Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
May 30, 2006

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The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim-Western relations.

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ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

1. Are you praying on my team, or not? by Patricia Dunn
Patricia Dunn, a teacher at Sarah Lawrence College in New York State and a contributing editor for Muslimwakeup.com, discusses the response from friends, family and strangers to her conversion to Islam. Continuing the baseball analogy she uses throughout the article to help explain her position, Dunn says, "I'm just a woman who still believes what her mother told her long before she'd heard of Christians or Muslims or the Yankees or the Mets. 'Sweetie', she said, 'God is love.'"
(Source: Christian Science Monitor, May 18, 2006)

2. Religion and politics: all the president's truths by Stanley R. Sloan
Stanley R. Sloan, a visiting scholar at Middlebury College's Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, considers what happens when someone "sees the existence of their god as a fact, not as a belief". Looking both at American administrations, past and present, as well as European and Islamic perspectives, he considers the negative impact of this view on foreign policy decisions.
(Source: International Herald Tribune, May 18, 2006)

3. Abayas and skirts by Beth Boal, Larin Brink and Fahad Mohammad
Beth Boal, Larin Brink, and Fahad Mohammad, participants in the Soliya Connect program, an online dialogue program that allows students from American and Arab universities to engage in inter-cultural dialogue, discuss the strides Gulf women are making to bring together the modern and the traditional in subtle yet dramatic ways. Some will no doubt always seem "odd" to Western eyes. Although they warn that the "world should not expect outcomes that parallel the development of women's rights in the West, and foreign values and ideologies mustn't be imposed on the region."They encourage us to "celebrate that a balance has been struck between abayas and skirts."
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), May 30, 2006)

4. Politico-religious cults and the end of history by Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Egyptian pro-democracy activist and sociologist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, provides support for Francis Fukuyama's recent rebuttal of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, providing a different way of understanding extremist Islamic movements in both a historical and present-day context. He argues that the "antidote" to extremism is "politics of inclusion, i.e. democratic governance. If that is an integral part of "modernity" in Fukuyama's revised discourse, then as Muslims increasingly join the "third wave" of democracy (started in Portugal in 1974, and already engulfing some ninety countries), the likes of al-Qaeda may very well join al-Hashashin in the dustbin of history."
(Source: openDemocray, May 10, 2006)

5. Philanthropy and the Saudi Experience by Michael Saba
Michael Saba, an international relations consultant, gives his first hand stories of charity initiatives in Saudi Arabia, dispelling an unfortunately widespread myth that the only cause people give to in the country is terrorism. Describing this experience at the Hope Center in Saudi Arabia, an organisation giving support to children with special needs, he puts a human face on the philanthropic efforts of Saudis.
(Source: Arab News, May 24, 2006)

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ARTICLE 1
Are you praying on my team, or not?
Patricia Dunn

Westchester County, N.Y. - My mother is a diehard Yankees fan. She takes every win and loss personally. And she doesn't want to know why a player is traded or leaves the team. In her mind, once you're out, you're out.

As children we learned never to mention the other New York team in her presence. So, it made sense to me that for years she never asked me one single question about my conversion to Islam. She never asked me why I decided to abandon Catholicism, the religion in which she had reared me. As far as my mother is concerned, when I converted I went to play for a rival team.

Then my son was born, and the I-don't-want-to-know-about-it mother became the crusading Yankees fan Grandmother. She was determined to have her grandson on her team, the winning team. She wanted him baptised, even though she hadn't been to church in years. But even with all her demands about rearing my son the Catholic way, she still never asked "Why?" She never wanted to hear how my newfound faith helped me to embrace her and the values with which she raised me.

So, when I opened an e-mail from a Christian in response to an essay I wrote about how Islam helped me find the Jesus in Christmas ("... What made you quit JESUS to become a Muslim?"), I thought, finally, an opportunity to tell someone all the things my mother didn't want to hear.

But he went on to write, "... don't get me wrong, I respect Islam and I respect Muslims, I don't agree with the image that the United States is making of the Islamic World ... but I just can't stand Christians becoming Muslims." And I could see from his use of exclamation marks and capitalised letters in the rest of his message that he was angry and hurt. And like my mother, he didn't like losing a player to the other team.

I've gotten this reaction from more than a few Christians over the years. One woman, a friend, said, "I understand if you became an atheist but to go to another faith is preposterous." She believed you stick with what you're born into and you either make it work or avoid religion altogether.

I have various reasons as to why I decided to stop calling myself a Christian, and then, years later, chose to embrace Islam. Mostly it had to do with my best friend, who later became my husband. It wasn't because he asked or necessarily wanted me to convert, but in the process of researching and reading to better understand his faith, I came to better understand myself. And as a social activist, I was drawn to the social justice aspect of Islam.

Not all Christians I've encountered in the 15 years since I converted to Islam have treated me like their rival. There have been many Christians, members of my own family even, who've supported my right to worship as I choose. They saw the common ground in our faiths. It didn't matter to them if I was no longer playing for the home team, as long as I was still in the ballpark. And for them, the only coach any of us needs to be accountable to is God.

My son started Little League this month. At the touch of a button he reaches out across thousands of miles to e-mail his grandparents in Cairo about his new glove. So with maternal instincts surging, I naively try to hold onto the hope that with technology shrinking the world, there will be more understanding and acceptance among people of faith - more breaking of rules that persecute rather than preserve any real sense of identity.

When he reaches adulthood, perhaps my son will find a world free of religious persecution, a world where there isn't someone insisting his or her perception of God is better than his. I want my son to be a Boston Red Sox fan, or even a Mets fan, if he wants. And I want my son to take to heart, as I take to heart, what the Koran says: "... I worship not that which ye worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship.... To you be your way and to me mine."

After all, I'm just a woman who still believes what her mother told her long before she'd heard of Christians or Muslims or the Yankees or the Mets. "Sweetie", she said, "God is love."

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* Patricia Dunn teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is a writer and contributing editor for Muslimwakeup.com. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Christian Science Monitor. May 18, 2006
Visit the website at www.csmonitor.com (http://www.csmonitor.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright © The Christian Science Monitor. Please contact lawrenced@csps.com for reprint permission.

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ARTICLE 2
Religion and politics: all the president's truths
Stanley R. Sloan

Richmond, Vermont - Besieged by plummeting approval ratings and mounting domestic and foreign challenges, President George W. Bush nonetheless keeps the faith. Speaking to a California audience last month, he affirmed that he bases "a lot of foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an almighty....Secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul...to be free."

Such a statement will surely add to the distress of many friends of the United States who believe that it has been led astray by such beliefs. The concern is about a president who so strongly believes he is doing "God's work" that he cannot see mistakes when he makes them or alternative policies when events cry out for them.

Europeans have always been uncomfortable with the way American presidents have invoked God in support of U.S. policies. Bush didn't start this, but he has practiced it with more conviction than most of his predecessors.

A French foreign policy expert, François Heisbourg, has put European concerns this way: "The biblical references in politics, the division of the world between good and evil, these are things that we simply don't get. In a number of areas, it seems to me that we are no longer part of the same civilisation."

As opposed to America, where religion has historically been on the side of "freedom", Europe's experience suggests that the church is not always a friend of democracy, and that religion can be a source of conflict as much as an instrument for peace. For Europeans the political success of the 18th-century Enlightenment was that it ensured a social contract based on reason, rather than on an absolute truth that made discussion and debate impossible.

For the most part, religious faith has reinforced many of the values on which European and American civil societies are based. The freedom to worship in a faith of one's choice is an important source of cohesion and peace in our societies.

But some Europeans have lately equated the danger of American evangelical fundamentalism's influence on U.S. policy with that posed by radical Islamic fundamentalism.

A European friend put it this way: "In Europe, it is newcomers who are challenging the fundamental values on which our political system is built, whereas in the United States this challenge comes from a core indigenous group's perversion of the founding values of their own system." She added, "I find this even scarier."

Even the most committed American Christian fundamentalists, however, support separation between church and state. By way of contrast, many Islamists -- and not just the radicals -- want a close match between their religious beliefs and the rules of state.

Nonetheless, fundamentalists see the texts of their faith as the "truth". A middle-of-the-road Christian "believes" in God. But someone with a more fundamental approach -- including, apparently, President Bush -- sees the existence of their god as a fact, not as a belief.

This kind of certitude becomes particularly problematic at the intersection between religion and politics. A strong believer, with political views on an issue grounded in religious beliefs, is less likely to tolerate varying political views. Uncompromising faith, which can be a strength in one's personal life, can be a recipe for disaster in foreign policy.

That point was driven home by Bishop Wolfgang Huber, Chairman of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany, when he warned that some Americans fall into the trap of believing that the American dream means "American superiority in the name of Christ".

The next American president will undoubtedly invoke God's blessing on America, as American presidents have always done. But it is one thing to ask God for blessing and guidance. It is entirely another to believe the Almighty blesses everything that we do.

A bit more religious modesty would help put U.S. foreign policy back on more solid ground.

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* Stanley R. Sloan is a visiting scholar at Middlebury College's Rohatyn Center for International Affairs. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: International Herald Tribune, May 18, 2006
Visit the website at www.iht.com (http://www.iht.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 3
Abayas and skirts
Beth Boal, Larin Brink and Fahad Mohammad

Richmond, Virginia; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Iowa City, Iowa - Black shadows walking side by side with women wearing Escada Jeans and tops while flaunting the latest Prada bag are a typical scene in many of the oil-rich Gulf State shopping malls. The abaya, a long, loose cloak covering the entire body from head to toe is often worn by Arab women. However, it has had to make way for the latest European and American haute couture. Just a few decades ago most Gulf women were seen only in black abayas, but today denim and abaya-clad women are as frequently found side by side. In politics and the workplace, women are also making strides in bringing together the modern and the traditional, in unique and quiet ways.

There have been numerous misconceptions concerning Arab women by the Western world, but negative stereotypes by the media are slowly being transformed by Arab women themselves. For instance, Arab women are often seen by their Western counterparts as being veiled by an oppressive patriarchal society. The reality is quite different. This reality varies, however, depending on which Arab country you are referring to, and which Arab woman you are talking about. For years, Westerners have misconstrued the hijab, the Islamic practice of women wearing a veil, as a control mechanism used by Arab men to oppress women. What most Westerners do not know is that wearing the veil is not mandated in most Arab countries, and Arab women choose to wear it in effort to avoid the male gaze.

The veil is based on Islamic religious doctrine, but is not much different from Christian-Judeo tradition which also calls for women to cover their heads in certain circumstances. Women who choose to wear the veil do so to protect themselves from unsolicited stares and to avoid being seen as mere sexual objects. In contrast, although women in the U.S. are not required to wear tight jeans and low-cut tops, many choose to do so knowing that this will increase their sex appeal. The end result, ironically, is that Arab women are seen as oppressed and American women are seen as liberated, despite the fact that the latter’s wardrobe seems designed to be physically pleasing to men while the other attempts to downplay the physical.

However, Arab women are subtly incorporating western fashion into their own styles, as if to send a message to the Western world that they can create a balance between these opposing viewpoints, and incorporate both of them. It is not uncommon to see women wearing brightly collared hijabs, some decorated with glitter and using striking, bright patterns, with tight, hip-hugging denim jeans.

In a similarly paradoxical way, Arab women are gaining access to other parts of society that were formerly closed to them without having created an overt feminist movement or even denouncing traditional roles, as feminist movements in the West did. Rather, change just seems to be happening, as many Arab regimes are slowly embracing women’s suffrage. Almost a year ago, Kuwaiti women got the right to vote and run for parliament, a breakthrough political decision that was debated for years and one already enacted in Bahrain and Qatar. Today, conservative Islamist MP’s have acknowledged the positive impact of this decision and have already taken steps to win women votes by putting on the table anti-discrimination laws. After decades of being a half-democracy, Kuwaiti women can now become involved in the political process. The involvement of women in politics is a must to show the West that Arab women are not merely oppressed, and will increase respect for Muslim countries everywhere.

In the economic arena, however, women have made only minimal progress. For women in the Middle East, barriers to employment perpetuate the gender inequality of the region. The World Bank report "Gender and Development in MENA: Women in the Public Sphere" addressed the issue, stating that "[a] key entry point to bring about change is to focus on women's economic rights." While blue collar jobs will no doubt remain off-limits to women, there is also a thriving corporate job market, which women are often unqualified for because of a lack of education. The impact is great. If a country does not employ half of its citizens, it stifles innovation and possibly stagnates development. Because of high unemployment, a lack of a female work force, and a large population of people too old or too young to work, the Middle East and North Africa have the largest economic ratio dependency rate in the world, which is to say, relatively few wage-earners provide for a large segment of the population. Some reports show that a household’s income could increase by 25% if women were a more active part of the labour market.

Nevertheless, there are some prominent exceptions to the rule. In several Arab countries, like Lebanon and Kuwait, women make up one-third of the workforce, and they are even entering male-dominated occupations as ambassadors, doctors and engineers. In addition, many women have started businesses and entered the stock markets, forcing their way into the patriarchal business sector and paving the road for the next generation of Arab women. Opening up the possibility of greater economic freedom for women could be the catalyst needed for gender equality in the region.

Flip through Arabic TV channels these days and you will see significant changes and paradoxes in Arab societies. There are elegantly dressed news presenters on Lebanese channels, raunchy, hip-shaking video clips of Haifa Wahbi, Elissa and other female singers, and women speakers at financial presentations in Doha and Dubai. Change is both subtle and dramatic, and will no doubt always seem "odd" to Western eyes. It is inconceivable that the women in this region abandon the abaya and the hijab in favour of low-tops and skirts, but it is quite possible that women will rise to the top of the political structure. The world should not expect outcomes that parallel the development of women's rights in the West, and foreign values and ideologies mustn't be imposed on the region. Rather, we should celebrate that a balance has been struck between abayas and skirts.

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* Beth Boal, Larin Brink and Fahad Mohammad wrote this article as part of the Soliya Connect program, an online dialogue program that allows students from American and Arab universities to engage in inter-cultural dialogue. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), May 30, 2006
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 4
Politico-religious cults and the end of history
Saad Eddin Ibrahim

Cairo - When Francis Fukuyama published his essay The End of History? in 1989, few people in the world, including Muslims, had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or his al-Qaeda organisation. Only close intelligence insiders had this dubious honour at the time. Yet, as Fukuyama revisits his original thesis, bin Ladenism has become a dramatic symbol of radical and militant "Islam" the likes of which have not been seen since the Hashashin movement of the 11th century.

Like al-Qaeda, the Hashashin wreaked violence and destruction on their enemies. They brutally and spectacularly murdered their political opponents, typically between midnight and dawn, after consuming an ample amount of a cannabis derivative known as "hashish" (hence their name Hash shin, or "hashish users"). In less than half a century, their movement dwindled to a cult, and ultimately vanished by the end of the same century. The only surviving legacy of that bloody episode is the Arabic-rooted word which eventually found its way into western languages as "assassin", one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent individual or politician.

The more than fourteen centuries of history of Islam and Muslim peoples are replete with movements: revivalist, protest, retreats, Sufis, messianic, reformist, radical, and revolutionary. In this respect, the 1.4 billion contemporary Muslims are not much different from the adherents of Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. In fact Europe, and especially Germany, witnessed many similar movements in the 16th and 17th centuries, a period of profound socio-economic transformation. At that time, the process of "modernisation"was just getting underway, with all its concomitant large-scale dislocations.

Muslim societies of the Arab world finally underwent similar transformations following the oil boom of the 1970s. In such tumultuous times, individuals seek shelter and solace in "religion", which often takes the shape of revivalist fundamentalism. It is also such periods that offer opportunities for the relatively deprived and ambitious to challenge the prevailing order, and for this new social formation to inch up or jump several steps on the class ladder. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden and Layman al-Swahili first challenged their own domestic ruling elites in the 1980s. Having failed, they shifted the battle to a global level, targeting what they dubbed the "mother of all evils": the United States, its close allies (in Europe), and its clients elsewhere in the world.

Many of Fukuyama's propositions in the afterword to the new edition of The End of History and the Last Man are adjustments and refinements of his original argument. He has smoothed out some of the sharper edges of the earlier thesis, re-contextualising it in light of both geopolitical events and new, equally sweeping worldviews, such as those propounded by Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1994) and Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong? (2001).

I am more in agreement with Fukuyama's updated version. As a native of Egypt and a lifelong observer of Islamic movements, I am quite impressed by the sensitivity and sharpness of his rebuttal to the metaphysical thrust of The Clash of Civilizations and to the orientalist nature of What Went Wrong?

In essence, Fukuyama forcefully takes issue with the Arab and/or Muslim exceptionalism thesis. He cites recent empirical data from the United Nations Development Programme's Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) to argue that the overwhelming majority of Arab youth aspire more to the values and lifestyles of western societies than those symbolised by austere bin Laden-like theocrats.

A further substantiation of the AHDR was revealed by the University of Michigan's World Values Survey (WVS) in 2003. Samples from several Muslim countries, including Arab Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine, revealed attitudinal commitments to various scales of western-style democracy that ranged between 84% and 96%. These results were similar or only slightly lower than those of their counterparts in European countries. Ronald Inglehart, who administered the study, noted after critically reviewing the WVS data that if there were any clash of civilisations at all, it is over sexual mores, family and marriage values, where differences were as great as 20%-30% on attitudinal scales between Muslim and western societies. But even in this area, it may be argued that attitudes in the West were as conservative fifty years ago as they are today in Muslim countries.

In the last three years, the march of events in the Middle East has confirmed some of Fukuyama's assertions about the universal appeal of liberty and democratic governance.

Inclusive vs. exclusive politics

The success of the Islamic-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and its counterpart with the same name in Morocco, which waged campaigns for parliamentary elections in 2002 with an impressive showing, had a tremendous demonstration effect on other Islamic-based movements. A dramatic case in point was Hamas, which called for a boycott of the most recent Palestinian presidential elections, but made a 180-degree turnabout a year later and waged a successful campaign for the parliamentary elections in January 2006 that put them on top and enabled them to form the new Palestinian government.

Something similar occurred with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who earlier in their career as a militant movement shunned democracy as a western import but in the last five years have waged forceful electoral campaigns to get into the Egyptian parliament. To everybody's surprise, the Muslim Brotherhood increased their share from 5% of the vote in 1995 to nearly 20% in 2005. Many observers believe that they could have done even better had the election been free and fair. In brief, by 2005 democracy had become the only game in town in the Islamic world. No sober analyst would consider this a final commitment by Islamists to democracy, but the process of transforming them into Muslim democrats is clearly underway.

Another way of understanding radical Islamists is in terms of inclusive versus exclusive politics. So long as the entrenched autocrats of the Muslim world continue to deny their peoples equal rights of participation, there will always be disaffected dissidents who may resort to extreme ideologies and violent practices. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries excluded Muslims rallied to theocrats, the bin Ladens, al-Zawahiris and al-Zarqawis, to combat the autocrats, the Mubaraks, Assads, Fahds and Musharrafs. The autocrats and theocrats are mirror-images: both are exclusive.

The antidote for both is a politics of inclusion, i.e. democratic governance. If that is an integral part of "modernity" in Fukuyama's revised discourse, then as Muslims increasingly join the "third wave" of democracy (started in Portugal in 1974, and already engulfing some ninety countries), the likes of al-Qaeda may very well join al-Hashashin in the dustbin of history.

This article is part of an openDemocracy debate on Francis Fukuyama's afterword in the second paperback edition of The End of History and the Last Man (Simon & Schuster, 2006)

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* Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a leading Egyptian pro-democracy activist and a sociologist. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: openDemocray, May 10, 2006
Visit the website at www.opendemocracy.net (http://www.opendemocracy.net/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

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ARTICLE 5
Philanthropy and the Saudi experience
Michael Saba

Washington, D.C. - Try googling “Saudi” and “charity” together. Almost all of the hits tell you stories of alleged illicit activities by Saudi charities funding terrorism and almost every other dastardly activity that you can imagine, supposedly being performed with Saudi charitable funds. You have to go way down on the list before you find anything even vaguely positive about Saudis and charitable activities. This week, however, a news article did make the papers about Saudi benevolence. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was acknowledged by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) for having recently given $10 million for draught relief in the Horn of Africa. And that act is not unusual for the Saudis.

According to a WFP spokesperson, "Saudi Arabia has become a significant donor to WFP operations worldwide. Since 2005, the Saudi government and private sector have given over $20 million in contributions. Most recently, Saudi Arabia has provided funds for WFP operations in Cambodia, the occupied Palestinian territory and Pakistan."

They go on, "Providing assistance to over 50 countries across the globe, Saudi Arabia plays a leading role in humanitarian and relief activities. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has donated billions of dollars bilaterally or multilaterally to relief and development projects over the last 30 years and the recent donations to WFP are examples of its ongoing commitment to help humanity."

According to various sources, Saudi Arabia, on a per capita basis, is the largest donor of foreign aid in the world, yet the major international media continue to cast Saudi Arabia's charitable activities in a negative light. Also, although frequently missed by the international media, there are uncountable acts of individual and private and public institutional charity carried on throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

During the last couple of weeks, this writer and a group of American visitors have seen firsthand numerous charitable activities in all parts of Saudi Arabia. From disabled children's programmes in Riyadh and special schools for the handicapped in the Eastern Province, we observed scores of dedicated staff and volunteers caring for the less fortunate. But the highlight of the trip was a visit to Hope Center for Exceptional Needs in Jeddah.

The Hope Center is a multilingual, multicultural centre for children with exceptional needs. They rehabilitate children with disorders such as Down’s syndrome, autism, attention deficit disorders, and learning disabilities. Their services include skill training in the areas of cognition, self-help, socialisation, behaviour modification and fine and gross motor skills. Parents of these children are offered training and support through the institute. The Hope Center is an exceptional place.

We met children of various races, faiths and nationalities and saw great love and care being given to each and every child. One lovely little girl was deaf and yet she could read lips in both English and Arabic. One little boy with a learning disorder hugged each one of us warmly as we entered his classroom. Another young man with Down's syndrome proudly showed us his skills on a classroom computer and beamed when we were told that he would be taking a job bagging groceries at a local supermarket.

As we were standing at the bottom of the stairs, a tiny six-year-old girl was helped down the steps in an agonisingly slow manner. She had thick glasses and moved ever so slowly. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she smiled and reached her hand out to greet us all. We each hugged her and with tears in our eyes we were told that she couldn't walk or talk or even swallow when she was brought to the Hope Center. She turned and smiled one more time as she ambled into her classroom for her morning lessons.

I met another sweet young girl who also had a lovely smile. When I was told the name of her family, I asked her if by chance she was related to an old friend of mine. She told me that my friend was her grandfather. She then said that she would see her grandfather soon and greet him for me. The staff told me that this young lady was advancing in her studies very rapidly and looked forward to her classes every day.

When we asked the staff about their needs they told us that since they were a charity, they were dependent on private donations. They also stated that a very high priority for the Hope Center was to place their students back in normal life situations and to help them obtain real jobs. The Hope Center staff said that they were looking for roles models in the Kingdom who had made the jump from institutional care to the world of work. We all pledged our support for their efforts.

That same afternoon, our group was invited to a meeting at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce. I arrived early and asked an official there if I could get access to a computer to check my email while I was waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. I was taken to two or three different places which had computers that were not turned on before I finally ended up, totally by chance, standing in front of a young Saudi man with the biggest smile that I have ever seen. As this young man greeted me and offered me the use of his computer, I took note of the fact that he was disabled and had to move from his desk with the use of crutches.

I asked this young man, who was a secretary at the Chamber, how he had progressed from his disability to this job at the Chamber of Commerce. He said that he decided that he just couldn’t sit at home feeling sorry for himself and that he had taken training and found a sensitive work environment for his situation at the Chamber. When I told him about the Hope Center, he immediately volunteered to meet the staff there and spend as much time as he could with the children. The next day this gentleman and the director of the Hope Center were already in contact with one another and planning program time together.

It was a teary day for me. Oh how I wish that this story would appear at the top of the list when one entered charity and Saudi on Google.

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*Dr. Michael Saba is an international relations consultant.
Source: Arab News, May 24, 2006
Visit the website at www.arabnews.com (http://www.arabnews.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication

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Posted by Evelin at May 31, 2006 06:34 AM