Category Archives: UAE

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, UAE, Weapons deals

Disgruntled Bins of a Feather: UAE in the Footsteps of Bahrain?………….

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“But it has tolerated little dissent during the regional upheaval, trying and sentencing at least five pro-reform activists and stripping the citizenship of another seven last year on charges that they represent a threat to state security. It also disbanded the elected boards of two of the UAE’s most prominent civil society groups, Human Rights Watch said. “Unfortunately, we saw last year that the United Arab Emirates decided to suppress freedom of expression in the country by harassing and trying a number of activists, and by attempting to limit freedom of association in the country,” HRW’S deputy Middle East head Nadim Houry told the conference. Subsequently a group of men dressed in traditional Emirati clothing burst into the conference and demanded it end because Human Rights Watch did not have a permit to host such an event. Attendees heard the men identify themselves as officials of the Ministry of Economy. They flashed an identification card, HRW researcher Samer Muscati, one of the conference’s organizers, told Reuters, but they could not see it long enough to determine who had issued it. “We speculate that these guys are not who they claim to be. They seem to be state security, not from the Ministry of Economy,” he said. Officials of the UAE Interior Ministry and the Dubai government’s press office declined to comment on the identity of the men…………..”

They are all the same, really. If they feel threatened by dissent, the Bin Technocrat Bin Zayed al-Nahayan act no different from the slimy Bin Technocrat al-Khalifa potentates of Bahrain. No different from the Bin Technocrat al-Saud princes. They crack down and arrest and gas and imprison and torture and, if they have to, they kill.
Why else do you think they are buying all these American JDAM bunker-busters? Did you thing it was to attack China or Iran or North Korea? No, it is to bunker-bust the shopping malls if they are ever taken over by irate citizens. Correct that: there are only about 12% or so in the UAE who are citizens” They can’t possibly fill a shopping mall. Only the citizens are entitled to feel disgruntled, if done silently. Citizens are allowed to be disgruntled silently only, but the almost 88% who are temporary foreign laborers are not allowed to be disgruntled even silently.
It is not clear how they monitor and prevent silent disgruntlement. They can’t just send their flunkies with ID’s to stop it. These security goons aren’t smart enough to tell who is disgruntled and who is not, especially when nobody is supposed to smile in public anyway.
Maybe the potentates have purchased some new equipment from the helpful Western government (possibly the eager British) or North Korea for that.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, GCC, Humor, Jordan, Muslims, religious police, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Funning about the Princes and the Muftis: Obama for Crown Prince or Jordanian Gauleiter……………

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“SAUDI ARABIA’s response to the Arab spring might be described as allergic. The tiniest whiff of protest last March prompted the government to outlaw demonstrations. Even as women, in effect, continue to be banned from driving, and dissidents jailed or banned from travelling, a new media law has clamped tighter restrictions on the press. Echoing events in tiny Bahrain, where the ruling family crushed Shia protests, Saudi security forces have responded to rising unrest in their country’s east, among the kingdom’s own 10% Shia minority, with blunt measures, including live gunfire that killed five protesters in recent months. Instead, the immediate beneficiaries of the Arab spring in Saudi Arabia may be a new generation of comedians and artists. They certainly stole the limelight on 19th January, at the opening of “We Need to Talk”.…..…” The Economist

I think they need to smile and laugh more than they need to talk. I will believe that Saudi comedy (an oxymoron?) has arrived if they start some joke with “Prince Nayef and the Mufti walked into this bar and…………” or “The Mufti stumbled into a Hussainiyah thinking it was the mosque and…………”
 
More seriously, I am not familiar with Saudi humor. I have known Saudis, mostly in business, but none of them ever cracked a joke within my earshot. Or maybe they did and I didn’t recognize it as a joke. I had thought joking was frowned upon over there: sort of like women driving, laughing in public, smiling in public, dressing different, thinking different from everyone else, thongs, tank-tops, mentioning the words ‘freedom’ or ‘protest’ or ‘Shi’a’, among other things.
Actually once in a shopping mall in Riyadh I tried smiling (in the United States I got used to the nasty habit of smiling at people in public, except in NYC subways). It was close to the noon prayer time, and the shaggy religious cops (Commission for the Propagation of Vice) were waving their (khaizaran) bamboo sticks ominously. They were coming toward me as they scowled at shoppers, hinting that soon all men should be inside a mosque and all women at home awaiting their pleasure. I flashed a smile at the nearest hairy one. His scowl deepened as he got closer. I decided that I had made a mistake and focused on a shop window: unfortunately it was a women’s lingerie shop with an Asian salesman behind the counter. I will write more about that later.
Back to the humor: Yet the Mufti of Saudi Arabia is often smiling in his photos. Shaikh Al Al Shaikh almost smiles as often as Ahmadinejad, and both smile much more than either crown prince Nayef or Ayatollah Khamenei (not that hard). It is possible that Saudi humor is a bit more ‘discernible’ than, say, Jordanian humor. I have never seen or heard any of the latter. I think they ought to openly outlaw humor in both countries: that way everyone, especially visitors, will know where they stand. In some Gulf places like the UAE, it is not illegal to laugh or even smile in public, especially if one is a man. Yet if you look directly at someone they would quickly scowl. Once you look at them, the face loses that ‘neutral’ inexpressive vacant look and a scowling (also vacant) mask covers everything. I suspect it is an attempt at showing some gravitas under scrutiny: it is a common Gulf issue.
I bet Obama could never get elected shaikh of Abu Dhabi or crown prince of Saudi Arabia (or Gauleiter of Jordan): he smiles too much in public.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Human Right, Middle East Women, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Women 100

Gulf of Taliban: Lawlessness and Misogyny in the UAE and Other Wild Places …………

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“The case of a woman who is facing deportation for reporting an attempted rape while being intoxicated in the United Arab Emirates highlights the ongoing struggle for women to have justice when faced with sexual violence in the ultra-wealthy Gulf country. According to reports, when the 26-year-old Kyrgyz woman arrived at a local police station following a taxi driver attempting to rape her, police officers told her she would face charges of drinking alcohol. Instead of acquiescing to the officers threats, she insisted on filing charges against the taxi driver for attempted rape………. “In November last year, two Saudi Arabian men were sentenced to two months in prison for “having sex with a minor” during a New Year’s holiday in the United Arab Emirates. According to local reports, both men were convicted of having consensual sex with a minor, despite the 15-year-old girl’s claims that she was forced to have sex with them in a hotel room. She is to be deported as part of her crime, court officials said……… In early October, two Pakistani men were charged with raping a Filipina waitress. Activists say they are unlikely to face harsh sentences and that the woman will be the one who faces the worst penalty………”

There are many other such cases in the UAE. Rape is reported routinely in the local newspapers. As are the “strange” Taliban-style sentences that focus on the female victims as guilty.
The treatment of victims as suspects is a purely local thing, but it is also common in other ‘nominally’ Muslim countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Remember the Qatif girl in Saudi Arabia who was initially punished while her male rapists were barely touched about two years ago? Then there are many cases in Pakistan where women who dare file rape complaints (a rarity) are sentenced to stoning or life in prison for adultery. The guilty males are usually left alone. There was a case once when the woman filed a rape case while the rapist denied it. She was considered to have confessed to adultery (by filing a complaint) and sentenced for adultery, but not the man who denied the charge.
By some twisted local logic in the UAE, a woman who files a rape complaint is sometimes seen by some as exposing her “dirty” laundry. Then there is the local costume in the region of identifying certain single foreign women as being of “easy virtue” or even hookers. Especially if these single foreign women are from certain foreign (Asian) or Arab countries, like those mentioned in this item.  Anyway, this phenomenon is becoming common in the United Arab Emirates, especially in Abu Dhabi and ‘cosmopolitan’ Dubai.
Cheers
mhg


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Cinema, Culture, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Creativity in a Theocracy: One Iranian Film on its Way to the Oscars………….

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“Yet since his film’s premiere early this year, Asghar Farhadi has found success inside and outside his home country with “A Separation,” the film resonating with audiences who read it alternately as a deeply felt domestic drama and a finely crafted sociopolitical allegory. When the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, it walked away with the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, as well as awards recognizing the film’s lead actor and actress. The film, which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 30, has gone on to be one of the most universally celebrated of the year. It was recently still running a rare 100% rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on more than two dozen reviews. It was a box office hit within Iran and was chosen to represent the country as its submission for the Academy Award for best foreign language film………..”
 
I find it interesting that under the repressive theocracy Iranian films have thrived. Arguably the best films in the Middle East over the past three decades have been produced in Iran, with many of them winning international prizes. I have always thought that is because film-makers, like all artists and authors, need to get more creative and more subtle in their messages under less open regimes. (North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the Taliban would be exceptions to this rule).


The Iranians may have some competition at the Oscars. My unreliable source tells me fhe Saudi government is working on a film about the life and times of their Mufti Shaikh al Al Al Shaikh. Meanwhile the al-Nahayan rulers of the UAE plan new film about their late father Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan. The film may star Sean Connery or Abe Vigoda (assuming he is alive): one of them will play Zayed, the other his brother Shakhboot whom he overthrew and made to disappear along with his sons. None of the films will cover the loves and marriages of the two worthies.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Freudian Arabian Size Insecurity? Duel of the Gulf Towers……..

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Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal al-Saud claims that his new tower, Kingdom Tower, will be cheaper than the Burj Dubai (aka Burj Khalifa) by about US$ 270 million. The tower will also be bigger than the Dubai one, the biggest in the world. The Kingdom Tower will have a Four Seasons hotel, serviced apartments, luxury condominiums and offices, encompassing about half a million square meters.
The project is being constructed by the Bin Laden company, yep that very same guy. Which makes me wonder: wtf is going on here between these potentates of our Gulf? All this comparison of tower sizes, and trying to outdo the others. Remember the Mecca clock tower that the Saudis want to surpass Big Ben? Is all this a subconscious attempt to make up for other more serious short-comings among some of these potentates? Is it an Arabian Freudian thing?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, UAE, US Foreign Policy

Rommel of Arabia in Yemen, the Vast Shi’a Conspiracy to Conquer Abu Dhabi and the World………….

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“When the world is focused on the uprisings in Egypt, Syria and the President of Yemen’s agreement to step aside, the spotlight has been diverted from the threat posed by Yemen’s Al Houthi Zaidi Shiite, pro-Iranian rebels. With an estimated 100,000 fighters, the Al Houthis harbour not only an expansionist agenda but the will to topple the government and impose their own brand of Shiite religious law on the entire country and beyond. They have made territorial claims to a number of Saudi villages and in 2009 they battled with Saudi forces. For the Al Houthis, the Yemeni armed forces’ preoccupation with maintaining security on the street has been a gift. Over the past 10 months they have succeeded in expanding their territorial control from their homebase Sa’ada into four Yemeni provinces and over the main crossing points into Saudi Arabia……..n recent days, Shiites have been demonstrating against the Saudi government in the city of Qatif in the oil-rich Eastern Region, where anti-royalist slogans have been scrawled on walls. The kingdom’s mufti blames Iran for the unrest, credible when Iranian clerics are calling for an end to the Al Saud ruling dynasty………”

Predictable piece of rubbish by a retainer of the al-Nahayans rulers of Abu Dhabi, in one of their own newspapers. He is writing mainly about the Yemeni Houthis, who in 2009 totally defeated the invading high-tech Saudi armed forces under Prince Khaled Bin Sultan al-Saud. (Saudi semi-official had all but declared Khaled as the Rommel of Yemen, and he did have the same fate as Rommel at El-Alamein).
In the process, this writer also accuses Saudi Shi’as who are seeking equal rights of being Iranian agents. He is also throwing in a majority of the peoples of Bahrain and Iraq (most likely Lebanon as well) as foreign agents.
Funny: the UAE of the Bin Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan brothers is groaning under the weight of foreign bases, from American to British to Pakistani to Monaco-an to Klingon. Not to mention the foreign mercenary force the al-Nahayan formed early this year with Blackwater veterans and Colombians, Australians, white South Africans and others. It is all part of the vast Shi’a conspiracy, I tell ya.
And what is wrong with wanting to overthrow the al-Saud, along with the mullahs in Iran and the despots in Manama? Anybody with any sense would want that.
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, UAE

Offshore Country on my Gulf: UAE Minority Culture, Bollywood Hits…………..

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“Young Emirati filmmaker and American University of Sharjah student Sarah Alagroobi introduces herself to the regional film scene with an enticing short movie that is sure to make an impression. The Forbidden Fruit, which cleverly studies the undertones and conflicting values of modern Emirati society, will make its premier at this year’s Dubai International Film Festival in the Muhr Emirati section. Alagroobi, who directed, wrote, produced, edited and did everything short of putting herself in the film, said of the experience, “I’ve always been fascinated with the ‘inside scoop’ on what’s happening behind closed doors in Emirati society. My mother always said ‘what’s kept in the dark will always come to light’.” And that’s what this film is about, bringing a delicate topic to light. The Forbidden Fruit is unlike other Emirati films in that it exposes an aspect of a culture so remarkably polished that people might never see it for themselves. The film is based around two young Emirati adults, Alia and Rashed, who live in a modernized society that is still very much absorbed in its traditions and cultures. Viewers follow Alia and Rashed as they go about their lives carelessly partying, drinking and having a good time……………”

This is a good effort but it is funny, or would be if it weren’t so sad and serious. Talking about UAE films and UAE culture: they mean the film and culture of a ”minority” in an “offshore country”. The UAE has a population that is overwhelmingly Asian (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, etc). Most are Indians, with some Arabs and Iranians and Africans, then a few thousand Westerners. At least 85%, possibly more, are non-citizen expatriate laborers who are in the country temporarily. This is a truly “offshore country”, as I called it a year or so ago. The ruling potentates can’t even police the country, they rely on foreigners. For protection, they have formed a special mercenary force led by former Blackwater leaders, composed of Colombians, Australians, white South Africans, and possibly Mexican drug cartel veterans.

Yet they talk of an exclusive “Emirati” society as if it represents the “country”. I beg to differ. I would assert here and now that these millions of Indians and other Asians represent the true UAE society. They are a huge majority of millions among a few hundred thousand original citizens. If you want to see a film about the “real” UAE, especially Abu Dhabi and Dubai, go see an Indian film (or a Bengali or Philippine film). Hell, yeah, go see a Bollywood hit (it would be a bit more ‘native’ if it starred the Bin Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan brothers).
Cheers
mhg


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Egypt, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, UAE, Yemen

Abu Dhabi: Adventures of Shaikh Shakhbut with Nasser of Egypt and the Saudi Bins………

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“Yemen has become a microcosm of the whole Middle East struggle between Socialist and Conservative forces—a struggle that is not going at all well for Nasser. The latest blow was Saudi Arabia’s scheme for an anti-Nasser Islamic Alliance, which has rallied open support from Jordan, Tunisia and Iran, and tacit backing from Kuwait and Morocco. Nasser is also locked in a struggle with the Red Chinese, who are sharply extending their influence in Republican Yemen. Already Peking has reportedly sent some $45 million in aid, put 3,300 Chinese technicians to work for the Republican government, and is designing a technical training center that will accommodate 800 students. Meantime, Yemen’s Royalist forces are just as determined. They recruit retired officers from France, Belgium, Britain, Pakistan, Iran and Jordan, receive arms and financial help from Saudi Arabia, Britain and Iran. Even the tiny Persian Gulf sheikdoms are unstinting. Recently, a Royalist Yemen emissary visited Sheik Shakhbut, ruler of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, and asked for a contribution of 5,000 pounds sterling. He walked away with £100,000. “You are all astonished?” the sheik shrugged to his advisers. “Do you know how many cases of ammunition £100,000 will buy, and how long they can keep Nasser from me?……….”

Shakhbut did not have to worry about Gamal Abdel Nasser for long. He had more vicious enemies closer to home. His own brother, Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, soon overthrew him and became the rules of Abu Dhabi. As promised, his brother did not murder him, possibly because of British influence. But Shakhbut and his sons vanished into thin air.

The Saudis were intriguing even then, even long before then, against anyone who threatened their feudal kingdom of absolute tribal Wahhabi polygamy. That has not changed: the princes are more corrupt than ever: there are more of them and there is more of the people’s money to steal.
It is unfortunate that Nasser did not manage to sweep all these ‘Bins” into the dustbin of history.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, UAE

Gulf History: Shakhbut, Shaikh Jackpot of Abu Dhabi…………..

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“Five times a day for the past 30 years, thin, threadbare Sheik Shakhbut bin Sultan faced west, bowed low, and prayed for an oil strike. His realm of Abu Dhabi was desperately in need of some good luck. Up and down the Persian Gulf……….This has all been rather unsettling to Abu Dhabi, whose 15,000 Bedouins have got along for centuries on piracy, pearl fishing and intertribal raids. In the 19th century, the swift pirate dhows were swept from the gulf by Britain, which established “a perpetual maritime truce”hence the name Trucial States, given to Abu Dhabi and six other sheikdoms. Pearl fishing became unprofitable when the Japanese cleverly introduced cultured pearls to the world. There was nothing left to Abu Dhabi but intrigue: of the twelve predecessors of the present sheik, only three died peacefully in their palace beds. The rest were either murdered or violently deposed, usually by close relatives. Sheik Shakhbut took over in 1928 when his uncle was assassinated, after having earlier killed Shakhbut’s father who, in turn, had come to power by killing his older brother. Shakhbut is said to have ruled so long and safely only because his own two brothers swore a solemn oath on the Koran not to murder him…….. He installed an air conditioner in his bedroom but seldom used it because he disliked the noise. He also put in a flush toilet………….”

Little did Shaikh Shakhbut bin Sultan al-Nahayan know that he will soon meet a similar fate as his predecessors. His brother Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan was biding his time.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Bahrain, Human Right, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Heading to the Persian Gulf: Yates & Timoney, vandenHeuvel & Cheney, Mexican Killers, Jordanian Goons……

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“Former British police boss John Yates and US ex-cop John Timoney will oversee reforms to Bahrain’s security force after a report found it guilty of human rights abuses, the Daily Telegraph reported Friday. Bahrain’s King Hamad has asked Yates, who quit as head of Britain’s Metropolitan police force in July over a phone-hacking scandal, and Timoney, former head of Miami police, to modernise its force in order to meet international human rights standards. “Bahrain’s police have some big challenges ahead, not dissimilar to those the UK itself faced only a couple of decades ago, but I have been impressed that the King is doing the right thing by pressing on with big reforms,” Yates told the British newspaper. “This is a big challenge which I will undertake with a great reforming police officer like John Timoney,” he added. A special independent commission probing Bahrain’s March crackdown on Shiite-led democracy protests said ………”

About Bahrain: what will they do with all the humorless Jordanian interrogators and torturers the ruling al-Khalifa had imported from the sisterly king of Jordan? Will they send them back or will the Brits and Americans try to train them to better identify terrorists protesting for their rights? What about all the Pakistani mercenaries they have imported to help pillage villages, beat up people, threaten women with rape, and arrest the innocent? And all the Syrian and Iraqi Ba’athist mercenaries?

What Next for the Gulf region?


  • The Iranian mullahs could hire Katrina vandenHeuvel to help develop democratic institutions and help on women issues.

  • The Saudi princes may hire Liz Cheney to help the kingdom democratize and also to help improve the image of Islam and Muslims on her “Keep America Safe but Stupid” website.

  • The al-Nahayan potentates of Abu Dhabi, who also rule the United Arab Emirates, have decided on a different approach. They will finally take my advice and hire some veterans of the Mexican drug cartels to join their mercenary army. That army was announced last spring and is led by Blackwater bosses and composed of Colombians, Australians, white South Africans, among others.

Cheers
mhg


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