Dubai offers another prescription for promoting moderation. It offers a chance to lead a modern life in an Arab Islamic country. Mr. Abu Zanad raised his beer high, almost in a toast, and said he liked being able to walk through a mall and still hear the call to prayer.
“We like that it’s free and it still has Arab heritage,” he said “It’s not
religion, it’s the culture, the Middle Eastern culture.”
“The Arabs have a future here,” said his best friend, Bilal Hamdan. “Where are we going to go back to? Egypt? Jordan? This is the future.”

In Dubai, there is the prospect of improvement. Greater salaries, better jobs. This reduces the amount of frustration felt by the Arab expats.

“This is not for us, the sheiks live here,” Mr. Galal said as the car passed the Marina. But there was no anger or envy in his voice, as there would be if he were in Egypt, where when he sees wealth he knows that it is beyond his reach. When Mr. Galal came to Dubai his salary was 2,000 dirhams a month, or about $550.
“I wish I can make 40,000 a month,” he said with a dreamy smile. “When I first came here I was hoping for 5,000, now I make 5 and I want 10, and I will start making 10 in a month. Salaries here increase.”

Furthermore, the mixing pot of cultures in Dubai has an effect on Arab expats' view of their own identity.

In fact, the mix of nationalities has made Mr. Galal redefine himself — not predominantly as Muslim but as Egyptian. Asked if he feels more comfortable with
a Pakistani who is Muslim or an Egyptian who is Christian, he replied automatically: “The Egyptian.”

Yet, it seems that some of the Arab expats in Dubai are caught between two worlds. Rami felt as if he was "suffocating" in Dubai and went home for a month to spend Ramadan with family and friends. He no longer fit neatly in to his Egyptian world either.

“My friends are all stuck at a certain limit, that’s as far as they can go,” Mr. Galal said after three weeks at home. “Nothing is new here. Nothing is happening. My friends feel like I changed. They say money changed me.”

Rami, who had been engaged before he left for Dubai, broke off the engagement as well.

A year in Dubai changed his view of marriage. “You are looking for someone to spend your whole future with,” Mr. Galal said. “I want to go back and have fun. My future is there, in Dubai.”

Sopranos Anthropology

Meadow Soprano -
"You talk about these guys like it's an anthropology class. But the truth is, they bring certain modes of conflict resolution from all the way back in the old country, from the poverty of the Mezzogiorno, where all higher authority was corrupt." Season 5, episode 9

Tribes, gangs, mafia. It's all the same.

If I'm Being Honest...

If I'm being honest, there's a whole lot of people in the world I cannot stand. You are likely to be offended by what I have to say below, but keep reading, because if you are offended, I also insult those who you hate. If I want to start with the offensive, I hold a great disdain for those in the Arab world who live their lives blaming all their woes on the West, coming up with a thousand and one excuses for their culture's short-comings, and pretending to be rabidly devout Muslims when they are offended, but living their life according to their whim when no one is looking. Honestly, I respect Islam, but I think that Islam is currently a fad for many people who wear it like pegged jeans in the 50s or 80s but could give a shit less in the grand scheme of things.

And that brings us to my opinion on the Western crusaders. There is a huge class of people who love to talk about God's mission in the West, but couldn't find Iraq on a map, much less Gilead or Galilee. To me, the people who believe their God is bigger than Allah are the exact same as the Takfiris who they hate so much. If only we could lock all these "mission from God" assholes up in a room somewhere and let them kill each other, we'd be in a much better place. The only "mission from God" in recent history that I can think of that I respect is the Blues Brothers' mission to get money to keep the convent open.

What brings out this rant? I was very saddened to hear about today's suicide bomb attack against the American Embassy in Yemen. I'd be saddened no matter who the victims were, but I think the results particularly highlight the stupidity of the whole "clash of cultures." The following quotes are from the Time account linked above.

If the attack had gone according to plan, it would have killed or wounded countless U.S. diplomats in the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, within a week of the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Yet it didn't. These savage animals who imagine that they speak for Islam succeeded only in killing their countrymen, or at least, their co-religionists. And for the hillbilly Americans and the pseudo-intellectual Americans who pretend they are better than everyone else, but are really the same as the hillbillies and the Takfiri scum that they hate so much, it is important to note that the heroes in this thing were not the brave American Marines that we so often think of guarding American Embassies (although brave Marines were there had the first line of defense failed). Please read the below quotes and realize that foreigners volunteer to guard American embassies all over the world. Imagine a non-American volunteering to be a guard outside the target that is the American Embassy in Yemen. Or any number of other countries. Americans should realize that the foreigners so many disdain may be the suicide bombers, but they are also the first line of defense against those same foreign attackers. Very few of the people who work inside the fortresses that are American Embassies have ever known the danger that their local guards face. Those that have realize that the real heroes at American Embassies abroad are the local guard forces.

The bravery and quick reaction of Yemeni security forces foiled what appeared to be a daring attempt to storm the embassy compound and kill everyone inside. No Americans were among the victims of the thwarted attack. ...

The second vehicle raced past the carnage toward the embassy's front gate. Firing grenades and automatic weapons, the militants engaged Yemeni guards in a
20-minute battle, but failed to penetrate the compound before all were killed. Yemeni officials said the casualties included six guards, six militants and four
civilian bystanders.

Oman's Research Council Calls for PhD Programs

Khaleej Times reports that Oman's Research Council has called for Oman to quickly implement PhD programs in order to improve the country's research capabilities. It seems that the major impetus behind this is to better link academic capabilities to Petroleum Development Oman's needs.

It is critical that a country's educational institutions and its educational infrastructure are linked so that the educational pipeline is creating a product that is employable and offers needed capabilities to industry. The linkage of PhD programs in Oman to PDO's needs is therefore beneficial. However, I do not know that the rest of Oman's higher education system is in good enough shape to really make the leap to this level. Are Oman's baccalaureate and masters degree programs well-developed, linked to the economy's needs, and producing capable graduates? If so, then the logical next step is to the PhD level. However, if these levels are not in order, I fear that a leap to the PhD level will not meet industry's needs and will end up as an irrelevant diploma mill. I think that the institutions have to be in pretty good order to attract the expertise needed for a faculty capable of producing meaningful PhD diplomas, and the associated research. Can anyone comment on this?

More Saudi Savagery

Another gem from Saudi's religious authorities:

Speaking about the debauchery shown on satellite TV channels, Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan offered the following measured response based on an obviously peaceful interpretation of Islam.

"There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them," said the sheikh.
"It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties."

I know that this man is not the voice of Islam and does not represent all Muslims, but those in the Muslim world who are offended by Western assertions that Islam is a religion of hate and violence must take issue with authorities like "Sheikh" Luhaydan, before spitting back at Western critics. The man is a savage. He and those like him are the ones who are a threat to Islam, not the Western commentators whose critiques are fueled by statements like the one above.

Saudi Fashion Police

An article in today's Washington Post tells the story of Saudi fashion designer Yahya al-Bishri. Bishri studied fashion abroad, for which he was cut off by his father. He then tried to spruce up Saudi fashion by creating decorated robes and cloaks. This was met with a storm of criticism and frequent raids by the former criminals and thugs that call themselves the Religious Police or Mutawaeen in Saudi.

"Many people were shocked that I was developing the thobe, which is considered the national costume. I was accused of trying to destroy our culture, of promoting homosexuality and of trying to make men resemble women," he said.

He returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 and opened a small boutique on a quiet side street in Jiddah. The religious police, or mutawa, raided his shop half a dozen times, accusing him of violating a ban on the mingling of unrelated men and women. His fashion design magazines were confiscated or torn up in airport customs, and the mannequins he tried to import were destroyed or thrown out because of a religious ban on statues.

Bishri's break came when then Crown Prince Abdullah called him in 1997 to ask about his designs. Bishri explained that he was not tampering with a white robe that had been worn with Saudis since time immemorial. Like many other things in the Middle East, a relatively new phenomenon, the white thobe, had become in the period of a few decades something that people jealously guarded as established and timeless tradition. Bishri educated Abdullah, who became one of his customers, creating a breakthrough for Bishri.

Bishri said Abdullah asked him why there was a storm of criticism about his work. "I showed him the book and the coats worn by his father. I explained that the forbidding white we wear now was not part of our tradition but something new to society, something that dated back only three or four decades."
In the 1960s, he said, the kingdom's new oil wealth resulted in a more modern country and a less harsh lifestyle. White robes, which reflect heat, became more practical and easier to keep clean, he said.

"When people started wearing the thobe, everybody was convinced it was part of our culture. But our fathers did not always dress like that," Bishri said. "I was looking for how we dressed in the past because I knew we had no material and no clothes industry here, only what we imported."

I think this story, like others, shows that much of the unthinking conservatism in the region is not created by some innate and long-standing ascetic tradition, but comes more from a modern phenomenon of jealousy, bigotry, and cultural siege that is often driven by an ignorance of one's own history and traditions. A great deal of the "tradition," "custom," and "religious practice" pushed by the radicals are actually new inventions or bid'a, which in itself is considered haram by them. But they operate by one set of rules and expect everyone else to operate by another. To me, people like Bishri and other peaceful mavericks are the true heroes of the region, whose story needs to be spread

Paranoid Conspiracy Theories

More from NYT's Michael Slackman in Cairo today, this time about 9/11 conspiracy theories and general mistrust of the U.S. government in the Arab world. I've personally heard many of the arguments he refers to. I think my favorite is that no Jews died in the 9/11 attacks so it must have been a Mossad operation. A representative proportion of the victims of the 9/11 attack were Jewish. What is more, Osama Bin Laden openly took credit for the attack. Yet, many in the Arab world still insist that this was the work of the U.S. or Israel, not an Arab.

"Look, I don’t believe what your governments and press say. It just can’t be true,” said Ahmed Issab, 26, a Syrian engineer who lives and works in the United Arab Emirates. “Why would they tell the truth? I think the U.S. organized this so that they had an excuse to invade Iraq for the oil.”

One of the things that strikes me about Arab conspiracy theories is that the Arabs expounding these theories often demean Arabs in their argumentation. I've heard a number that say something to the effect that al-Qaeda, or Iraqi insurgents, or Arabs in general aren't sophisticated enough to pull off what they are accused of pulling off. So it must be Mossad or the U.S. I just don't know how to view this "aw shucks, we're just simple peace-loving people who could never do something like that" line.

Again and again, people said they simply did not believe that a group of Arabs — like themselves — could possibly have waged such a successful operation against a superpower like the United States.

The problem with these theories comes when one is trying to find some middle ground to begin a dialogue. "Look, I know that the U.S. has done a lot of things that were wrong, but you have to admit that people have wronged America too. Let's try to each admit that there is culpability on both sides and then talk about how to fix it." "No, you don't understand, America made all of this up so that it can ______ (destroy Islam, take Iraq's oil, humiliate us, control the world, kill Arabs, take Morocco's resources ??!??, what?)." Part of the reason why spitting mad psychos go out and protest about teddy bears named Mohammed, looking to tear someone limb from limb is because they believe they and theirs have never done any wrong and everyone is out to get them.

Why? Why the conspiracies and paranoia? The sense of siege? A bit reason behind it is that Arab governments have used this ploy since right around 1948 to explain away all of their shortcomings. Conspiracy theories are the perfect explanation for almost any woe, neatly shifting the blame to outside forces and their shadowy conspirators inside the country with virtually no burden of proof. Internal unrest? Corruption? Government ineptitude? Military defeats? It can all be explained by conspiracies and blamed on the Zionists or imperialists. Think that you have information that disproves said conspiracy? "That's what they want you to believe." Year after year, Arab governments and their media mouthpieces have pushed such ideas and they have stuck.

So when faced with this wall of disbelief, how can U.S. public diplomacy ever succeed in winning hearts and minds? I don't think that it can, because those who will believe our public diplomacy are already convinced. Those that aren't convinced will never believe a word out of our mouths. The only way we can change perceptions is through a long term demonstration of results, not words, and, more importantly, the spread of more moderate perceptions from those in the region who can see both sides to those who cannot. Really, the hearts and minds can only be won from within the region, not through U.S. public diplomacy. Another major element of this is the state of the media in the Arab world. The level of self-censorship and paranoia is still high in many Arabic news sources. The growth of alternate media sources through satellite and the internet is helping to provide different perspectives, but it will take years to bring some out of their comfortable world of victimization and conspiracy and into a broader, more balanced worldview that can see culpability on more than one side of any argument.

Wishful Thinking

Sunday's New York Times ran a piece by Michael Kimmelman entitled "Watching 'Friends' in Gaza: Culture as a Moderating Force." While the online version was more appropriately subtitled "A Culture Clash," I found the article's vague suggestion that the popularity of Western culture was somehow a moderating force to be naive and misleading.

First, if one looks at the pictures that accompany the article (look at how the people at Roots are dressed, the table settings, and the landscaping) and some of the descriptions of where he is talking to people ("The club, a private retreat amid garbage and ruins was a whitewashed of bougainvillea..."), you can see that he's not hanging around the average, ordinary Gazan. He's hanging around with relatively wealth Gazans who choose to go to private clubs and trendy cafes like Roots. This is a skewed sample.

Second, just because people like to escape in Western culture, doesn't mean they become any more endeared to Western policies. The problem that the West and especially the U.S. has in the Middle East is not that Arabs hate Americans or American culture. They (mostly) don't. They hate U.S. policy. With a passion. American culture won't moderate that.

And in a third point, related to the second, people get what they want out of cultural products. For those that love the U.S. or the West, they may already be fairly moderate toward even Western policy and find more to love and long for in Western cultural products. For others, they still might like the Western cultural products, but they can still pick out supporting evidence for their worldview. I met a teen selling pirated American DVDs in Casablanca. After about two hours of him telling me how bad the U.S. was, how it was controlled by Jews, no Jews died in 9/11, everything is a conspiracy and everyone is out to destroy Islam, etc., I told him that not everything is a conspiracy. Not everyone is out to get them. Many people in America want to do good. He said, I know, but even you Americans do not trust your own government, so why should we? I watch your movies, I know your culture and all your movies prove that you believe the government is controlled by a small group of men who are conspiring to control the world. He started pointing out movies that had this sort of plot line on the table next to us and there, of course, were quite a few. So, don't think that our culture will inevitably break down walls. People take what they want and their worldview is often unchanged.

Arab Pop Music Underworld

A major scandal is making headlines in the Arabic press and even making its way into the U.S. media. Lebanese pop diva Suzanne Tamim was murdered in July in a Dubai hotel. Yesterday, a prominent Egyptian businessman and member of parliament under the ruling National "Democratic" Party was arrested for contracting her murder. Hisham Talaat Mustafa reportedly paid $2 million for the murder of the star, with whom Hisham was romantically involved. He faces potential death by hanging or a life sentence if convicted under Egyptian law. You can read the details of the case here and here and in Arabic here, here, and here.

While female singers have been taken advantage of by rich men the world 'round, I cannot help but feel that there is a special misogyny that surrounds men of power in the Middle East. Alaa al-Aswani's novel "The Yacoubian Building" paints a pretty damning picture of this kind of man in Egypt. The sad thing is that there is a line of thinking that perpetuates such acts. Men cannot be expected to control themselves, so it is up to women to cover themselves and it is up to their families to protect them. If something happens to the woman, it is her fault and her family's fault for not keeping her from such a compromising situation. This is nonsense. Once men are held to greater account, much of the paranoid "protection" of women can be dispensed with because society will have generalized the norms that keep most men around the world from acting like animals. There will always be some exceptions, but the culture cannot go on allowing men to act like total savages while forcing the burden of civility upon the women. The problems of the current situation in some areas are made evident by the prosecution of rape victims in Saudi for being with a non-related male and such. The mindset even creeps into the thoughts of an Arab journalist, quoted in the LA Times article. Look at the words/phrases I've bolded and see the underlying thought process. While this man is not justifying the killing or anything of the sort, his words seem to shift a good deal of the moral burden into Suzanne's court.

Suzanne's whole life was a tragedy. She comes from a conservative Beiruti family which was totally against her singing in public. But she had a great voice and she was obsessed about singing. So she defied her society and decided to enter the world of music. . . . She was a beautiful woman. Her beauty maybe was a curse because she would turn men totally obsessed about her.

See in this last sentence how she is the actor (in a grammatical sense) "turning" men obsessed, rather than irresponsible, power-drunk, rich, greedy slobs making themselves obsessed over another plaything they could get their greasy, filthy hands on.

Migration Policy, Networks, and Path Dependency

Quick quote from an Economist blog post about migration, derived from a Eurostat report on migration.

Abundant research tells us that migrants follow networks. Once you have 10,000 from nation X, the next 10,000 will also be from there. (In Britain’s most recent wave, X was Poland.) Abundant research also shows us that some migrant communities never integrate. So here’s the conclusion. Nations who are going to need millions of foreign workers should start today building critical masses of migrants from nations they think will fit in most easily.
Aide mémoire to ministers: You are going to need more hands. The early birds will get to chose where these hands come from.