Saudi Lobbies

The suggestion by Osama Al-Kurdi, a member of the Saudi Shoura Council, that pro-Saudi lobbies should be formed abroad (Aug. 29) deserves serious consideration and some deep thought. However, if they are to be judged as anything more than a PR exercise, they should be accompanied with initiatives to introduce reforms inside the Kingdom. Good news travels fast.

If laws are passed, for example, allowing women to work in public places such as restaurants and hotels and to drive and if measures are taken to relax the strong grip of the religious establishment over the people, that news will be received very well in the West and the media will do the work free of charge. That will be more effective than the work done by any number of lobbies. Initiatives to promote cultural understanding, such as the event held at London’s Syon House a few weeks ago, are positive steps in the right direction. That event received positive media coverage. The Aug. 27 issue of the London Evening Standard had an article on it.

The anti-Saudi campaign by the neocons intensified after the launch of the Saudi initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If implemented, the proposal requiring Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, the dismantling of illegal settlements and the resolution of the refugees problem in exchange for normalization of Arab nations’ relations with Israel would resolve the crisis for once and all. But Israel is not interested in such a solution that addresses the root causes of the conflict. It wants a cosmetic solution that will allow it to perpetuate the occupation under other names. Since Israel and the neocons could not attack the Kingdom for presenting a peace deal, they used the Sept 11 events as the excuse to intensify anti-Saudi propaganda. If any Saudi PR campaign is to succeed, it must be consistent with facts and must mention Saudi efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to secure permanent peace, security and justice for both Arabs and Jews and for all the inhabitants of Israel and Palestine, regardless of religion or ethnic origin.

Nehad Ismail • London, UK published 3 September

International Bus Center

The plans to open an international transport center at Jeddah’s Old Airport to operate buses to a number of Middle Eastern, North African and East European countries, as reported on Aug. 30 will fill a long-awaited need. It will solve the transportation problem for lots of low-income people who cannot afford air travel too often. It will also help in strengthening people-to-people bonds between the Kingdom and those countries and encourages tourism.

There is also a need to introduce more routes and better bus services within the city of Jeddah itself. People should be encouraged to make increased use of public transport rather than drive their own cars and add to traffic congestion, especially during peak hours. This can be done by providing better facilities and vehicles and more schedules to suit office workers and students.

Syed Taiyab Omar • Jeddah published 3 September

Saudi English Teachers

Nura Al-Saad (Saudi English Teachers, Local Press, Aug. 30) may be right in feeling aggrieved that the Ministry of Education is refusing to employ Saudi high school graduates, who had obtained an English diploma from a private academy associated with Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, as English teachers in elementary schools. However, that view fails to take into account the whole picture.

In this context, a look at our technical colleges where the practice of hiring underqualified Saudis has been going on for over 10 years now will be instructive. These so-called teachers have not had one day’s practical experience in a workshop. Then, how will they teach and train our future technicians? They cannot and should not, but are: And the students are suffering because they are not learning the skills needed to find a job in the private sector.

Nura wants to repeat the same mistake in teaching the English language in our schools. What good will it do to the students and the country if English is taught by those who do not know it? We will spend a lot of effort and money without any improvement in the language abilities of our graduates.

As for the students of these private colleges, the experience should teach them an important lesson: Do not believe everything you hear. Double-check for yourself. Did any of the students go to the ministry and personally check if the course had its approval? That is a duty they owe to themselves. A certificate. no matter how fantastic it looks, is of no use unless the course is recognized by the authorities. It will be absurd of me, for example, to demand to be allowed to teach English at university level claiming that I have passed a 60-hour English course with an “Excellent” grade.

K. Alwassia • Jeddah published 3 September

Power Flows From WMD

My answer to Khaled M. Batarfi’s question “What Is Wrong With Arabs?” (Aug. 29) is, “Nothing at all.” The dominant position the United States and Western Europe have today in the world has nothing to do with racial or ethnic superiority or a superior religion.

The real difference between the West (the US and Western Europe) and the Arab world began in January of 1939 with Lisa Meitner’s explanation to Niels Bohr of German nuclear physicist Otto Hahn’s inadvertent discovery of fissionable materials. This initially led to an exclusive “club” of Western countries who held a monopoly on atomic weapons. That is how the dominance of the West began.

Supposing tomorrow the Arabs decide not to supply the West with oil, how many days do you think the oil producing countries would last? Frankly, the Arabs have no choice but to supply oil. But supposing Saudi Arabia had ICBMs tipped with fusion weapons? And how would that affect the balance of power in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian situation? Power, wealth, prestige and influence come from the ultimate threat of atomic, biological and chemical weapons — and the Arabs have chosen not to be a player in this game. Sept. 11 was simply the result of frustration with the power of the West and, in itself, had absolutely no significant economic impact on America. But, Iran’s venture into enrichment of uranium has the whole West on high alert, and spies abound.

The Arab situation has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority of religions. The average Christian is just as full of useless superstition as is the average Muslim. The difference is who possesses the weapons of mass destruction.

Robert Lindh • United States published 3 September

Hersh on Abu Ghraib

On July 8, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, the man who broke the story about the Abu Ghraib atrocities, the same man who broke the story about the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam 35 years ago, spoke at the American Civil Liberties Union’s 2004 Membership Conference in San Francisco, California. In his address, Hersh made a reference to one or more videotapes held by the Bush administration showing the rape of Iraqi teenage boys at Abu Ghraib.

While casually surfing the Internet over the past week or so, I had seen the statement attributed to Hersh on only a handful of websites, most of them obscure, and most of them based overseas. The most prominent website that reported the statements was Al-Jazeera. For a while, I doubted that Hersh had actually said what was being claimed. I had not seen any references to his ACLU address in the “mainstream media”.

Then a couple days ago, I found and downloaded the actual speech. It can be downloaded in its entirety (I’m talking about audio/video, not a transcript) from http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/000772.html

The entire speech, which is about half-hour long, is a revelation, but what follows below is the excerpt that drew my attention to the speech in the first place: “Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib, which is about 30 miles from Baghdad — 30 kilometers, maybe, just 20 miles, I’m not sure whether it’s — anyway.

“The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what’s happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has, and they’re in total terror it’s going to come out. It’s impossible to say to yourself, how did we get there, who are we, who are these people that sent us there.”

It is unclear to me whether Hersh was speaking from firsthand viewing of the videotape. If it was, my bet is that the Bush administration would have destroyed whatever copies the US government had.

Anyway, it’s hard to dismiss the allegation. Seymour Hersh is head and shoulders above most of the journalists of the past 50 years.

Daniel Burosh • Munster, Indiana published 3 September

Right Words

I frequently come across references such as “Sept. 11 attacks on America by Islamic militants” in Muslim publications, including Arab News. Although I am used to see articles in the Western media using the world “Islamic” before terrorists, militants and extremists, I am disappointed when I see it in a newspaper like Arab News.

My objection to using the word “Islamic” is that whoever orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks had nothing to do with Islam. Islam, which is a religion of peace and submission to Allah, can never support such an attack on innocent people. Clearly, those who carried it out had abandoned the true message of Islam a long time ago. They may claim to be fighting a jihad or to be Muslims but all that they have done is to create hatred for Islam in the West.

Those working in the Western media may not know this, but Muslim journalists should.

Please try to take care to use the right words.

Sameer Zaheer • Canada published 3 September