A crystal ball on the Middle East - repost

Who knew that among the US War Department’s bag of tricks back in 1946 was a crystal ball?

Six decades ago, just after WWII and before the start of the Cold War, the US War Department conducted a study on long-term threats to global security. The number one threat according to their study? Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East.

The report is filled with political incorrectness that would today probably lead to lawsuits and sit-ins, but it is also filled with some pretty interesting thoughts.

According to the report – remember it was written long before the terrorist attacks of recent years – paints a picture of a region “full of frustration and discontent”, a region torn apart by two powerful urges: one internal and one, not surprisingly external:

“The Muslims remember the power with which once they not only ruled their own domains but also overpowered half of Europe, yet they are painfully aware of their present economic, cultural, and military impoverishment. Thus a terrific internal pressure is building up in their collective thinking.”

The report goes on to conclude that:

“The Muslims intend, by any means possible, to regain political independence and to reap the profits of their own resources, which in recent times and up to the present have been surrendered to the exploitation of foreigners who could provide capital investments. The area, in short, has an inferiority complex, and its activities are thus as unpredictable as those of any individual so motivated.”

The external urge, of course, is supplied by the collective West, who, according to the report “sees itself in the position of the customer who wants to do his shopping in a hurry because he happens to know the store is going to be robbed.”

Mmmm.

Add to these two urges a host of divisive issues –everything from a lack of a common language to religious differences, political rivalries and economic disparities, and you have the makings of what the report called “a threat to world peace”.

“If the Muslim states were strong and stable, their behavior would be more predictable. They are, however, weak and torn by internal stresses; furthermore, their peoples are insufficiently educated to appraise propaganda or to understand the motives of those who promise a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Because of the strategic position of the Muslim world and the relentlessness of its peoples, the Muslim states constitute a potential threat to world peace. There cannot be permanent world stability, when one-seventh of the earth's population exists under the economic and political conditions that are imposed upon the Muslims.”

Of course some things have changed since 1946, but some things have not. The Middle East is still struggling to “regain political independence and reap the profits of their own resources”, and there are still factions in the region willing to use whatever means possible to do so. Today we call them terrorists; I’m not sure what they were called in ’46.

And, just importantly, the United States and the collective West still view the resources of the Middle East as a vast petrol station they can drive their big SUVs into and coyly holler, “fill ‘er up.”

Do you agree with the report that there can never be "permanent world stability under the economic and political conditions that are imposed upon the Muslims" or do you think that's just an over simplified cop out?

Are there common rights of humanity?

When it comes to looking at cultures other than our own, we are all afflicted with what human rights scholars call Normative Blindness, the belief that what we know and accept as normal is the way things ought to be.

I know for sure that I suffer from Normative Blindness. I’ve never hidden the fact that, for me, the best way to understand something is to compare it to whatever I know. I break things down – mmm this is like this, and this is like this, so the bigger this must – or at least should be – like this. If it is like something I know – great! If it is different, then I begin to form value judgments – better, worse; right, wrong; civilized, backward; moral, immoral.

It’s both comfortable and easy to live a life of normative blindness when everything and every one around you is similar to the things and people you already know and understand. It is not so comfortable or easy, when those basic similarities are hidden, obscured or not there at all.

Take driving her in Saudi. As an American, I grew up knowing and accepting a whole range of things about driving: There are rules, for example, and they must be followed. Yield right-of-way; no passing on the shoulder – either shoulder; stick with the speed limit; drive defensively; use your mirrors and peripheral vision; obey traffic signs and signals; be courteous. Oh and don’t forget the necessity of qualified and officially sanctioned driver’s education!

So, when my husband and I are out on the roads here, I am continually uncomfortable (read terrified!) with the way locals drive. Although posted, rules are rarely obeyed; the me-first mentality is absolute; people whiz by at remarkably dangerous speeds, passing on both shoulders as well as between lanes. It’s a rare day when the driver of another vehicle uses mirrors or even bothers to check traffic before pulling out, making a lane change or generally upsetting the traffic flow. And, as far as I can tell, any man in Saudi Arabia can obtain a driving permit for little more the license fee and a 2x2 photo. No experience – or training – required.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve wondered, “Don’t these people know how to drive?”

It is, of course, a case of normative blindness. I truly believe that my way of managing traffic flow and safety is best (and traffic fatality statistics in the Kingdom would seem to bare that out).

For someone who grew up without traffic rules, however, where speed equates into manliness, where superiority translates into getting to the head of the line and staying there at all costs, and where courtesy is for the weak, slow and powerless, I suppose driving in Saudi Arabia seems normal, known, accepted. The way things ought to be.

For them, perhaps, driving in Minnesota would seem slow and senseless and unexciting, not to mention safe!

But, traffic is easy. Things get a little tougher when we start talking about big, nebulous issues like the treatment of women, parenting, marriage, morality, modesty, freedom, and right and wrong.

Just because I believe, for example, that women should have equal access to opportunities, doesn’t mean that everyone should – or even that my definition of equal access to opportunities (or any one of those concepts) is universal.

Or does it?

Are there some basic values out there in the world that really are basic? Is there such a thing as one-size-fits-all right and wrong that all people of the world should accept and know as truth? Can there be common rights of humanity?

Cultural relativists would say no – that each culture, religion or group, each person, is entitled to their own version of what is right and wrong and basic and true. That everything is relative – relative to the situation and the culture and the experience and the individual. They would say that normative blindness is evil, judgmental and imperialistic.

I can’t go there. Or at least I’m unwilling to go there.

We’ve all heard or read stories about abuse victims who – when finally rescued – truly believe that what they have experienced – violent beatings, sexual assaults, starvation, mutilation, uncertainty, emotional and psychological warfare – is normal. They know it and accept it. Unimaginably they may even have grown comfortable with it.

But I would hope that no one – no one – would say that that’s the way people should be treated.

There is right and wrong in the world. There is true morality and freedom. There are basic rights that are basic to every human being, regardless of where they live, what they believe, who they are, how much they make or whether they are male or female.

We might disagree on the nuances of those rights, but we can’t afford to fight over whether or not those rights exist.

What do you consider the Common Rights of Humanity? And how are they impacted by your culture, your frame of reference and your "normative blindness"?

Gender Gap report hints at improvements for Saudi women

You might not know it by the looks of things, but the women of Saudi Arabia are doing better today than they were four years ago - or at least according to the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report put out by The World Economic Forum.

Sure Saudi still ranks near the bottom of the list when it comes to the actual gab between men and women, and sure it has fallen from a ranking of “just” 114 out of 115 to today’s ranking of 130 out of 134 since 2006, but still, that represents three whole steps up from the cellar, right?

In terms of labor force participation and estimated earned income, Saudi ranks 133 – one up from the bottom. But then again, the study suggests that just 13.21% of Saudi women are unemployed, and we all know better.

And Saudi is firmly in the gutter when it comes to the political empowerment of women. Yep, 134 out of 134.

And then there are those tricky survey questions about things like basic rights and social institutions, which Saudi just naturally scores low on – it received the worst possible scores on patriarchal vs maternal authority, polygamy and existence of legislation punishing acts of violence against women.

The good news – and there is good news for women here, comes in both health care and education.

Saudi ranks a respectable 76 in female educational attainment, and 79th in female literacy. The average Saudi woman gets married at 22 and gives both to 3.4 live children. Just three out of ever 1,000 infants die before the age of one, and the maternal death rate is 11 out of 1,000. Not great, but getting continually better.

Interestingly, the adolescent fertility rate – the number of teen mothers out of every 1,000 mothers – is 17.

It’s also interesting to look at Saudi in terms of how it compares to other Middle East countries.

Yemen, well Yemen has held the bottom spot for many years and doesn't look like it will be making a move up anytime soon.

The winners:

Bahrain was 13th from the bottom in 2006 and was 18th from the bottom this year, a respectable five-slot gain.

Oman was 11th from the bottom this year and 9th from the bottom in 2007, a two-slot gain.

Iran was 6th from the bottom this year and 7th from the bottom in 2006, a one-slot improvement.

Jordan was 22nd from the bottom in 2006 and was 21st from the bottom this year, a one-slot improvement.

And finally, our neighbor to the north, Kuwait, was ranked 29th from the bottom in 2006 and retained that position in the latest survey.

The losers:

Qatar was 9th from the bottom this year and 109/128 19th from the bottom in 2007, representing a 10-place drop over the last two years. Not good, Qatar!

All in all, the survey indicates a slight narrowing of the canyon between men and women in the Middle East, but only slight. And even then, as a region, it consistently ranks at or near the bottom in nearly every category.

The reason, according to the survey’s director, is simple: “Countries that do not fully capitalize on one-half of their human resources run the risk of undermining their competitive potential.”

Amen!

Sanitation concerns addressed by...you guessed it...a slaughterhouse on wheels!

Here’s one of those things that, frankly, can only happen in Saudi.

Next week folks here will be celebrating Eid Al-Adha. The holiday celebrates the willingness of father to sacrifice his son, and is marked by, among other things, animal sacrifices.

As an aside, I remember the first time I was in Kingdom for this particular holiday. I remember it because the image of freshly-slaughtered goats and sheep hanging like plastic bags from trees on the side of the road still makes my tummy turn!

Anyway, so part of the coming holiday involves sacrificing livestock – you know sheep and goats, as well as cattle and even camels. The meat is shard with the needy, thus the other name for the holiday, the Festival of Sacrifice.

It’s all well and good for folks living out in the desert, or even the less-populated urban areas, but sacrificing animals in a city of 1.4 million people, well, that causes some concern.

Especially if you stop to consider the sanitation issues around fresh blood and other body fluids, animal carcasses, contaminated water draining into the sewer, flies and rats and other hungry, germ-carrying pests, untrained and knife-wielding enthusiasts and – well the list goes on.

Yuck!

But fear not, for here comes a Slaughterhouse on wheels to the rescue!

Yep. The good folks at the Environmental Health Department in Riyadh will be manning a 10-stall mobile slaughterhouse, allowing folks who want to join in on the animal sacrificing ritual an alternative to their living room, the local parking lot or some other handy spot.

Oh and it’s free. And they provide running water and cleaning supplies.

And if that’s not quite your idea of a good sacrifice, they are also offering a drive-thru valet-style slaughterhouse.

Here’s how it’s described in the Arab New: All these locations will have drive-through points, where animals for sacrifice will be dropped and a ticket given to the owner, who will collect the sacrificial meat later the same day.

Mmm. Dare I call it a “goat-check”? (May I take your fat and goat, Sir?)

Seriously tho, kudos to the powers-that-be in Riyadh – and likely elsewhere – who recognize the potential problems associated with millions of believers carrying out important and meaningly rituals at this time of the year. They’re allowing the traditions to continue despite massive changes which have occurred in this region over the last 75 or so years – and continue to take place before our very eyes.

Truly proving that old traditions and new ways of thinking can go hand-in-hand.

Coincidentally, the Eid holiday this year falls over the Thanksgiving Weekend back in the States, so there will be a whole lot of celebrating going on!

What are some traditions you have this holiday season, and how have they been updated and modernized to accommodate the world we live in?

Two open letters and some tough questions

Murtadha Almtawaa over at Saudi Alchemist recently posted two open letters – one to Muslims and one to non-Muslims.

They are succinct and to the point, brutally honest and spot on, at least in my opinion, and I encourage you to read them both in their entirety.

Murtadha, a Saudi student currently studying in the US, dares to ask the hard questions:

Why don’t moderate Muslims the world over – and especially in the US where they have freedom of speech and expression – speak up against terrorists and terrorism more vocally, more passionately and more relentlessly?

Why do so many Muslims blame the society instead of taking personal responsibility for their failures?

And why do so many non-Muslims assume every Muslim is an extremist and a fanatic capable of and responsible for violence and terror when they’d never make the same assumption about other groups?

It takes courage to ask tough questions.

It takes more courage still to offer answers.

So how about it? How do you respond to Murtadha’s questions?

Female economic activity here in Saudi

Just over half (52.5%) of women over the age of 15 in the world are actively engaged in economic activities.

In the Arab states overall, the percent of women involved in economic activity drops to 26.7%, in large because of Saudi Arabia, where just 17.6 % of the female population is engaged in economic activity. Only women in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are less involved than the women of Saudi.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, in places like Comoros (57.9%) Mauritania (54.4%) Djibouti (52.9%) and Kuwait (49%), about half of all women are involved in economic activity.

About one third of the women in Qatar (39.3%), Syria (38.6%), UAE (38.3%), Algeria (35.7%), Lebanon (32.4%), Libya (32.1) and even Yemen (29.7%) and Bahrain (29.3%) are involved in economic activity.

Around a quarter of women in Tunisia (28.6%) Jordan (27.5%) Morocco (26.8%) and Oman (22.7%) are involved in economic activity.

But again, just 17.6% of all women in Saudi are engaged in economic activity.

Those few Saudi women who actually are engaged in economic activity are making considerably – pathetically – insultingly – less than the Saudi men engaged in economic activity.

Saudi women earn an average of $4,031 USD/year, compared to the $25,678 USD/year earned by Saudi men, meaning, on average, a Saudi woman will earn 16 cents for every dollar a Saudi man earns.

As a comparison, women in Kuwait and Bahrain make around 35 cents for every dollar made by a man. In both the UAE and Qatar, than number falls to about 25 cents.

Even among women in other High Human Development (HHD) Arab states, the working women of Saudi fall short. Women in Kuwait, for example, earn an average of $12, 623 USD/yr, while Bahraini women earn $10,495 USD/yr on average. Even women in Libya earn more than women in Saudi.

It’s a sad state of affairs for the women of Saudi.

But at least they’re being counted, they’re taking advantage of what opportunities they’re afforded, and they’re making headway.

Progress and equality have to start somewhere, and that place is rarely – if ever – at the top!

What are some potential outcomes of more Saudi women engaging in the Kingdom's economic riches? How can more women get involved and what - if anything - can women outside of Saudi do to bring more equality to the Saudi economy?

Who has the right to forgive?

Who has the right to forgive?

It’s probably not a question a lot of us ask ourselves.

Probably because so few of us are ever faced with an injustice, an offense, a transgression so grave and monumental as to force us to really and truly think about the depth of forgiveness and our capacity to forgive.

But, what if you were faced with such an injustice, such an offense or transgression? Could you forgive?

Back in 1976, Simon Wiesenthal asked that question in a thought-provoking and provocative book titled, The Sunflower: On Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness.

Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor, and thus, by definition, someone forced to confront forgiveness – the possibilities and the limits.

The book recounts some of the horrors of the Holocaust, then focuses in on one experience – an encounter between Wiesenthal and a dying Nazi SS officer. On his deathbed, the officer seeks out a Jew, any Jew. That Jew turned out to be Wiesenthal.

The Nazi spilled his guts, confessing to murder and torture and all sorts of unforgivable acts, and then asked – begged – Wiesenthal to forgive him.

Wiesenthal could not. Would not.

That decision haunted him for the rest of his life, encouraging him to ask the question at the core of The Sunflower: who has the right to forgive?

The answer is, I think, one determined by faith rather than fact. But Wiesenthal and his fellow survivors offer many opinions in the book.

“What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget. That is your own affair. But it would have been a terrible sin to burden your conscience with other people’s sufferings.”

“I don’t think that the attitude of the great religions to the question of forgiveness differs to any great extent. If there is any difference, then it is more in practice than in principle. One thing is certain: you can only forgive a wrong that has been done to yourself.”

“Forgetting is something that time alone takes care of, but forgiveness is an act of volition, and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Sunflower and forgiveness lately.

There seem to be a lot of situations – a lot of perhaps unforgivable situations – out there that are begging the question – what has the right to forgive?

Like the story of Peter Gadiel. Gadiel’s son was among the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He wants to erect a memorial to his son, and he wants the memorial to explicitly state who killed his son – who is responsible for his loss – Muslim terrorists. Who has the right to forgive those terrorists?

Or the murder of 13 American soldiers at Ft. Hood by one of their own. Who has the right to forgive him?

Or the witnesses to the horrible gang rape of a young girl outsider her high school who stood by and did nothing. Who has the right to forgive them?

I’ve always believed that true forgiveness is a sacred gift, that it is, in a very real way, a miraculous act made possible by God alone.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Or as George Herbert noted nearly 500 years ago, “He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.”

I hope I’m never in a position like the one experienced by Simon Wiesenthal or any of the other situations pointed out in this post. But, if I am , I pray my faith allows me to remember that bridge.

How do you feel about forgiveness? And as Wiesenthal asked, Who has the right to forgive?

Splitting hairs

I’m trying real hard to get my head around the differences between the terms Muslim and Islamic.

I used to think I had it figured out – you know – a Muslim was a person who practiced the religion known as Islam. And Islamic, well Islamic was anything pertaining to Islam.

It all seemed so simple.

Then I picked up a book by Amin Malak titled Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English, and I realized how little I knew. Or at least how simply I thought.
Turns out at least a few people – including Malak himself – see a big difference between the two terms.

“Muslim is derived from the Arabic word that denotes the person who espouses the religion of Islam or is shaped by its cultural impact, irrespective of being secular, agnostic, or practicing believer.”

Islam, on the other hand “emphasizes the faith of Islam. It denotes thoughts, rituals, activities and institutions specifically proclaimed and sanctioned by Islam or directly associated with its theological traditions.”

Mmm.

I’m still not sure I see any solid distinction.

Is there such a thing as a cultural Muslim? Can you be a Muslim without believing in the tenets of Islam? And, can the rituals and activities of Islam be separated from the rituals and activities of a Muslim?

Frankly, it is all rather confusing, and I’m not exactly sure whythere needs to be a distinction.

I get a sense that, at least here in Saudi, there are pretty big differences between the way this society lives under Islam and the actual ways of Islam.

I hear it all the time from non-Saudi Muslims, the caveat that what happens here doesn’t reflect what happens in the larger Muslim – er – Islamic – er – well – in the larger community of those folks who practice Islam.

Take the treatment of women, for example. I wish I had a halala for every time someone scolded me for implying that Islam – the religion – is anti-woman, when – at least in their minds – it is the people – Saudi Muslims – who are anti-woman.

Again, it makes me go mmm.

Maybe it has to do with an inability to fully integrate who you are with what you believe, an unwillingness to match words with actions. Maybe it’s just a way of slipping out from under the accountability cloak?

I can’t help but wonder if this is a long-held issue or of it’s just some distinction which has cropped up in recent history – a way for one group to differentiate themselves from another.

I’m not sure, but I sure would appreciate any insight!

How much influence do your beliefs have on your daily life? What do you see as the distinctions between Muslim and Islamic? And why do you think the distinctions are in place and/or necessary?

BTW – Carol over at American Bedu, and Susie at Susie’s Big Adventure have related topics under discussion. Check them out!