May Day: Housemaids and Workers of the Arab World, Unite……

     
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“Several foreign manpower recruitment offices in the Kingdom have urged the authorities to protect their interests and impose tighter regulations on the recruitment of Indonesian workers. They were responding to the Jakarta government’s decision to introduce rules to protect Indonesian workers in the Kingdom. The recruitment companies demanded the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta to draft a new bilateral agreement with new conditions for hiring domestic staff. The new agreement would consist of certain conditions aimed at safeguarding the rights of Saudi recruitment offices against exploitation, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported. It would include a provision compelling Indonesian manpower recruitment agents to bear the responsibility for offenses committed by maids they have recruited………. There is a growing demand from Saudi families to allow them to recruit housemaids from Nepal and Ethiopia. The recruitment charges from these countries range from SR5,500 to SR6,000, with a monthly salary of SR700. The recruitment procedures from these countries would take less than two months,” he pointed out…….”

This is a humanitarian issue all across the Arab world. In a couple of GCC states, I strongly suspect the number of Asian housemaids exceeds the number of native citizens. I ‘strongly’ suspect that is the case in the UAE and Qatar. Some governments do more: the Saudi government sends officials to ‘target’ source countries in Asia to negotiate down the ‘prices’ of housemaids to make them “affordable” for local citizens. Countries that do not agree on lower “prices” for housemaids are punished by banning human imports from them. Not very Islamic, is it?
But the situation may be worse in places like Jordan and Lebanon, although the numbers are fewer. Every week there are reports of one or two Asian maids either falling off the balcony, dying accidentally, or committing suicide in Lebanon. It is almost like being a political prisoner in occupied Bahrain under Apartheid these days: one can die of strange causes.
Speaking of Bahrain: I wish the working people of that captive country better luck and freedom in the near future. So many workers have been fired from their jobs in both the public and private sectors for expressing their opinions.So many Bahrainis have been imprisoned simply for doing their jobs: doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, journalists, etc. Many are being tortured, some sentenced to death by military kangaroo courts.
I also salute the workers of Tunisia and Egypt who joined their brothers and sisters in overthrowing the dictatorships, and for keeping their vigilance during the current treacherous period. I salute the workers of all Arab states whose revolutions are still ongoing: Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Mauretania, Jordan, and Morocco. Keep your vigilance: don’t let your revolution be hijacked by clones of the old regime, by former members of the old regimes, or by the old colonial masters. Nor by the despotic tribal absolute monarchies allied with the Salafi mercenaries.
I also salute the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and the United Arab Emirates who are striving, slowly and cautiously but in some cases very bravely, toward civil societies. It is a difficult task in these two police states. Many are in prison under these two regime for using their God-give right to freely express their opinions. Some have been tortured; the price of freedom.
Happy May Day.
Cheers
mhg

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Wilayat el-Faqih Comes to Saudi Arabia, Music and Isotopes……..

     
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Saudi King Abdullah issued a royal decree yesterday making it illegal to criticize the chief cleric, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and other clergy. The king, with a simple decree, made Shaikh Abdelaziz Al Al Shaikh infallible. Now Shaikh Al is more infallible than the Prophet Mohammed was (people were free to criticize him fourteen centuries ago). He is more infallible than a Catholic (or Orthodox) saint. His pronouncements are now as holy as he himself is perceived (if you get my drift, and depending on one’s point of view). The royal family is simply returning the favors done by the clergy, the most recent of which was condemning protests against governments as un-Islamic, haram, taboo (except in Libya and possibly in Syria), but especially in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Now the Saudis are inching closer to the Iranian system of government: a supreme clergy (wilayat al-faqih in Arabic, or vilayat e-faqih in Persian). But alas, Shaikh Al is still subservient to the al-Saud: like all Arab muftis he tailors his fatwas to fit their needs. Besides, in theocratic Iran there is only one permanent life-time job: that of supreme leader, Khamenei (Ahmadinejad leaves in 2013, and not a minute too soon). Under the Saudi system there are two top ones: the king and the mufti. Come to think of it, there are many more lifetime jobs, as many as there are princes (+the mufti).

(Repetition: Shaikh Abdelaziz Al Al Shaikh is a direct descendant of “Imam” Mohammad Bin Abdelwahab the (now long dead) zealot from Nejd after whom Wahhabism is named. There are several of the Al Al Shaikh holding high ministerial positions in Saudi Arabia, always have been. They are given different numbers to distinguish them from each other, sort of like isotopes in chemistry (or ought to be). Imam Mohammad Bin Abdelwahab should not be confused the late great Egyptian singer, composer, (and occasional plagiarizer) Mohammed Abdelwahab who was not a Salafi or a fundamentalist but did have some great songs).

Cheers
mhg

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Urban Legend: Susan Rice and Qaddafi and Viagra………

     
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One of America’s most senior diplomats claimed at the United Nations security council that Muammar Gaddafi is supplying his troops with Viagra to encourage mass rape, according to diplomats. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN made the claim while accusing Gaddafi of numerous human rights abuses. Earlier in the week Rice also claimed, without offering any evidence, that Iran is helping Syria suppress internal dissent. Foreign affairs specialists expressed scepticism about both claims. The Viagra claim surfaced in an al-Jazeera report last month from Libya-based doctors who said they had found Viagra in the pockets of pro-Gaddafi soldiers. But it is a jump from that to suggesting Gaddafi is supplying troops with it to encourage mass rape…….. Earlier in the week, Rice deplored the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent and cited Iranian involvement. “Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is disingenuously blaming outsiders, while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens, through the same brutal tactics that have been used by the Iranian regime……The state department said it has credible information but would not elaborate…….”

This sounds like an urban legend propagated by Susan Rice: like the sightings of Elvis in Nevada or the sighting of Saddam Hussein in Bahrain (these are only Saddam wannabes and former thugs). No doubt Qaddafi used Viagra and probably even Cialis (for “when the moment is right” as the famous ad says). I suspect he used it on and for himself, not for his forces. In other words, I suspect this Viagra story is just more bullshit, something Ms Rice should try not to step into in the future.
Cheers
mhg




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The Saudi-Israeli Alliance Comes Out of the Closet………….

     
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The Arab Spring and U.S. Policy: The View From Jerusalem. Israeli officials want a public commitment from Washington to protect the Saudi regime should it come under threat. It is provocative, but not entirely inaccurate, to suggest that U.S. foreign policy these past few months has been sufficiently erratic to make America’s allies reconsider the degree to which we can be trusted—and our adversaries re-evaluate the degree to which we must be feared. The canary in the coal mine on such matters is Israel. None of America’s allies is more sensitive to even the most subtle changes in the international environment, or more conscious of the slightest hint of diminished support from Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been so concerned that a member of his fractious ………TedKoppel (WSJ)

Ted Koppel is one of the most serious and reliable  journalists, since before his old Nightline program.
As Hercule Poirot (Belgian waffle not French) never actually said: zee plot, she sickens…….
Cheers
mhg

Iraqis Seek Arab League Job, Kings Get Collective Infarct……

     
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Baghdad is mulling the nomination of an Iraqi candidate for the position of Arab League secretary general, a lawmaker has said. Two weeks before the Arab states choose a new secretary general to replace Amr Moussa who is leaving to contest in the presidential elections in Egypt later this year, only Qatari Abdul Rahman Al Atiyyah and Egyptian Mustafa Al Fiqi have submitted their candidacies. “We have floated the idea of selecting an Iraqi personality to head the Arab League,” Rafaa Abdul Jabbar Nooshi, member of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said. “Iraq has a number of competent personalities who can manage the Arab League,” he said, quoted by Qatar News Agency. The MP did not, however, mention any names. Iraqi political formations have nominated Eyad Allawi to replace Amr Moussa when he steps down next month….

This is enough to give the Saudi king Abdullah an infarct. Enough to give several absolute tribal kings a collective infarct. An Iraqi (Shi’a-appointed) secretary general of the Arab league of Despots? I expect the recently infallible (by the king) Mufti, Shaikh A Al Al Shaikh to issue one of his made-to-order fatwas making this blasphemous.
I was going to nominate Ahmad Chalabi, but that seems a bit too much. Ayad Allawi seems to be unattached these days, and he love traveling to such Arab capitals as Riyadh, Amman, Cairo (ah those were the days). Then there is the king of Bahrain…………..
Cheers
mhg

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Saudis Tighten Speech Control: Reform? Never Heard of it?…………

     
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“All those responsible for publication are banned from publishing … anything contradicting Islamic Sharia Law; anything inciting disruption of state security or public order or anything serving foreign interests that contradict national interests,” the state news agency SPA said. Saudi Arabia follows an austere version of Sunni Islam and does not tolerate any form of dissent. It has no elected parliament and no political parties. The tighter media controls were set out in amendments to the media law issued as a royal order late on Friday. They also banned stirring up sectarianism and “anything that causes harm to the general interest of the country.”…… Clerics played a major role in banning protests by issuing a religious edict which said that demonstrations are against Islamic law. In turn, the royal order banned the “infringement of the reputation or dignity, the slander or the personal offence of the Grand Mufti or any of the country’s senior clerics or statesmen.”..……”

Now nobody can criticize the Mufti or the clergy. If the Mufti, Shaikh Abdelaziz Al Al Shaikh refuses to criticize or ban child marriages, then he (Al) is immune from criticism. Actually this is not new: the clergy have always been immune from criticism in Saudi media that are based in the country, and in most media based offshore. The difference is the Internet, where many young Saudis, whether at home or abroad, feel free to express themselves. Those at home run the risk of crossing red lines and getting arrested, those abroad risk arrest upon return home. There will be less tweeting from within the Kingdom without Magic now, less political tweeting. Oh, there will be a lot about Syria and Yemen and Libya, even maybe Iraq (Bahrain? Where is that?), but nothing about domestic politics (the only domestic politics are within the royal family and among their clergy stooges). Last year they started requiring all bloggers to get government permission to start a blog, and to register with the government. Nice reform.
As for banningstirring up sectarianism”: that is ironic, nay laughable, because the al-Saud and their media are the party most responsible for the poisonous sectarian divisions we see in our Gulf region these days. They would do the same in the wider Arab world if they could, they certainly have tried in Iraq for some years, and in Lebanon through their surrogates in the Hariri camp.
Cheers
mhg

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The Battle for Iran: the Arab Factor, La Marseillaise………….

     
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Que veut cette horde d’esclaves         What do they want this horde of slaves
De traîtres, de rois conjurés?                Of traitors and conspiratorial kings?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves              For whom these vile chains
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés?           These long-prepared irons?
Français, pour nous, ah! quel outrage        Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter?                What methods must be taken?
C’est nous qu’on ose méditer                    It is us they dare plan
De rendre à l’antique esclavage!
             To return to the old slavery!……La Marseillaise

Iranian sources report that the dispute (s) between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the conservative clergy led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues. Apparently Ahmadinejad has his supporters among some parliamentarians and within the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Two recent developments highlight this dispute: (1) the removal of Mr. Mashaie as chief of presidential staff and (2) the removal then reinstatement of the minister of intelligence. Mr. Mashaie is a suspect among the more conservative clergy and politicians: he has been accused of pushing Iranian nationalism and culture over the Islamic identity (probably a good election position among mullah-weary urban Iranians). The minister of intelligence (Mr. Moslehi) was forced to resign by Ahmadinejad but the more powerful Khamenei has reinstated him. Some exile media report that Ahmadinejad has been boycotting cabinet meetings since the reinstatement of Moslehi.
Mr. Mashaie is almost certainly the favorite choice of Ahmadinejad to run for president in 2013 when he has to step down. He will have a hard time now if he decides to run. He may get approval from the clergy to run, but his chances depend on who, if any, is running on the reform or ‘opposition’ side. It looks like that after the Khatemi experience and the 2009 election dispute, the senior clergy may vet potential candidates more carefully. That would insure the election of a conservative president but it would also increase the pressure among young Iranians yearning for change and more freedom.
A year or two ago, silent docile Arab peoples looked at the Iranians protesting in the streets and wondered: why not, why not us? Just as they did during the Iranian revolution in 1978-79. Now the Arabs are having their revolutions, with the reactionary Arab forces led by the al-Saud and their allies trying to stop and subvert them. Now the Iranians may start wondering as they look at the Arabs: why not, why not us, again?
Cheers
mhg

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The Great Saudi Success, of Pakistanis and Salafi History………….

     
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Saudi Arabia has reportedly invoked a treaty with Sunni-dominated Pakistan to secure troops to stabilize both Bahrain and its own oil-rich eastern provinces. …….. However, pressure from Saudi Arabia and the Shiite population in southern Turkey are forcing Ankara to re-evaluate its ties with Tehran……. Pakistan, of course, has often presented itself as the “sword of the Islamic world” given its nuclear weapons capability. However, its military prowess has been propelled as much by Saudi petrodollars as by American and Chinese aid. In return, Saudi Arabia has over the years relied on Pakistanis to man its own military and has a treaty agreement with Pakistan that mandates the release of up to 30,000 Pakistani troops for the defense of Saudi interests should the need arise. This treaty has reportedly now been invoked, with up to two divisions of regular Pakistani army troops on standby, ready to head for Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia……..

This growing sectarian escalation is the greatest success of the al-Saud dynasty in many years, perhaps the greatest ever. Only by dividing first the peoples of the Gulf region, then of the Arab world, then of the wider Islamic world, could the al-Saud disrupt and forestall the Arab revolutions, this sputtering Arab Spring. They did not need much work on their own people inside the Arabian Peninsula, generations of Wahhabi-influenced education has taken care of that: to some people in, say, Nejd, most residents of the Eastern Province might as well be Martians. Most of the Gulf region had been peaceful, in a sectarian way, with little tension between Shi’a and Sunnis for decades, since my childhood: even during the Iran-Iraq war when Saddam and his Ba’ath had huge following in my own home town, up to August 1990. (I was not one of this huge following).
The real sectarian tensions started escalating with the rise of the Salafi movement. Born in the realm of the al-Saud dynasty, Salafis got a lot of support from the Gulf dynasties, and for some good but short-sighted reasons. Salafi doctrine, developed in Saudi Arabia, preaches absolute loyalty to the rulers, no matter how rotten and corrupt, as long as the ruler is a good Muslim. This is, in my view, an opportunistic distortion of the Prophets teachings (the Hadith). A good Muslim to a Salafi is someone who builds a lot of mosques and teaches students along the Salafi orthodoxy, period. The latter is not always mandatory: Salafi palms can be greased as easily as other palms. The Salafis, rabidly xenophobic and especially anti-Shi’a, were adopted by various Gulf oligarchies as counterweight to other components of society. They have been a corruptible, a very touchable, counterweight. In most states they were used as a counterweight to the secular pan-Arabs, to the socialists who usually complained of corruption and despotism. In others, especially Bahrain, they were invited in, encouraged, and used to counter not only the Shi’a majority but also the traditionally strong multi-sect secular opposition.
Expanding the sectarian tensions beyond the tribal and sectarian societies of the Persian-American Gulf is quite a coup for the al-Saud dynasty. They have managed to change the subject in the Gulf from revolution and reform to sectarian fear. They would like to expand that division across the whole region. They have the money and the most massive media in the third world with a bought army of journalists and academics disseminating their propaganda.
Perhaps the growing military and political shadow of the Iranian regime helped them along. The Iranian threat is in my view quite exaggerated, given that Western military bases and fleets are crowding the Gulf and ringing Iran from all sides. Iran is a worry, no doubt, but it has been convenient for Gulf despots to exaggerate it and frighten their peoples into the arms of al-Saud dynasty. I doubt that a prominent Iranian mullah can now go for a ride or talk in his cell phone without someone in the West knowing about it.
Expanding the Shi’a-Sunni tensions to the wider Muslim world plays well into the al-Saud and Salafi hands. Ironically, I don’t believe it has as much traction in most Arab states beyond the Gulf. It is strictly a tribal Gulf thing that can have some traction in divided and Salafi-rich Pakistan, but not in places like Tunisia or even Egypt.
A successful strategy by the al-Saud, but it is a short term one. Fear and divisiveness are no substitute for reform or revolution.
Cheers
mhg




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Palace Intellectuals, Schmellectuals, Revolution, and Evolution………..

     
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I find the intelligentsia’s capacity to continue to lament public sector failings and private sector irresponsibility towards society when they continue to fail at building a relation with society’s broader public — an audacious contradiction. As long as one is a shepherd, (s)he cannot be a champion of the cause of another’s herd. Until public intellectuals realise that they commit the very failings, which they so fiercely criticise the public and private institutions for, societies will continue to view them with as much distanced alienation as they view the former two groups. What we need is an intellectual evolution of enlightenment not a political revolution against government………….

Spoken like a true spokesman for the rulers. I say intellectual schmellectual. We don’t have many intellectuals left in our region anyway: most those opinionators are “palace journalists”. I say revolution over the ruling despots first. You can’t build over the same old corrupt foundations.
Cheers
mhg

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Saudis Facing a Vegetable Crusade………….

     
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                                                             BFF                           Veggie Crusade


This right-wing site reports that some Saudis are in an uproar because they think they see Christian crosses in the wooden pillars of some open market in Taif. The people who run the vegetable and fruit businesses and other fundamentalists are urging the authorities to quickly remove these crosses (picture above) before their fruits and vegetables convert to Christianity (a Christian tomato is no more welcome in Saudi Arabia than a Christian zucchini or kussa). As for a Jewish tomato or zucchini, well, as the al-Saud would say: oy vey!
According to Saudi law, no signs of any other religion are allowed.
FYI: all Saudi ‘fruits’ and all Saudi ‘vegetables’ are Muslims, the overwhelming majority of them Muslims of the true Wahhbai faith. Most Saudis who are not ‘vegetables’ have been thrown in prison or gone into exile.
For first time readers of my blog, I love to summarize this: Wahhabism is an uber-fundamentalist sect named after Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab, an old time shaikh from Nejd in Central Arabia. He was an ally to the al-Saud as are his descendants: they even ‘fraternized’ closely if you know what I mean (if you don’t know what I mean, then you are hopeless). He is not to be confused with the late great Egyptian Mohammed Abdelwahab the musician and singer who was not a fundamentalist, not a Salafi, had probably never heard the word ‘Salafi’ in his life.
(Regular readers need not have read that last paragraph, although I do change it every time, often improving it).
Cheers
mhg

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