Huge budget .. But!!!

Today, the budget for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been announced, which amounted to more than one trillion and one hundred billion Saudi Rials* ($290 billion). This figure might look like daunting at first glance, and it might be difficult for others to read this figure as they see it for the first time. Yet if we compared the budget with the wealth of a "such man" who passed away, will find the Saudi budget looks very less than normal. Being a "person’s" fortune is almost equal to a certain extent the “whole country’s budget” will suck the big shock of the budget figure. 

Distribution of the budget was fair partly, but what is important and always the most important for some people is: who has the lucky pocket this time?! Unfortunately, this idea includes some famous people from neighbor countries!! Some of them let us, as Saudis, feel like strangers for our own budget!!!


We hear a lot about projects and services, which cost a huge amount of budget, but there are nothing in the reality!! It reminds me an Arabic proverb says: “free money teaches how to thief?” 

If the disbursement of this budget will directed as planned, we will live -with the projects and services that we only did hear about them- worthy and peacefully. I'm against any increasing in salaries or housing allowances, because we have to learn from the past history in few years ago, which has taught us that prices of daily life needs will increase more than now without any reasons except the lack of supervision or accountability. 

Anti-Corruption Commission has more red lines that cannot be passed, moreover, the large number of corruptions cases, will keep this commission busy for long time. Nowadays, the huge challenge faces Saudi Arabia is the corruption without punishing the perpetrators. As a result, the fear of revolution young people complain of the visible injustice and corruption is increasing daily, as well as more than 22% of the trillion's Rials' country population are living below the poverty line!!!!! 

Oh Lord, give us your kindness. 

* Rial is the Saudi currency (SR). $1 = SR 3.75

Vote now on a socially inclusive Saudi Arabia as women get to cast their ballo By Fiona Hill

"( While Saudi women celebrate their hard-earned right to vote in next year’s Municipal Council elections, the frenzy of international media interest highlights just how mysterious this country remains.

Women in Saudi Arabia are not legally permitted to drive, open a bank account without a male relative’s assistance, or interact freely with men outside of their family.

Our media images of black abaya and niqab-clad Saudi females arouse the usual expressions of dismay at their presumed oppression.

So have we missed the point?

Arab Spring, Saudi-style
Most assume that the Saudi regime is scrambling to discourage popular civil dissent in the face of Arab Spring revolutions.

In a way they are right. But this step forward for women marks another step in the slow but steady march towards harnessing female productivity which started at least a decade ago.

Although the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has massive oil reserves and commercial production, not all Saudi citizens have access to the wealth it generates.

Unemployment

Almost a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning population are under 30. About 80% of male jobseekers did not complete high school. And a 2007 report for the Ministry of Social Affairs found almost 22% of Saudi citizens were below the poverty line and collecting social security payments.

Unemployment is high. But this is partly because many Saudis reject jobs which they consider below their status. After decades of reliance on a work force which is 75% foreign, Saudis are used to having all their needs met by foreign workers. So Saudi jobseekers now see roles other than management as demeaning and dishonourable.

A dissatisfied, idle, and relatively impoverished population is unproductive and lately has become restive, posing a significant security risk for the Kingdom.

Dr Basmah Omair, the CEO of a prominent women’s advocacy group argues “the increasing pressures of economic need will break down our conservative attitudes.”

But when this conservatism is the root of potential threats to domestic security, radical reform is required to “re-educate” and to impel the Kingdom’s economic development forward with greater speed.

A King’s journey

When Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al Saud became King in 2005, he shocked the nation by visiting the capital Riyadh’s slums and announcing measures for alleviating poverty and dealing humanely with drug addiction, prostitution, and crimes arising out of poverty.

He dedicated a significant budget to low-cost housing and social welfare payments, pardoned hundreds of prisoners held for reasons related to poverty, and declared an amnesty for those wanted for threats to national security.

Recognising that economic and social progress demands change but not disruption, massive budgets were earmarked for education, technical training, and positive discrimination for Saudi work entrants, and for welfare payments that currently match what the average Saudi citizen is competent to earn.

King Abdullah’s announcement that women may now serve on Municipal Boards and as Members of the Shura Council is entirely consistent with his vision of moving the Saudi economy away from its oil dependency.

Veteran Saudi-watchers often quip that every new Saudi policy is “progress without change”, but in fact under King Abdullah there have been consistent moves towards a more socially inclusive Saudi Arabia.

Quantum leaps for women

In the past decade there have been quantum leaps in female education, civil participation, and work opportunities.

The 2006 Royal Decree that females be included in all private and public sector employment came after King Abdullah’s pivotal role in developing a Ten Year Program of Action calling for reform and modernisation in the Muslim world. His commitment to the cultural, social and political advancement of women in Muslim society is clear.

The first introduction of Municipal Elections in each Saudi Province in 2005 excluded women from nomination and election but it opened the door for them to participate Chamber of Commerce elections.

In the subsequent Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry elections, 17 of the 71 candidates were women, and 2 were successfully elected to the 18-member Board.

One week later, King Abdullah directly appointed two more women who had only narrowly missed full election, one of whom, Madawi Al Hassoun, later told me that “Saudi women now see opportunities to share with men the responsibility to develop our country while keeping our religious and traditional values.”

Women’s work

In this conservative, still largely gender-segregated society, Saudi females now far outnumber male university graduates and are keen to do something other than teach – the profession which traditionally absorbed 90% of employed women.

In the last 5 years calls for women’s access to the private sector have emerged and are growing louder.

Many Saudi female journalists, academics, and businesswomen have led public debate about women’s access to social service and to jobs deemed suitable for women, as well as equal pay for those jobs. In the last decade they are supported by many high profile and outspoken Saudi men.

A 2006 poll found 92% of Saudis supported the general principle of “empowerment of women”, and Saudis express frustration at the West’s preoccupation with symptoms of conservative values rather than their dynamic possibilities.

After the 2006 Jeddah Economic Forum, prominent Saudi businesswoman Lubna Olayan pointed out to me that the foreign media were more interested in her headscarf slipping off her head than in her historic and impassioned speech calling for Saudis to intensify the campaign for women’s equal opportunity with men.

Without a doubt the most radical reform in the Kingdom’s young history is the 2010 labour law desegregating the workplace and permitting men and women to work together in the same physical spaces.

This was so radical that the Chairman of Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry – the Middle East’s most powerful economic organisation – faced accusations of compromising moral values by publicly promoting it.

Yet this new law, and the reform it implies, went largely unremarked in the West.

Saudi women now own and run about 20,000 small to medium enterprises and hold private assets worth about US$16bn – wealth that sits idly in banks while the Kingdom’s investment facilities remain at best inadequate to their needs and at worst completely closed to them as females.

Progress with change

Many observers have assumed recent changes for women’s suffrage in Saudi Arabia are an effort by the regime to appease discontent in a volatile population.

But this is only part of the answer.

What they have failed to see is the long-term trajectory of Saudi Arabia, and the progress it has made with slow but consistent reforms.

They have also failed to see that Saudi women want progress that is in keeping with the nation’s traditional values.

Women’s right to vote in municipal elections and be appointed to the Shura Council is a green light for civil education more broadly.

One university is wasting no time in running information sessions “to enrich the knowledge base of women on their future political engagement”.

Saudi women’s full civil and economic participation in Saudi Arabia will advance economic development and the Kingdom’s longterm security. This at last is progress that intends to create change. )".

Ref: this article has been published here.

About Dr. Fiona hill

The New Faces Of Saudi Arabia By Fiona Rutkay

"( The Saudi government has sent thousands of young Saudis to study in Australia. Fiona Rutkay spoke to some of the students about their experiences of secular, co-ed education

I spot Talal — clean shaven, wearing sunglasses, looking athletic in a tracksuit. He walks towards me and offers his hand. I am momentarily thrown. As a teacher I’ve learned not to shake hands with male Muslim students because some Muslims believe unrelated men and women should not touch.

Talal Almarshoud, a 27-year-old Masters of Accounting student at Monash University, is one of more than 6000 Saudi students in Australia on the Saudi Government’s scholarship program.

Since 2005, more than 60,000 Saudi students have been sent abroad on full scholarships at the cost of 7 billion Saudi riyals, the equivalent of AU$2 billion.

The Saudi Government’s official reason for the overseas scholarship program is to give Saudis the qualifications and skills they need to enter the job market back home, a process called Saudization. Currently foreigners make up three quarters of the workforce and only one quarter of the population.

But Talal disagrees that Saudization is the main goal. "I think the government is trying to open the people’s minds," he says. That will be no easy task. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most closed and conservative countries in the world.

"The King Abdullah Scholarship Program is a difficult social experiment," agrees Dr Fiona Hill, an anthropologist and cultural consultant who works with clients in Saudi Arabia. "People in power have recognised there are citizens who haven’t had the opportunity to be exposed to other ideas, unlike the wealthier citizens." To break out of the Saudi scene and improve his English, Talal has chosen to live alone in student accommodation. He is anxious to make Australian friends but worries that people think Saudis are terrorists.

Haifa Alsaiari, a 34-year-old Masters of Information Systems student at Melbourne University, believes one purpose of the program is to change Saudis’ ideas about how males and females relate to each other. "At the beginning it was a bit difficult to communicate with males," says Haifa, "but I have a stronger personality now after studying with men".

For the majority of scholarship students, this is the first time they have studied with the opposite sex, and some never become comfortable with it. "It’s limiting for me," says Nora Hakami. "I feel shy asking questions. I do it, but I don’t like it."

However, like a lot of Saudi female students who are used to being accompanied by male relatives at home, Nora has started to feel more independent since studying in Australia. "I was afraid to go out alone but now I’m braver."

The female students are also breaking the mould by taking on traditionally male-dominated subjects like IT, business and medicine. "We want to change the old ideas that women are just wives or teachers," says Haifa.

Many Saudi students study full time while caring for young children. Haifa has three boys and found the fasting period of Ramadan especially difficult. In the evening when it was time to break the fast with her family, she was often in lectures.

Religion and daily life cannot be separated for Saudi students. "Islam in Saudi Arabia is the real Islam," says Haifa. "It is the only country which follows Islam from the book." With its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia funds the promotion of its style of Sunni Islam throughout the Muslim world.

Students struggle to leave religion out of academic life, sometimes using the Quran to support their views. Talal was told to leave religion out of his essays. "With topics like euthanasia we don’t have opinions," Talal tells New Matilda. "We don’t have meetings with scientists to get their views. We go directly to the Quran. Now sometimes I write the argument that’s in the Quran, but I don’t mention where it comes from."

Other Saudi students, though, have welcomed secular academic life.

A 30-year-old medical fellow at Monash Hospital who I’ll call Khaled, savoured the chance to voice his opinions in English classes. "I like debate. In Saudi Arabia we are not allowed to debate or question the clerics." He had clashes with relatives over his progressive views on Saudi society and women’s rights when he returned home for holidays.

My interview with this medical student turned into a dinner party, the first Saudi social event I’d been to involving both women and men. "When I first moved here my neighbours thought I was famous," he says. "There are always people coming and going, but this is just our culture."

All the couples here are Shia, a minority group in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia. "We can probably have more chances here, away from the discrimination," says Khaled. Intentionally or not, the scholarship program has brought many Sunnis and Shias together for the first time.

At Monash, the students are learning new approaches to their professions. Naturally, the intention of the scholarship program is to transfer skills learned abroad to the workplace in Saudi Arabia. But they predict they will face resistance.

That resistance will come from conservative Islamic forces that have an interdependent relationship with the Saudi monarchy. "The students have to go home and be completely frustrated with what is before them," says Fiona Hill. "The set up at home is not going to be conducive yet to using all the skills they have learned abroad, though things are changing extraordinarily rapidly."

Even so, Khaled thinks he will be able to make changes because Saudis respect qualifications. "People who come back from Western countries will have a high ranking in society and others will see them as role models." But not all the students are as keen on change as he is. He has seen many Saudis "go to one of the mosques that’s just like the mosque in Saudi, go to university and go home. The problem is Saudi people think they are the best and practise the best Islam. They don’t want to open their minds."

Here, though, sitting on the floor eating with young Saudi students who are busy making plans for a different Saudi Arabia, it is a totally different story. )"

Ref: This article has been published here.
And here too.

About Fiona Rutkay