Former Saudi Council Member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi on Arab Culture

[Techno-Druid]

I think he brings up plenty of valid points on the lack of liberalization within Gulf Arab culture.

What do you think? Do you agree with his assessment on Islamic and Arab culture in general in the 21st century? I know we have a few people from Saudi Arabia on this forum, so it would be interesting to hear their opinions on this.

[THE Bigzoman]

We have like, one person from Saudi that comes here on occasion.

Apart from that and @Assbandit, I don't think many arabs come to these parts

[Techno-Druid]

We have like, one person from Saudi that comes here on occasion.

Apart from that and @Assbandit, I don't think many arabs come to these parts

Isn't @Assbandit Pakistani?

[Khaza-R]

The Middle East will never transform without stability.

Liberalism and education go hand and hand. And you can't have an educated population when the region is war torn. Furthermore with every war in the Middle East you have another wave of educated Arabs who migrate out of the region for better opportunity elsewhere. The effect is compounding, adding to more and more conservative and fundamentalist ideologies

As for Saudi Arabia, I would expect it to change any time soon without some cataclysmic upheaval. Any form of secular thought is shut down in that country. Younger Saudis show signs of wanting change, but it will be a long time before they have the power to do anything

[Deleted]

The Middle East will never transform without stability.

Liberalism and education go hand and hand. And you can't have an educated population when the region is war torn. Furthermore with every war in the Middle East you have another wave of educated Arabs who migrate out of the region for better opportunity elsewhere. The effect is compounding, adding to more and more conservative and fundamentalist ideologies

As for Saudi Arabia, I would expect it to change any time soon without some cataclysmic upheaval. Any form of secular thought is shut down in that country. Younger Saudis show signs of wanting change, but it will be a long time before they have the power to do anything

Very much this. Entirely correct.
The ME needs stability.

[zorkuus]

The Middle East needs to have a cultural/sexual revolution akin to the 70's that occurred in the west.

They had it already but fucked it up, with the help of western (read: US) meddling such in the case of Iran.

[Rennadrel]

The Middle East needs to have a cultural/sexual revolution akin to the 70's that occurred in the west.

That is when (organized) religious control started to wane from our society.

Well, they were having one in the fucking 40's and early 50's in Iran. Then the American's got greedy and toppled the democratic government of Iran because their prime minister basically created the oil industry for Iran, so the USA wanted a chunk and so began the great big theocratic clusterfuck that is Iran and the rest of the Middle East.

[Sky High]

The Middle East needs to have a cultural/sexual revolution akin to the 70's that occurred in the west.

more like a religious reformation out of the 1500's

[Wells]

Well, they were having one in the fucking 40's and early 50's in Iran. Then the American's got greedy and toppled the democratic government of Iran because their prime minister basically created the oil industry for Iran, so the USA wanted a chunk and so began the great big theocratic clusterfuck that is Iran and the rest of the Middle East.

And it wouldn't be the first rational reformation the Muslim world has experienced either. Its nice to think that change is always forward, but it isn't.

[Rennadrel]

And it wouldn't be the first rational reformation the Muslim world has experienced either. Its nice to think that change is always forward, but it isn't.

There was no change that needed to be made either, apparently diplomacy and trade deals were foreign to the US government at that time, or they were just really fucking retarded, I dunno. So rather than having a a democratic and fairly liberal Iran, we have a country that is ruled with a theocratic iron fist and more Islamic brainwashing exists as a result.

[Auxora]

Well this video is from 6 years ago and not much has changed yet. Women in Saudi Arabia still cannot drive, have to be mostly covered in public, can't swim in public coed pools, have to limit time with men other than their husbands, and can't even change clothes in store dressing rooms. I've traveled to that part of the world, and you'd be surprised how conservative and old school things still are even in large modern cities. Women are literally viewed as property and second class people.

And many foreigners from Eastern countries like India and surrounding countries go to work in Saudi Arabia as housekeepers and cooks, and although they are paid well they get treated even worse than the Saudi women. Not trying to generalize and I'm sure it's not all like that, but at least that's my experience and experiences from talking with people who have lived there. So I don't see a whole lot changing anytime soon. Those conservative ideas are pretty entrenched I think.

[Manu9]

Well this video is from 6 years ago and not much has changed yet. Women in Saudi Arabia still cannot drive, have to be mostly covered in public, can't swim in public coed pools, have to limit time with men other than their husbands, and can't even change clothes in store dressing rooms. I've traveled to that part of the world, and you'd be surprised how conservative and old school things still are even in large modern cities. Women are literally viewed as property and second class people.

And many foreigners from Eastern countries like India and surrounding countries go to work in Saudi Arabia as housekeepers and cooks, and although they are paid well they get treated even worse than the Saudi women. Not trying to generalize and I'm sure it's not all like that, but at least that's my experience and experiences from talking with people who have lived there. So I don't see a whole lot changing anytime soon. Those conservative ideas are pretty entrenched I think.

Some parts are right, some are not, things are starting to change here, especially for women, at least where I live. As for the second part, the treatment, it is also partly true, but only for the uneducated and actually bad people, but the norm isn't as such.

The video does speak the truth though, there are outdated notions here that need to be changed, a lot of them. But that does not mean that the people are bad or the religion is, it just means that people and ways of thinking need to change.

There is a saying here, that the Middle East carries the name of Islam, without acting like it, and the West does not, but acts as if it were; because the basic teachings of it, is to be kind to every single person no matter what, and to accept them for what they are, but obviously, that is not what is happening.

[Klingers]

The Middle East will never transform without stability.

Liberalism and education go hand and hand. And you can't have an educated population when the region is war torn. Furthermore with every war in the Middle East you have another wave of educated Arabs who migrate out of the region for better opportunity elsewhere. The effect is compounding, adding to more and more conservative and fundamentalist ideologies.

It's really interesting because while I think you're really on the nose like this. If you look back at photos and accounts of, say, Afghanistan in the 1960s, it was a relatively peaceful, liberal and tolerant country starting to lift itself onto the world stage. As a whole it's decade of turmoil and oppression in most Middle Eastern countries that have kept them so distablized. The stable Arab states are largely kept regressed by the cancer of Wahabism but that is likely to eventually collapse in on itself too.

A city like Dubai is deceptive. Beyond the veneer their society hasn't progressed one iota. It's a mirage built on desalinated water, nightly sewerage trucks shipping waste out and on the backs of an indentured subcontinent labor force kept under threat of confiscated passports. Culturally it's medieval.

[Dr Assbandit]

We have like, one person from Saudi that comes here on occasion.

Apart from that and @Assbandit, I don't think many arabs come to these parts

Did you just assume my ethnicity!? How very dare you!? My tumblr will hear about this!

[Kuntantee]

Arabs and their delusion of grandeur isn't something new.

[tehealadin]

Well, I mean, like, its their culture, and like, just because it is different, like, doesn't make it bad, yea? We need to stop looking at the world through imperialistic, Eurocentric eyes, and judging other cultures by our own, like, subjective, oppressive standards. We need to stop like telling brown people, like, how to live, because it is like, racist, yea?