Month: September 2007

New campaign for right to drive in Saudi

Saudi Women Petition for Right to Drive:

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 23 — For the first time since a demonstration in 1990, a group of Saudi women is campaigning for the right to drive in this conservative kingdom, the only country in the world that prohibits female drivers.

After spreading the idea through text messages and e-mails, the group’s leaders said they collected more than 1,100 signatures online and at shopping malls for a petition sent to King Abdullah on Sunday.

Wajeha al-Huwaider of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, co-founded a group urging that women be permitted to drive. The group sent King Abdullah a petition with more than 1,100 names.

“We don’t expect an answer right away,” said Wajeha al-Huwaider, 45, an education analyst who co-founded the group. “But we will not stop campaigning until we get the right to drive.”

Really, I don’t even see why the (mostly American) press bothered to cover tiny “democratic” improvements in Saudi political life when this retard-run country doesn’t even allow women to drive. Every time I am reminded of that ban I shudder at the thought that this is the most influential Arab country. If they have a lot of support, these women should give each other driving lessons and prepare for a wave of civil disobedience.

Major strike at Nile Delta factory

Hossam is writing a lot today about a massive strike taking place at Ghazl el-Mahalla, apparently the biggest such strike at a major textile factory since the beginning of the year. He has videos and complains the issue is not getting international press coverage. From an activist’s account:

After the first day of the strike and sit-in, the picture inside the factory is really amazing. 10,000 people breaking the fast together in Tala’at Harb Sq, located inside the company compound. It’s a scene, which I find no words to describe it with….

The government has started to present some compromises via the head of the Factory Union Committee Seddiq Siyam, in exchange for disbanding the strike. But the stupid forgot he was asking this (strike suspension) while the workers’ emotions and zeal are running at the highest peak you can imagine.. The inevitable happened.. the dude was screwed. The workers almost killed him, seriously I’m not joking. But he was saved at the last moment by the strike leaders.

Al-Masri al-Youm has coverage of the strike, saying there are 27,000 workers partaking (which might make it the biggest strike ever) who are protesting the non-payment of performance-related bonuses. They have made eight demands, including one of political significance such as the removal of the company’s chairman and the withdrawing confidence from their representatives in the official (state-controlled) union — a step that would encourage the formation of independent, parallel union structures. No wonder considering the official union said the strike was illegal and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition political movements was behind the strike.

One might ask whether this is going to be different than any previous strike, where generally the government made major concessions fairly quickly. Perhaps not, but it strikes me [no pun intended] that every time you have this kind of situation you have the potential for things to get out of hand and escalate unpredictably…

Update: Hossam has some more thoughts on making the link between economic demands and political change.

Space Muslim

Malaysian Islamic body rules on how to pray, wash and die in space:

“Conditions at the International Space Station which are so different from those on earth are not a hindrance for the astronaut to fulfil his obligations as a Muslim,” it said in a 20-page booklet.

“In difficult conditions, Islam has conveniences to ensure that religious worship can still be performed.”

Because the space station circles the Earth 16 times a day, theoretically a Muslim would have to pray 80 times a day while staying there.

But the guidelines stipulate that the astronaut need only pray five times a day, just as on Earth, and that the times should follow the location where the spacecraft blasted off from — in this case, Baikonur in Russia.

In the unlikely event the Muslim astronaut dies in space, the religious directives said his body should be brought back to Earth for the usual burial rituals. If that’s not possible, he should be “interred” in Space after a brief ceremony, though the guidelines failed to explain how that should be done.

The booklet covers Islamic washing rituals required before prayer, saying that if water is not available the astronaut can symbolically “sweep holy dust” onto the face and hands “even if there is no dust” in the space station.

There are also suggestions on how to pray in a zero-gravity environment.

“During the prayer ritual, if you can’t stand up straight, you can hunch. If you can’t stand, you can sit. If you can’t sit, you should lie down,” according to the booklet.

Muslims are required to eat food that is halal, which rules out pork and its by-products, alcohol and animals not slaughtered according to Koranic procedures are forbidden — but again in Space there is flexibility.

“If it is doubtful that the food has been prepared in the halal manner, you should eat just enough to ward off hunger,” the booklet said.

I wonder how these rules will evolve if there is, say, settlement on another planet or a permanent moon base. I haven’t seen this explored in science-fiction, even when there are Muslim characters. What if a planet has several moons — how would Jews and Muslims decide on calendars?

Spy or sex tourist?

Israeli in Lebanon under investigation in muder case and on espionage charges – Haaretz:

During questioning, it emerged that Sharon had visited Lebanon 11 times on his German passport over the last two years. He denied allegations he was on an espionage mission and said he was in Lebanon for leisure purposes, according to the source.

Media reports said that police in the Merje area, a hotbed of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement in Beirut’s southern suburbs, were investigating the killing of Moussa al-Shalaani when the probe led them to Sharon.

Al-Shalaani had been shot with a gun belonging to a security officer who had been his roommate. The roommate was summoned for questioning, and maintained that he had lost his gun.

The roommate also said that during the time of the murder, he had been with his German friend who was residing at the Four Points Sheraton hotel in Beirut’s luxurious Verdun neighbourhood. A hotel employee told the police that Sharon had paid him to not write his full name on any documents.

“His conflicting testimonies led the authorities to arrest him, and further investigations are underway in a murder case and espionage,” the judicial source said.

“He is denying charges of espionage and insists that he is gay and he likes to have sexual relations with Lebanese men and that is why his visits to Lebanon were frequent,” the source said.

“But further investigations into the case showed that Sharon had a friend in the Lebanese security offices who used to facilitate his entries to Lebanon and with the help of a hotel clerk he managed to hide his real name,” the source added.

A Lebanese security agent was also held for questioning about his relations with the Israeli man after the two maintained contacts through the Internet, said officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Lebanon forbids any contacts or dealings with Israel.

Lebanon’s General Prosecutor Saeed Mirza said investigations were underway into how the story was leaked to the press.

During questioning, it emerged that Sharon is well-versed regarding Lebanon, speaks Arabic well and knows how to use he language’s many idioms. According to reports, Sharon learned Arabic in the United Arab Emirates from a teacher of Bahraini citizenship. The Lebanese media reported that Sharon kept his cool during questioning and denied accusations that he was a spy.

Tahawy in Forward on MB

Mona al-Tahawy has a personal story of dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood and explains why she backs their political rights even as she (rightly) finds their views distasteful: I Will Stand Up for the Muslim Brotherhood.

I think, even more than the arrests, the sign that there is really a fierce campaign taking place against the MB is that last week they were prevented from hosting their annual Ramadan iftar, which only two years ago was being attended by NDP figures. Symbolically, it is saying that they are considered beyond the pale, which was not the case not so long ago.

A solemn promise

Dear Arabist readers, I now promise you that even though the New York Times no longer has a paywall I will not link any of its Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd or other moronic commentators and will restrict linking to only the most essential stories or the ones by those NYT writers that actually do a good job (is it to spite me?) like Michael Slackmann.

More than one million dead in Iraq?

A new poll suggests over one million dead in Iraq since the invasion:

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.
Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,461 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

Q How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

I am skeptical because, while I’m no statistician, I find the sample rather small and the extrapolation a bit too easy. But then again, this is not my field. The controversial Lancet study, which many think also overstates the number of dead, was at least seen by specialists (although not all of them) as methodologically valid.

Hillary Clinton against dividing Jerusalem

Clinton vs. Clinton on Israel:

To coincide with the Jewish New Year, fresh statements are coming out of some presidential campaigns reaffirming the candidates’ ‘pro-Israel’ credentials. It’s the kind of thing that stretches the thread between domestic political posturing and smart policy prescriptions to a snapping point. It is almost redundant to note that the content of these declarations have precious little to do with advancing what is good for Israel, or, for that matter, US interests.

But one sentence from the Hillary Clinton press release of September 10 stands out. (Curiously, the the statement is not up on Clinton’s campaign website.)  In staking out her position on “Standing with Israel against terrorism,” Hillary Clinton defends Israel’s right to exist with “… an undivided Jerusalem as its capital.” Oddly enough, this places her in direct contradiction with the plan put forward by a certain President Bill Clinton in December 2000.

I doubt she has a one-state solution in mind, either.

The sociology and economics of vote-buying in Morocco

Yesterday Le Monde published a fascinating analysis of the recent Moroccan parliamentary elections. I am pasting the full article after the jump since I don’t think it’s available to non-subscribers, and will focus on a choice excerpt here:

En fait, c’est l’abstention sociologique – celle de la masse des marginalisés sociaux – qui s’est le plus amplifiée entre 2002 et 2007, en relation étroite avec le relâchement du maillage social et politique, en ville bien davantage qu’à la campagne (respectivement 30 % et 43 % de participation). D’une part, ces populations craignent beaucoup moins les représailles administratives si elles ne se rendent pas aux urnes. D’autre part, l’introduction du bulletin unique rend le contrôle de l’échange marchand des voix beaucoup plus coûteux : il faut aussi avoir les moyens d’acheter suffisamment de téléphones portables avec appareil photo intégré pour permettre à l’électeur d’attester dans l’isoloir qu’il a rempli sa part du marché ! Il est donc plus difficile de monnayer la voix des ” pauvres ” contre de l’argent. Dorénavant, ils ont peu à gagner ou à perdre dans une telle transaction.

My translation: In fact, it is sociological absentionism — that of the masses of social marginals — that has been most amplified between 2002 and 2007, in close correlation with the withdrawal of the social and political lockdown [of former security practices], in cities much more than in the countryside (respectively 30% and 43% participation rates). On the one hand, these populations have much less to fear from security forces if they do not vote. On the other, the introduction of the single ballot makes controlling vote-buying much more expensive [for vote-buyers]: one must have the means of buying enough camera-phones to enable the voter to prove that he has fulfilled his part of the bargain! It is therefore more difficult to exchange the votes of the “poor” for money. From now on, they have little to gain or win in such a transaction.

In other words, even though it is said there was a high amount of vote-buying in the election, vote-buying overall has become more expensive and therefore is necessarily limited. In turn, there is less motivation for vote-sellers to go vote, especially as the relative security/political liberalization of the past decade mean that the state intimidation factor (go vote or else!) once enforced through the ground-level representatives of the Ministry of Interior (moqaddems etc.) is no longer such a compelling reason to vote.

Do read the article through the end for a solid analysis of why the Istiqlal party came first — basically its well-established party machine and network of notables and municipal level supporters across the country. Hence why I have kept hearing that municipal elections (the next ones being in 2009) are more important than parliamentary ones, because they represent a real local-level form of political representation compared to the more abstract parliamentary representation (and everyone complains that they only see their MPs during elections anyway.)
Continue reading The sociology and economics of vote-buying in Morocco