People of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia – “The Arabia of King Saud”- is a large but lightly populated desert land. The culture of many of its eight million people hadn’t changed much for a thousand year. However, under the Arabian desert sand is the main power source for modern technology- oil, since the 1930s, this oil has brought to Saudi Arabia Europeans. Americans, and the above all, money. The products of the industrial world can be seen everywhere.

Saudi Arabia is changing, but underneath the change are powerful traditions which resist change .Ancient laws are respected and obeyed. Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, and the king rules with near-total authority. Changes in life and custom occur slowly.

In this section you’ll investigate the rules and controls that people of this kingdom.

Where do Rules come from? :

Every society has rules. There are always rules about marriage, about the responsibilities of parents to children, about education, work, dress properly- rules about almost everything, Clearly, if you want to understand a particular society, it is necessary to know what its rules are.

One important question about rules that is not asked very often is, where do rules come from. When we ask that question, we usually answer it by saying rules come “from Congress” or from “kings or rulers or other people who have power.”

But that answer misses the point of the question. The best answer seems to be that societies discover that a certain way of action causes problems. To avoid that problem, a rule is made up which prohibits the way of acting. The rule may come from an authority and be written down, or it may simply become accepted over a long period of time. The actual procedure isn’t important. It’s more important to know that rules usually begin as practical solutions to real problems.

Here are some rules generally observed by the Saudi Arabians. The rules have been followed for more than a thousand years. Since the time when the Saudi Arabians were tribes of herdsmen wandering from place to place to place on the Arabian peninsula.

As you read, think about what problems these rules might have helped to avoid.

On Drinking Alcohol :
If a Moslem Drinks wine, and two witnesses testify to his having done so. Or if his breath smells of wine or if he shall himself confess to having taken wine, or it he found in a state of intoxication, he shall receive eighty lashes, or, in the case of a slave forty lashes.

On Gambling :

They will ask the concerning wine, and games of chance. Say both are a great sin and advantage also, to men, but their sin is greater than their disadvantage.

The evidence of a gambler is not admissible in a court of law, because gambling is a great crime.

On Larceny :
If a man or woman steal, cut off their hands.

On Eating :

One should wash one’s hand, mouth and nose, give thanks to God. Eat with the right hand and with the shoes off and lick the plate when the meal finished.

On Women :

Men are superior to women because God has give n the man qualities which the woman does not have.

A women should not be seen by men not of her own family. If she appears where she might be seen by men, she must wear a veil over her face.

On Food :

All animals that seize their prey with their teeth, and all birds which seize it with their talons, are unlawful to eat. No animal that lives in the water, except fish, is lawful, but fish dying of themselves are unlawful. Animals which are not slain are unlawful to eat.

On collecting Interest On Money Loaned :

Cursed be the taker of usury, the giver of usury, the writer of usury, and the witness of usury, for they are all equal. They who take usury shall be given over to the fire of Hell, therein to abide forever.

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Tribal Organisation & Code

Tribal Organization :

The family unit, called Khanadan (in Pushtu) is the smallest in the tribal structure. Closely related families join together to form a clan. The clan joins with other clans to form a sub-tribe, which, in its turn, unites with other sub-tribes to for a tribe-called kheyl.

The leader of the tribe is the khan, usually a member of the most aristocratic family group in the khan kheyl. Many tribes have an hereditary chieftainship within the family. In other tribes the men are very independent and exercise their right to settle all important issues, including who shall lead the tribe, in a tribal council or assemble (jirga). but formally acclaimend as the will of the tribe.

The khan is responsible for the protection and prosperity of his people, as well as for settling disputes and carrying out decisions of the jirga. The Khan is automatically an individual whose tribe holds him in high regard. He is respected for qualities of leadership, wisdom, piety, valor, and hospitability. Learning and renowned ancestry are also important.

Tribal Code :

Tribal law in this part of the world is as old as way of life itself. It is more than a set evolved over the centuries by nomadic peoples living in desert climates all the way from the Mediterranean to far Mongolia, It recognizes the need for an established authority to maintain the unity of the tribe, and it defines the rules of behaviour in the tribesmen's relations with each other.

Although the Afghans come from a number of ethnic backgrounds, most of them have a fairly similar outlook on life, which is based on their Moslem religion and their tribal tradition.

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The Tribal people of Afghanistan

Society in rural Afghanistan (and most of Afghanistan is rural) is organized in family and tribal units. The afghan family resembles very closely other tribal societies of both the Near East and Central Asia. It includes the head of the family, his married sons. All of them share the common responsibility of the entire family. As a result beggars are rare in Afghanistan, for the aged, the sick, the handicapped, and the unemployed are cared for by the family as a matter of course.

The Eldest male, as head of the family, has complete authority over his entire household. The position of family patriarch generally passes to the eldest son. Sons stay in their father's household, while married daughters go to their husband's family. Often there is preference for marriages within the extended family or among near relatives.

In this type of family most property is owned jointly, and the entire family's earnings are pooled and distributed by the patriarch. When the head of the family dies, the property is divided among the sons to keep the family from becoming too large. (Moslem law requires that one share go to each son, one-half share to each daughter, and one-eighth of the total property to the widow.) The eldest son remains in the patriarchal dwelling.

Among settled peoples the family generally lives in a group of flat-roofed, mud-brick dwellings within a high mud-walled compound. These compounds often resemble a small rectangular fort (which, were in less settled time). Each married couple has a room or a small house. In a central courtyard a well or pool provides water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing. Meals are prepared by the women at a cooking oven and eaten together by the whole family around a huge metal tray set on the floor. A crude latrine will be the only sanitary facility, if it exists at all. These country compounds are surrounded by their fields of grain, with a low walled enclosure for livestock and perhaps and irregular orchard of nut or fruit trees near the walls.

The nomads follow a similar family living arrangement. In the summer months when pasture grass grows high on the mountains, they pitch an encampment of handwoven black goats, hair tents thrown over rectangular frames of rough poles. The furnishings are extremely simple. Rugs or felt mats woven by the women provide floor coverings, and there will the be a pile of blankets, a nest of copper utensils and earthenware jars for cooking, goatskin bags for liquids, occasionally a wooden chest for clothing. The parents and unmarried children live in one tent. If a man has more than one wives, each has her tent. The women of the family weave a tent for each son when he marries. In the winter they move to the lower valleys to escape the snows, and number of related families set up their tents together in a larger camp.

The men of the nomadic tribes hunt and care for the flocks. The women father fuel, carry water, and do the cooking sewing and weaving. The family's flocks of sheep, goats, or camels provide them with their meat, butter, milk, and cheese, the wool for their clothing, tents and blankets, and even dung for fuel. In addition, both the animals and their wool or skins are sold in towns to pay for such simple necessities as sugar, tea and thread.

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Women's Role in Marriage

Some of the most important patterns of action in any society are those which involve choosing a wife or husband.
In the text which follows, several girls in India speak about their views of marriage and raise questions about the American patterns. Read the text and answer the question that follow :

Night was falling at the close of a hot day. A cool, refreshing breeze playfully blew the girls' hair and set their gay saris fluttering. They were all teen-agers. They had been invited along by our host because we had expressed a desire to know what Indian young people thought about love and marriage. The girls, ten of them, were sitting on the floor in a wide circle. Being awkward westerners who couldn't sit comfortable on folded legs, we had been provided with low stools.
We gave as good an account as we could of how our young people are free to meet each other and have dates, how a boy and a girl will fall in love, and how, after a period of going steady, they may become engaged and then get married. We knew that young people in the East live a very then get married. We knew that young people in the East live a very restricted life, and have their marriages arranged for them by their parents. So we felt a little relieved that they had chosen to question us about our delightful romantic traditions. We didn't want to make them too envious, but we naturally were glad to demonstrate our superiority in this matter of finding a male.
When we had finished, there was a silence. Thinking that they had been impressed, we decided to start a discussion.
"Wouldn't you like to be free to choose your own marriage partners, like the young people do in the west ?"
"Oh, no!" several voices replied in chorus.
Surprised, we searched their faces.
"Why not"
"For one thing." said one of them. "Doesn't it put the girl in a very humiliation position?"
"Humiliation ? In what way?"
"Well, doesn't it mean that she has to try to look pretty, and call attention to herself, and attract a boy, to be sure she'll get married?"
“Well, perhaps so.”
“And if she doesn’t want to do that, or if she feels it’s undignified, wouldn’t that mean she might not get a husband?”
“Yes, that’s possible.”
“So a girl who is shy and doesn’t push herself forward might not be able to get married. Does that happen?”
“Sometimes it does.”
“Well surely that’s humiliating. It makes getting married a sort of competition in which the girls are fighting each other for the boys. And it encourages a girl to pretend she’s better than she really is. She can’t relax and be herself. She has to make a good impression to get him to marry her,” Before we could think of an answer to this unexpected line of argument, another girl broke in.
“In our system, you see,” she explained, ”We girls don’t have to worry at all. We know we’ll get married. When we are old enough, our parents will find a suitable boy, And everything will be arranged. We don’t have to go into competition with each other.”
“Besides,” said a third girl,” how would we be able to judge the character of a boy we met and got friendly with? We are young and inexperienced. Our parents are older and wiser, and they aren't as easily make a mistake if I had to find him for myself.”
Another girl had her hand stretched out eagerly.
“But does the girl really have any choice in the West ?” She said. “From what I've read, it seems that the boy does all the choosing. All the girl can do is to say yes or no. She can't go up to a boy and say ‘I like you. Will you marry me?’ can she?”
We admitted that this was not usually done.
“So,” she went on eagerly, ‘when you talk about men and women being equal in the West, it isn't true. When our parents are looking for a husband for us, they don't have to wait until some boy takes it into his head to ask for us. They just find out what families are looking for wives for their sons and see whether one of the boys would be suitable. Then if his family agrees that it would be a good match, they arrange it together.”

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Female Footballer

Bangladeshi female footballers face an uphill task when they take on Nepal in the semi-final of the first ever SAFF women's Football Championship at the Cox's Bazar stadium today.

A win in the semi-final will set up a re-match for them against India. who had defeated the hosts 6-0 in the group stage. The defeat rubbed salt into the wound after their 7-0 loss to the same opponents in the SA Games earlier this year. 

India, however, remained at their brilliant best thumping Pakistan 8-0 in the first semi-final on Monday. Bangladesh will start as underdogs against Nepal, whom they met only once and lost 1-0 eariler in the SA Games.

But this time the hosts are confident to change their fate.

Most of our players are in regular practice for the last six months and they have improved a lot. We will be able to overcome Nepal this time. Said Bangladesh coach Golam Rabbani Chhorton.

This is the knockout stage of the competition, so we have no choice but to press for a win. We will give all of our efforts to make it to the final, be added.

The coach also informed they will take a player-marking strategy to block some prolific scorers of Nepal so that they do not get enough room to shoot. 

They some good players who can decide the result of the match. The girls to look after them so that main weapons, which is the shooting ability. 

Nepal scored a total of 31 goals in the competition and conceded none in three matches while the home side registered only 11 against six in the same number of matches.

Meanwhile, in Monday's first semi-final prolific Indian striker Bala Devi recorded her second hattrick of the tournament to eliminate a comparatively weak Pakistan from the meet. 

Apart front Bala, Gayatn scored two goals while Shashmita, Mandakini and Manprit netted one apiece for India. Shashmita is the leading goal-scorer of the competition with 13 goals including two trebles.

Pakistan goalkeeper Sayeda Mahpara got a laptop as the best player of the side. despite conceding 21 goals in four matches. 

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Balance of Power (2)

Tragically, this tradition, set in motion in the first tenure of the BNP, was perpetuated by the Awani League, This time the BNP played their role in boycotting parliament. Tho the credit of the Awarni league they did make some efforts to empower parliament by establishing the prime Minister's question Hour and activating the parliamentary committees. But the BNP boycotted prime minister's question hour, while their long boycotts of the Jatiyo Sangshad weakened the effectiveness of the parliamentary committees. Once again the PMO became the centre of power in the then government with little or no accountability to parliament.

The return of the BNP-led alliance to office in 2001, with weak representation of the opposition in parliament, elevated the PMO into a virtual monarchy. Long boycotts of the parliament by the opposition, the refusal of the ruling party to give any opportunity to the opposition to ask question in the prime Minister's question Hour and the virtual dysfunction of the parliamentary committees transformed the parliament into a rubber stamp institution. Thus, for a period of 15 years and three elected government, we have been witness to an all-powerful prime, minister, an unaccountable executive, and a dysfunctional parliament. It is hardly suprising that governance has degenerated and corruption has flourished.

After this long exposure to and ineffective parliament whether under a presidential or parliamentary system, it is somewhat bizarre to be arguing that we now need to solve the problems of a malfunctioning democracy by strengthening the president's powers and putting in place an unelected suprabody in the form of a National Security Council.

The Pakistan experience, which is being enacted before our eyes today, should have educated us to the un workability of a duality of power between a president and parliament. In recognition of the un-workability of this arrangement the Pakistanis are seeking to amend the constitution to clip the powers of the president, which have invariable been used to frustrate the electoral mandate. A similar dyarchy of power in Nepal between the king and parliament has culminated in the abolition of the monarchy.

What we should be looking for today in Bangladesh is to return to the letter and spirit of the 1973 constitution by restoring the power of the parliament. It is the parliament which should be the real source of imposing cheeks and balances on a potentially autocratic prime minister, and to bold the government accountable for all its deeds of omission band commission. The central issue in the ongoing dialogue should, thus, be on how to strengthen the institution of parliament and to make it into an effective instrument of political accountability ofr the prime minister and the government. It is, after all, the parliament which actually elects the prime minister and can vote him or her out of office.

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Balance of Power (1)

There seems to now be some promise for a fruitful dialogue and a clearer roadmap to elections in December. However, part of the political equation still seems unresolved, so there are still quite a few unexploded land mines to be cleared before we reach the end of the road. I will not speculate on these issues until the current situation is more mature.

One issue, however, that can be explored both through public discussion as well as in the ongoing dialogues, is the issue of the balance of power in the post-election period. There is a rather confused discussion underway about some further constitutional interventions to bring about greater political balance between the president and the prime minister. This, for Bangladesh, seems to be a rather futile debate because it has, off and on, been going on for half a century. The debate has, at least twice, in 1972 and 1991, been resolved in favor of a strong parliamentary system and a symbolic president.

Neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh have ever had any good experience with strong presidents, who have inevitable tended to assume absolute power and treat parliament as a struggle against a powerful and unaccountable president was expected to be resolved through a strong, freely elected parliament headed by a prime minister. This was the essence of the 1972 constitution. But this phase lasted for less than 2 years till the passage of the 4^th Amendment in January 1975. From 1975 to 1991 we had been exposed to a president with absolute power.

The removal of an unaccountable president, through  a mass movement in 1990, should logically have led us to a restoration of the parliamentary system. However, for those with short memories, which seems to include most people, Begum Khaleda Zia, once elected to power in the March 1991 elections, was not at all keen to amend the constitution and restore the parliamentary system. She was more interested to continue with a strong presidency. Her ambitions were frustrated by  the then president, Shahabuddin Ahmed ,who had has the head of a care take government, given Bangladesh one of the fairest elections in our history. President Shahabuddin pointed out to Khaleda Zia and her colleagues that the 1991 elections were contested under the assumption that Bangladesh would return to a parliamentary system. This, indeed, was the commitment of the major political parties to the electorate. If Khaleda Zia wanted to resile from this position, now that her party was clected to office and retain the strong presidency, then Shahabuvvin threatened to dissolve the parliament and call fresh elections. The BNP could then campaign on the basic of retaining the presidential system and if they obtained an electoral mandate for this Khaleda Zia could become president, presumably after contesting a presidential election. The BNP was reluctant to expose itself to another election fought on the mandate of a strong presidency. They agreed to join hands with the Awam League in parliament to repeal the 4^th amendment, and Khaleda Zia took office as prime minister. However, the autocratic impulses which had inspired her to retain the presidential system, extended into her exercise of power as prime minister transformend herself into a president in all but name, building a strong secretariat in the Prime Minister's Office, where all key decisions in her government were referred. As a result, the Parliament, which has been restored with its powers, remained ineffectual. Here, the then opposition, led by the Awarni League, helped to keep Parliament ineffectual by walking out of the house on every possible occasiion and boycotting the house for long periods of time. For the five years of 1991-96, very little of consequence was discussed or decided in Parliament, and all powers were appropriated by this presidential prime minister.

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