Saudi Men Arrested for Flirting
This is in today’s BBC News.
Saudi men arrested for ‘flirting’
Relations between the sexes outside marriage is against the law
Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.
The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.
They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia’s conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.
Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine’s Day.
The ban is partly because of the connection with a “pagan Christian holiday”, and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.
You can read the whole article HERE.
I wonder . . . is this what is going to happen in Kuwait? So like they segregate the university. . . then they segregate all the schools, EVEN THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS, so there is no choice. . . then they start patrolling the malls?
I lived in Saudi Arabia, and I remember the mutawaaeen were NOT police, but sometimes they took on the prerogatives of the police. So I have to wonder, like who made the arrest in the malls? Was it the police? Was it the mutawa hitting the boys with their little sticks? Did they call the boys parents? I have SO many questions!
Cold February Morning Sunrise
It is a shivery 5°C/45° F in Kuwait this morning, made more shivery by a brisk wind that blows and makes all the flags along the roads, hanging from apartments, decorating villas, etc. flap dramatically in the wind. I am hoping that National Day and Liberation Day holidays will make the roads less travelled as I zoom around, but I have been warned to steer clear of the Gulf Road, where youngsters are spraying cars with colored spaghetti and foam.
No more sandstorm, thank God, although there still seems to be grit in the air; your face feels dry and covered with an invisible coating when you come inside.
The sunrise this morning was beautiful – sharp, clear and, when I ran to get the camera, it was pink, but by the time I got back 15 seconds later, it had gone more orange:
How Decisions are Made in Kuwait
Here is the problem expats have in any country: you don’t know what you don’t know.
If you know you don’t know something, you can learn it. If you don’t know that you don’t know, there is this huge void in your understanding. Many times you can suspect there is a void, and if you ask, people will look at you like you are a little odd, and they will tell you there is no difference.
There IS a difference.
Working together with people of different nationalities, I have learned that some nationalities just forge on ahead and do things. Some nationalities use a more consultative process. Some nationalities expect to be told what to do and don’t do what they are not told to do.
In Friday’s Kuwait Times (February 21) is a column by Shamael Al-Sharikh, called The red, white, green and black. She talks about Kuwait National and Liberation Days, she talks about the shared heritage of all Kuwaitis (honestly, I would love to link you directly to this article but the website is still down) and then – I got a huge “AHA!” She talks about how decisions are made in Kuwait. I will quote a brief section, but I urge you all to find this column and read it in it’s entirety.
“. . . it has become painfully clear that there are nationals of this country who have no sense of belonging to it whatsoever.
However, the storm is about to subside. In a move that shows just how ready Kuwaitis are to mobilize for the sake of their national pride, a few diwaniyas in Kuwait signed a petition and sent it to the Takatul Shaabi political alliance at the National Assembly. It stated that unless MPs Adnan Abdulsamad and Ahmad Lari are asked to withdraw their membership from the Takatul Shaabi, none of it’s members will be welcome in Kuwait’s diwaniyas nor at weddings and funerals.
The move worked: the MPs have been asked to leave. . . the petitions included diwaniyas from all corners of the Kuwaiti society, both Sunni and Shiite, and it covered all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. . . I have never been more proud to support the red, white, green and black than I have now, and I am so proud to be a Kuwaiti.”
Not being welcome in diwaniyas, at weddings or at funerals is not something I would have considered political pressure. It matters here. It mattered enough that when diverse communities within Kuwait made the threat, it was effective. Who knew? Thanks to this column, I learned something I didn’t even know I didn’t know.
Keystone Cops
As you all have seen from US Crime tapes, this news story could happen anywhere, but it happened in Kuwait. I would love to see a video of this!
Kuwait Times, 21 Feb 2008
Drunken Man
The operations room received an anonymous call reporting that a drunken man had been dancing in the streets of Fehaheel and terrifying passersby. A police patrol rushed to the scene and managed to arrest the suspect, who initially resisted arrest.
However, after being cuffed and forced into the patrol vehicle for just a couple of seconds, he managed to step out and ran for dear life while police were busy putting some gear into the vehicle’s trunk. A wild goose chase ensued with police hot on his trail, while the man returned to the spot where the vehicle was parked, got in, stepped on the gas and sped to his freedom again. Police later tracked the vehicle that was dumped in a deserted area in Jleeb. A manhunt has been launched to arrest this man.
I commend the writer on the correct use of the plural “passersby.” Bravo.
Your challenge: how many cliche’s did this staff writer use to write this article?
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
The Kuwait Times website seems to be down so I can’t link directly to them, but this is at the top of the crime news on yesterday’s page 5:
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
Kuwait: An owner of a real estate office registered a complaint with the Khaitan police claiming that 5,000 real estate deeds were stolen from his office’s locked-up drawers. However, both the owner and the police were baffled because the thieves could have carried off furniture and other valuable items, but preferred to steal the deeds instead. The case was handed over to special detectives who immediately launched an investigation.
This seems to me like the deeds were the target of the break-in. Aren’t deeds registered somewhere? So like even if these paper copies are stolen, can’t they be replaced? What would somebody gain by stealing these deeds? Can they claim the properties? Can they claim the properties were transferred to them? Can they hid transfers that someone doesn’t want disclosed? This sounds like a great mystery to me!
While You Were Sleeping
It’s not that I’m that good, that obsessive, that I would get up every morning to photograph the sunrise. No, AdventureMan has to get to work, I have projects I am working on – AND there is the Qatteri Cat.
His little pea-brain doesn’t know it’s Friday morning. All he knows is that his food dish is empty. He goes around the house, pulling over the trash bins (they are small, they don’t make a lot of noise) and then he scratches at boxes and closets, thinking somewhere there might be food. I am guessing it goes back to some deep instinct, looking for food, from his street days.
I had forgotten to fill his dish last night.
I was so tired, I kept falling asleep over my latest Donna Leon book. Finally, around nine, I turned out my light. When the Qatteri can started sniffing around, pulling over trash cans, opening cupboards (what you hear is thump. thump. thumpthumpthump as he tries to paw it open) and scratching at boxes, I was mostly ready to get up, even though it wasn’t quite six.
Good thing! Cold, clear morning, no sand, not a cloud in the sky and just look at that sunrise:
It is 46°F/8°C this morning. There is a wind, and it feels colder.
Sunrise 21 February 2008
This morning, the sand storm is gone, but there is still a very stiff breeze, keeping everything cool. It is 9°C / 48°F at 7:00 in the morning.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with the lunar eclipse, but as I got up – about an hour ago – I saw one of the lowest of all the low tides I have ever seen in Kuwait. I was tempted to go out on the beach and look for shells, but I don’t go on the beach alone, and I don’t have any dogs to protect me. The Qatteri cat has tried the leash – we call it ‘taking the cat for a drag,’ and he just isn’t fierce enough to protect me.
Kuwait has a LONG weekend! Friday and Saturday are the normal weekend, Monday and Tuesday are Liberation Day and Kuwait Day, so the government also declared Sunday to be a holiday, giving a nice 5 day break. The sandstorms have gone, at least for now, and it looks like it is shaping up to be a beautiful weekend.
God Laughs
So I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Lent was beginning and I was giving up all cursing in the car, as a kind of practicing some spiritual discipline kind of thing.
What I didn’t tell you was that I had this sneaky strategy all planned out – I had all kinds of projects lined up at home, and I didn’t really intend to be on the road much during Lent, and I thought that not putting myself in temptation would help do the trick.
I always get tripped up when I make those kinds of strategic decisions toward spiritual disciplines. Strategic and spiritual don’t always blend too well.
What happened is this – suddenly I have found myself on the road more than I ever thought. On the road every single day. Running from one thing to another. And not just my familiar treks either, but some challenging driving, new places, and with people in the car.
The pressure is on. The very worst day of all, I just had to give God a great big grin and thank him for the opportunity to really, really practice my spiritual discipline. The car is full of people, I am on a strange road, sand and dust are blowing everywhere, the competition for my road space are on their way home with their kids in the car, the highways are packed and people are hungry and all I can do is laugh, because I sure can’t curse.
Dust Storm Sunset and Sunrise
This is what it looks like in a dust storm. Imagine fog, but fog that cakes on your face and makes it grainy, that gets in your eyes and up your nostrils. Dust that gets in your ears, dust you can taste. Your skin dries out like an alligator and there is a coating of slick grit on the road.
It’s a driving challenge. Visibility is low. But people are driving more slowly, at least along the roads I drive, so I am actually enjoying the experience. It’s kind of an adventure.
This is how it looked late yesterday afternoon:
And this is the Dust Storm Sunrise this morning:
Kuwait View
This is for people who lived in Kuwait a long time ago – like pre-invasion – and still think of Kuwait as a sleepy, spacious little city. It is taken from near the Marina Mall, a mall that has an overpass across Gulf road to take shoppers to the Marina Crescent, a collection of many restaurants with indoor and outdoor seating.
This is a view looking north, toward Kuwait City:
This is a view looking south:
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