Sex and the Saudi

``All of them are commonly brown, and most (except Punjabis, like me) are pretty short.``

I find it inaccurate. Neither all Punjabis are tall nor all non-Punjabis(author gave this term) are short.

Hi,
The article was hilarious and I really enjoyed reading it. However I am against people reading this article and painting all the arabs with the image or arrogance and racism. before I cams to US, I despised ALL arabs based on info received from many people visiting gulf countries. But after I met some saudis and even amaratees (UAE guys) I decided for myself not to generalize people as some of the them are more down to earth and less racist and are as pissed off at racist arabs as we are. Atleast they dont have as much punjabi muhajir sindi bla bla bla partisan-ship as we Pakistanis have!!!

Asslam-o-Alikum
Mr Haroon Moghul
u post an article about sex & saudi...........bahi jaan aap phle apne pakistan ki khber tu len....that what happen in Pakistan??
lahore mein Heera Mandi(shahi Mohallah) sex ki leay most popular hai kiu????kia Islam sirf saudian ki leay hai???????
kia hum Lahore ki shahi Mohallah se sex kahatm ker chukey hein????
wa salam

lol oh my gawd you`r actually funny, which is a refreshing change from the `why did the peshawaree chicken cross the road` ruminations i have had to sift through.....
(i hear the cats coming, oh dear)

sir, i take off my hat to you......
possibly even my shirt if the arabs aloud it.

cheers,

danish

excellent article,,,,, i live in a town full of arabs (saudi) students...most of them hav their desi servants who they cant take a step without...and not to mention they are so arrogant.... Sure u have the money and u can afford the lavish life style but much respect to all the people who actually do the work in ur country to earn u to the money and the status u so brag of!

This is more like a 3 hour pakistani picture whose name was Kaliyon ka chaman ( land of flowers ) and the movie was shot in a desert .... mr haroon should really consider hanging on with the topic rather than flirting around with the driving situations in Saudia Arabia.

stupid brown men, are they not. =P

Pakistanis most of whom are short ``(except Punjabis, like me)`` => who are dumb and have an affinity for barn yard animals.

This is probably one of the most amazing pieces of journalism, sooo verry true of Saudi arrogance. Damm wachkos think they are superior, why, i have no idea. A fine example of why Israel should smack these idiots in their place. They claim to be the home of islam, yet somehow they have managed to ignore very pillar of the religion both in spirit and practice. Believe me, i have lived among these arrogants wannabe imperialists. Bunch of freaks, and I`m from Pakistan.

If Musharraf had an ounce of sense in him, he would pull those Paki troops stationed there to protect these arrogant pigs, then lets see them strike a brown man. My guess is 99% of them would be getting in a fetal position with their harems begging for our help.
BIG SMILES ;)

No 84,

The book is available here

http://www.xlibris.com/myfirstpolicestate.html

There is also a new chapter excerpt up on that page.

Otherwise you can find it on Barnes & Noble or Borders websites. ``My First Police State,`` by Haroon Moghul.

Excellent piece!

Though I happen to know a Filipino who knew exactly where the rest of the country is and now is safely in some other land.

And it seems they have removed the publication from the xlibris site. Where can I procure the book from?

the arrogance in which this article was wrtitten is beyond me. i do agree that Saudi Arabia is still going through some weird shit since the beginning of its existence, but to generalize things in this way is not so smart, i have lived in Saudi Arabia and i have mixed with the people and currently have a few Saudi friends who are perfectly normal, but in accordance to what is written here anyone ignorant of this country would think it is full of chauvenistic violent men and beliedancers living in a landfill of oil. it is not true.. i`ve been in Pakistan for almost a month and if i were to be such an ignorant and judgemental individual i would say that this is the most degrading place for a woman to be. i walk in the market place and i feel raped by the way men look at me, i wish it was like Saudi where women have to be veiled and arent allowed to drive, maybe thse people on the streets would have some more respect. but i dont go out of my way to bash the general public here because i know that this sort of ignorance and sexual deprivity is common in supressed soceities, which no one can argue about , neither pakistani nor saudi.

Fosa (#81),

Are you feeling alright? Apparently you are still fuming over partition of India. Get over it Sahib … its been a loooong time … otherwise your schizophrenia will only get worse. While we have Urstruly to deal with … it seems that India is similarly cursed with folks like you. Live and let live dude ...

PS: You should have rubbed some “brown paint” on your face as well … if you know what I mean ... it would have suited your prefectly ...

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Ras,

I know … I know … sometimes I am a bit harsh on our internet mullah … who dreams of one day becoming a salahuddin … but in all likelihood will probably continue to slave away for a jew for the remainder of his life … while cursing ahmadis … and ibm … and I consider him fair game for a few reasons …

He epitomizes ignorance to the hilt. His close association with drama and ideological absurdity makes it difficult to blast his ideas … without inadvertently hitting him. Secondly … at times he takes jibes at ahmadis … but refuses to elaborate when taken to the task. Sometimes I rub him a tad bit harshly … but he quickly gets back on his feet and moves on to hurling insults at gays, women, or anyone who does not support jihad in kashmir or has no interest in learning fiqah … life as usual … till he says something outrageous … and I happen to have a little time on my hand … and we keep going … it is a dysfunctional rivalry that has evolved over the years … punctuated with cynicism, jibes, and humor … but since neither of us is trying to find a cure for cancer … its not so bad after all …

In any case, your concern is valid, and worth keeping in mind as we move forward …

warpster:
`` the part about the various statistical distributions was hilarious!``
...it certainly was that!

RE: Sattar2 #75

Not getting personal with Urstruly would help

but this reply of yours raises some extremely valid points.

One of your best posts thus far. Keep them coming....

Ras

*74.... Dear Mr. wrapster..... Your are right. Do you mean to say my mistakes are some kind of Freudian slip of type writwer? All my mistakes are mistake due inadwquate mind, confused mind and almost delinquency of minor. I write as most are generous and they tolerate delinquiencies. Also I keep only to subjects which are not heavy or too meaty. I am advanced many time to do not try to lift a sword which I will not be able to lift. Honestly I find his students Adler and Jung more understandable. I will like to become psycho-analyst in future but age is racing aginst me, some times fill I am heading south. As I told earlier my mathethematics knowledge is not beyound two years of college 1965 BA Maths two years. Also with time maths has changed, its new maths and it is beyond my knowledge.
If am im not in mathematics but there are catagories really in two types to analyse of events in nature. One is analysis of determistic the paratmeters are set and then its time history they do this in rain forcast, they feed data and mostly Partial Differential equations are solved. 2 way is to look at data and generate probalistic boundary conditions and work problems normally results are resonable.

THE PROBLEMS WITH ALL SOLUTIONS OF DIFFERENTIAL(Partial) Euations is the reasonable ness of boundary conditions. Also there are problems of Uniqueness of solutions. For some problems there is probl;ems of stability and convergence to wrong solutions. Real problem are problems in Partial Differentai equations like memory Integrals in which boundary CONDItions are not known APRIORY( not known before- simple way to say). Solution also includes finding boundary conditions also.
FROM all coments again same mathematical truth, Intrgrartion even with wrong daats give good result.( area under cure, differential is difficult its slope. Interpolation is easy extrapolation beyond boundaries nearly speculation.

Thanks for comment. I also love women. I was surrounded all my married life by four, two daughter left, one to go. I just watch women for happiness. Its magic of way they talk (talking about daughters), they laugh and blame me and make me work hard. I had problem with little as her ideas and my ideas about men differ hopefully she will grow out of her new coming in age of female excuberance and grow out of romanticism. I respect women, they compromise and pull the bulluck cart. I have wife and with time I am becming her boy and she naturing for advanced age. Many times we do not get too much to talk as our daughter is occupying all our universe, like a planets mother and father revolve around her. Do you think any problem? I wonder what will happen to me and my wife after she is gone. Some times I fear worst. My wife says everything will be alright. I do not know. Write in general. Some times I get little uninterested in my job even. Just need general comments. Also I use to feel how my daughters can be so busy almost to forget us except when they need me. Yes women are unpredictable and like them but afraid of them. Like petting tigerress so beautiful, happy but can get mad fast. Any way thanks

Good luck with your daughters and their lafanga husbands.

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Urstruly: “Arabs have no control over their money…“

This is the type of defeatist mentality that will keep the ummah in the gutter for ages. These smelly Arabs are sitting on mountains of wealth … and our internet scholar suggests that Arabs are being victimized … and they have no control over their destiny.

These custodians of faith are able to build palaces of gold and ivory all over the world … maintain fleets of limousines and harems of women … wear the finest of silk and gold … but what they cannot do is … to open a few schools and develop some basic technology … send a few loaves of breed for the starving palestinian kids … and learn to read, write, and count. Of course, the only Arab, who according to Urstruly could do all three, including counting to 20 the day he discovered his toes … was killed by the western conspirators … and now the ummah has no choice to remain ignorant and stupid for the next four thousand years …

… but not all is lost … the Arabs continue to funnel money they never had to support wahabism all over the world … stash mosques in pakistan with ak47s … publish mountains of useless books on ahadith and fiqah … support terrorism in kashmir … while buying 3 year olds from child-camps from malaysia and bangladesh for camel races. Of course … all this is possible since Allah continues to help the momins in acts of righteousness … which once again proves truthfulness of Islam … and the futility of building freeways and shooting satellites in space ...

#71

It should be obvious that ahmadmadani is a spoof. All the mistakes are deliberate and some are quite funny. the part about the various statistical distributions was hilarious! He could be indian or pakistani.. anyone`s guess... probably pakistani as he seems to know more about things that the average indian would not.

#71 by ahmedmadani,,

Sirjee.

Jai Bhavanee. Jai Shivajee. You are far more well read, far more intelli.... heck I cannot even spell the word. I think I am the true ahmedmadani......

By the way Mahashay. The horse (most of the times it was either a female horse or a pony with Margatthas) was called somerthing else. Want to tell the story tell about Santajee/Dhanajee. You wont find in Mughal something you read...They were Marathas...

Another time, another story.

Quite impressed with your knowledge. Are you sure you want to play the role you are playing?


Yogiraj Patil

ahmedmadani ji as always you bring clarity and honesty without taking sides, thank you for the efforts.

About ships rolling (45 degrees each way, twice a minute) and pitching (fore to aft in different cycles) would give rise to a movement known as ``corkscrewing``. Movement of the unsecured human body in terms of feet/metres and/or degrees/arcs would after some time become a reflex, just like banking one way while cycling and another way while driving and yet another way while riding. If height above water level on the bridge is say 75 feet and draft of loaded ship carrying stiff cargo like iron ore is another 75 feet, all sorts of formulae can be used to calculate Centre of Gravity, Height of Metacentre, Heeling Moments . . . but unless the ship was loaded by a fool or you met the grandfather of all tsunamis on the beam, no ship would flip over like in Poseidon Adventure. They would just keep . . . corkscrewing. Often violently.

On dark winter nights in the Pacific with gale force 10 winds and alone with your Gods and no land around nothing else visible . . . you understand many things about life. Biggest thing I understood was that we Indians & Pakistanis must be amongst the biggest fools to fight with each other.

But back to ships . . .

The ability of the human body to adapt is amazing; it is our minds that get taught to get pre-conditioned.

I guess you would not be able to experience this sort of movement on boats in the harbour or even on passenger ships, but if you come to India again, please get permission to travel to Himachal Pradesh and go by State Roadways Bus from Shimla to Manali, on the roof. You will get the idea, and you will have more stories for us than Indian Airlines flights and dollar rates for tourists/foreigners/NRIs etc.

#65 Thanks D,Mitter ,Stuka and Arjun.
Dear Sirs, Question asking is very simple answering is difficult.
All distributions have biases. I measured aginst all three to see what was standard Deviation.
All points were able to fit very properly in all. So all were fine to use.

POSSION distributions are having proper biases for work regarding desease deaths eg aids occurance etc.
Random occurances like earthquake predictions related, rainfalls, rise of temp cycles, hurricanes are normally (example: specially probablity of exceeding 140 Faharentit for 10 times in next 100 years at Jacocabad, Sindh such type of problems) can best predicted by BIONOMIAL distribution.
NORMAL distrubtion are for personal relationships or people related.

These are suggested normal ways. I taught my daughter when she was in her college after looking at the equations I came to conclusion one can change those curves quite bit if you introduce constants. As basically is intergarion of equations neumerically and many children do not understand this curves are nothing but limit of sum which can be expressed as integral within given limits which in two dimensions is area from left hand side. ( Once I explained to my daughter her Ideas about her father are got upgraded.)

Mr. Arjun: As usual you made fun of me. Bill gate is unlucky born in usa. He must be paying lots of tax atleast 60% ?. If he was in desh he would not be paying any tax. NS never paid any tax( even for change), BB paid some $360 tax I read. If you see Bilawal house in Karachi in Cliffton, general sahib is landlord but tax burden is very light. Bill Gates May be 1 million dollars max. Indirect regressive taxation of all poors, fixed salaried Babus always sacrafice for rich is norm in pakistan and epecpt same in India.

I think you didnot understood the importance of horse in that time. Big Mughal Arabian horses needed lots of food as they were almost 50% more heavy and was problem like a big tank with great gas guzzler demand. While Bhimythadi was smaller , good on foot and good on short sprints and on light diet can survive on less protein content grass of Deccan compared to Indogangetc plains grasses. Also he needed big maintenance.

There was legend spread by rumors or saying whatever they say. When Great Arabian Mughal horse took to water and sips little water and feels disturbed they use to ask are you seeing that ``bloody Bhimthadi`` in water.. Real problem I found out was really relational , a bad relationship between rider and horse.

When frustrated Big Mughal rider use to get angry to find lots of food for horse and pay lot angrily he use to say you eat lot, shit lot and can not catch with that little horse , then horse use to get angry and will say screw you you big fat boy. That tatto is not carring overweight rider like you and kick to man . That was problem.

As you know best tank of WW2 was russian T-34. Medium wt, fast, not great range of gun but speed and agility. This tank was not superior on paper if one looks at amount of streel it can throw. But in battle field it will easily hunt big german tanks , tiger tans dure to agilty. In beginning when after crossing Bug river Germans sweft fast forward. Then russians began to use their monster tanks Kirov Vorashilov tanks series KV1, KV2 proved ineffective as they used to bogged up easily in steps area of Urakane. When German circled Moscow, leningrad russians started employing this light tank T-34 with devasteting effect. Even their design enginners were surprised by their own success. These light tanks were able to hit at Tiger tanks weak points, exhausts and destroy with much ease. Against these light tanks german disabled heavier tanks were forced to be used as static guns.

See book Great Mughals or books on alamgir. See typical picture Mughal soldiers and nealy noncombatant looking maratha sitting on little horce. The picture tells the story of more independant fighter and heavily armed fighter carrying lots of dead loads.

Stykaji : thanks for compliment. Please ask Pundit A Bajpai to issue me honary passport. It can be handy as at Taj they charge so much extra. The worst is fare of Indian airlines so extra for foreigners its discriminatory. Only consolation to me was they were catching lots indian NRI due to their flashy children and then Charging etra money in air. Its difficult to hide NRI specially when you are travelling with brat children. I told my campanion when he had to give extra money that Children are Burden and Charity business. He said I am nice man.

I have tried to explain but its difficult to tell these things .
Good luck everybody.

#65 Thanks D,Mitter ,Stuka and Arjun.
Dear Sirs, Question asking is very simple answering is difficult.
All distributions have biases. I measured aginst all three to see what was standard Deviation.
All points were able to fit very properly in all. So all were fine to use.

POSSION distributions are having proper biases for work regarding desease deaths eg aids occurance etc.
Random occurances like earthquake predictions related, rainfalls, rise of temp cycles, hurricanes are normally (example: specially probablity of exceeding 140 Faharentit for 10 times in next 100 years at Jacocabad, Sindh such type of problems) can best predicted by BIONOMIAL distribution.
NORMAL distrubtion are for personal relationships or people related.

These are suggested normal ways. I taught my daughter when she was in her college after looking at the equations I came to conclusion one can change those curves quite bit if you introduce constants. As basically is intergarion of equations neumerically and many children do not understand this curves are nothing but limit of sum which can be expressed as integral within given limits which in two dimensions is area from left hand side. ( Once I explained to my daughter her Ideas about her father are got upgraded.)

Mr. Arjun: As usual you made fun of me. Bill gate is unlucky born in usa. He must be paying lots of tax atleast 60% ?. If he was in desh he would not be paying any tax. NS never paid any tax( even for change), BB paid some $360 tax I read. If you see Bilawal house in Karachi in Cliffton, general sahib is landlord but tax burden is very light. Bill Gates May be 1 million dollars max. Indirect regressive taxation of all poors, fixed salaried Babus always sacrafice for rich is norm in pakistan and epecpt same in India.

I think you didnot understood the importance of horse in that time. Big Mughal Arabian horses needed lots of food as they were almost 50% more heavy and was problem like a big tank with great gas guzzler demand. While Bhimythadi was smaller , good on foot and good on short sprints and on light diet can survive on less protein content grass of Deccan compared to Indogangetc plains grasses. Also he needed big maintenance.

There was legend spread by rumors or saying whatever they say. When Great Arabian Mughal horse took to water and sips little water and feels disturbed they use to ask are you seeing that ``bloody Bhimthadi`` in water.. Real problem I found out was really relational , a bad relationship between rider and horse.

When frustrated Big Mughal rider use to get angry to find lots of food for horse and pay lot angrily he use to say you eat lot, shit lot and can not catch with that little horse , then horse use to get angry and will say screw you you big fat boy. That tatto is not carring overweight rider like you and kick to man . That was problem.

As you know best tank of WW2 was russian T-34. Medium wt, fast, not great range of gun but speed and agility. This tank was not superior on paper if one looks at amount of streel it can throw. But in battle field it will easily hunt big german tanks , tiger tans dure to agilty. In beginning when after crossing Bug river Germans sweft fast forward. Then russians began to use their monster tanks Kirov Vorashilov tanks series KV1, KV2 proved ineffective as they used to bogged up easily in steps area of Urakane. When German circled Moscow, leningrad russians started employing this light tank T-34 with devasteting effect. Even their design enginners were surprised by their own success. These light tanks were able to hit at Tiger tanks weak points, exhausts and destroy with much ease. Against these light tanks german disabled heavier tanks were forced to be used as static guns.

See book Great Mughals or books on alamgir. See typical picture Mughal soldiers and nealy noncombatant looking maratha sitting on little horce. The picture tells the story of more independant fighter and heavily armed fighter carrying lots of dead loads.

Stykaji : thanks for compliment. Please ask Pundit A Bajpai to issue me honary passport. It can be handy as at Taj they charge so much extra. The worst is fare of Indian airlines so extra for foreigners its discriminatory. Only consolation to me was they were catching lots indian NRI due to their flashy children and then Charging etra money in air. Its difficult to hide NRI specially when you are travelling with brat children. I told my campanion when he had to give extra money that Children are Burden and Charity business. He said I am nice man.

I have tried to explain but its difficult to tell these things .
Good luck everybody.

re Urstruly

``And the fact remains that Arabs do not have control over their money . ``

They simply choose not to. Why cannot they put their money in Bahrain or Dubai, those are pretty good centers of finance too? Or, if there is pressure on them to keep it in American banks (BTW Amer banks have branches in Bahrain and Arab banks in NYC), why cannot this humongous wealth stealthily buy up Citibank or BofA or ChaseMorgan? The answer can be one of the three: 1. The Arabs trust American banks to be the best custodians of their money 2. The Arabs are stupid 3. The Arabs love America more than their own desert kingdoms. In any even, the fault lies with the Arabs exclusively.

``I say that Arabs are forced to committing that fault. ``

Forced at gunpoint? By specific clauses in oil transaction contracts? By threats of the US Congress?

DM:

Mahar regiment was raised in 1942, technically at the time of the British but much after the ``martial race`` concept decided recruitment policies. You are right that the Mahars did fight under the Bombay Presidency Army in the 19th century.

DM:

Mahar regiment was raised in 1942, technically at the time of the British but much after the ``martial race`` concept decided recruitment policies. You are right that the Mahars did fight under the Bombay Presidency Army in the 19th century.

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Mr. Moughal:
Thoroughly enjoyed this one!

ahmedmadani:
Just out of curiousity, why did you use poisson distribution to analyse regional distribution? BTW, the number of people dying in battle do not necessarily represent regional/linguistic distribution. For example, soldiers in infantry and grenadiers taking more casualties, might have a disproportionate representation from certain communities.

stuka, others:
Stuka, take it from me, madani saheb is no Bhartiya mussalmaan. He is a genuine Pakistani. You can tell it from little details, such as his spelling Gujarat in a Pakistani manner (there is a Gujrat in Pakistani Panjab too which they spell without an `a`) or his menitoning Maharashtrian brahmins as marathas; most Indians wouldn`t make this mistake as Marathas are not brahmins. Whether or not he is all the other things he says is another matter.

Re. martial races, the British did not include Marathas among martial races, probably for the same reasons they excluded bengalis and bhaiyyas, they fought on the wrong side during the 1857 revolt.
And Mahar regiment was formed by the British, not by the Indians. This was a unique regiment as its soldiers came from the so-called untouchable castes. These castes had been fighting since the time of Shivaji, even though the brahmins did not like it. No wonder, that Maharashtra produced Ambedkar and has been the birthplace of the militant dalit movement, including giving currency to the term `dalit` for themselves.

urstruly #55 you write ``Palestinians sold their land to jews happily? absentee landlords?..............are you totally out of your mind? ``

I am not. These are historical facts of which you are obviously ignorant. Who do you think was in control of Palestine when the Zionist movement and the Aliyah (return to Israel, as the jews called it) started in the second half of the 19th century under Theodor Herzl and co? Surprise: it was the muslim Ottoman empire. By the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, there were already over 60,000 jewish settlers who had formed their colonies (or kibbutzim) in what is now israel UNDER the rule of the muslims. And yes, these jewish settlers BOUGHT this land from Arab landlords, and who saw this as a profit making opportunity.

It is true that in 1948 large numbers of palestinians (750,000 is the figure, not 3 million as you say - but it doesnt matter either way it was a large number) were forced out of their homes. BUT this was after the 1948 war when neighboring Arab countries declared war on Israel once it was formed.

The Israelis deserve their share of the blame no doubt. But the Arabs are hardly the suffering saints you imagine them to be. Over a period of several decades before the Balfour declaration they sold their land voluntarily - and happily, since then were under no compulsion to do so under Ottoman rule. They failed militarily in 1948 and 1967 despite their overwhelming odds and due to their own near criminal incompetence (- i once heard a pakistani general who visited jordan at their invitation just before the 1967 war tell my father how he was appalled at the lack of homework the Arabs had done for the approaching war in terms of collecting even easily collected basic military intelligence on israelis troop concentrations, and how this was matched only by the overconfidence of the jordanians who assured him they would be in tel aviv by sundown).

PM #60

For the US Govt, selling T Bills/Bonds is selling its debt to US citizens or foreigners and so financing the US budget deficit. However, for the buyer, it is an income earning assest--something akin to buying a piece of property that appreciates in value. I didn`t mean to imply that the Saudis were selling bonds to finance the Saudi budget deficit, which was non-existent in the 1980s.

I gave a very sketchy outline of the process. A huge chunk of Saudi money was kept in US and European commercial banks, which naturally were eager to lend it back out. A substantial portion of these loans were made to LDCs to finance oil imports (the oil import bill for most countries skyrocketed following the 1973 and 1979 oil price hikes). As long as interest rates were low, these loans were pretty easy to service. However, 1981-83, US interest rates rise very rapidly as Paul Volker (then Chair of the Fed) decides to use monetary policy to counter very expansionary fiscal policy (tax cuts and budget deficits, made worse by Reagans defense buidup-- remember, the US was already starting to see historically very high US inflation rates). This contractionary monetary policy is based on using very high interest rates (prime rate in the low double digits and climbing!) to squeeze inflation out of the economy. Volker succeeds quite well but the cost is the worst recession in US postWWII history and the international debt crisis. Loans that can be serviced at 6-7% (not too difficult) are killer at 16-17%. For most of the world, the 1980s are the ``lost decade`` of development. This is what I meant by petrodollars indireclty causing the 1980s debt crisis.

---

Urstruly,

The Iranian assets were seized BECAUSE they took US hostages, not because they overthrew the Shah. The timing is pretty clear. The US was instrumental in both persuading the Shah to leave and in persuading the Iranian Army to not back the Shah. The simple fact is that everybody involved miscalculated Khomeini`s appeal--the US, the Tudeh, the Iranian intellectuals, etc. BTW, Kind Faisal wasn`t the brain behind the 1973 Oil Embargo, it was the Shah of Iran, who was running out of money to pay for his military ambitions.

I think my post makes it pretty clear where the fault lies: right on the Saudis. You are saying that its the West`s fault for not ensuring that oil is $50+ a barrel? For not continuing to burn every more (per capita) amounts of OPEC oil? For not allowing the Saudis to wallow in wealth? I think you are seriously mistaken here.

Arjun:

I think Ahmad Madani is Indian...kinda like Bhartiya Mussulmaan used to be Muslim.

Fuzair,

I can`t see how, what you are saying is any different from what I have said. The only difference is that our perspectives are different yet we base our perception on the same fact. And the fact remains that Arabs do not have control over their money . The saying that `Possession is half owner-ship` does not hold true here instead we should say that `Possession is THE owner-ship` holds true here. Since Arabs do not have possession of their money they are bound to do what they are told to do. I think the only Arab that ever tried to take that control back from West was Shah Faisal; he was instrumental in imposing oil embargo and introducing reform in the society. He was the first who introduced TV in SA and opened up education institution for girls and women - a first in that society along with some judicial reforms. So he was assassinated. The West did freeze Iran`s assets (aka their money) after the revolution, as a punitive action, and had they not siezed US embassy, West would have digested all their assets without a burp. The fact remains that Arabs despite all their money have no leverage, because they do not ``possess`` the money.

You say that it is Arabs fault and I say that Arabs are forced to committing that fault.

re. Fuzair, #58
As usual, always a pleasure reading your psots. Very informative!

Here`s something I didn`t quite get though.. (emphasis added)
``US banks are now flush with funds which they lend to other countries. Parts of these loans are used to pay for very expensive oil imports--which leads, indirectly, to the Debt Crisis of the 1980s but that is another story.

Fuzair, correct me if wrong, but aren`tthe treasury bonds etc., really a way of selling, not lending, their budget deficit (which of course, makes it a liability; not an asset, as implied above)? And is it really an indirect link?

And is the US currently not facing a Debt Crisis? I`m speaking with reference to Richard Duncan`s (?) contentions in The Dollar Crisis here.

Thanks.

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Urstruly,

OK, here goes nothing. Saudis sell oil to the West, the West pays them $. In the normal course of events, the $ would be used by the Saudis to pay for whatever they want to import (i.e., everything except for camels and dates). So far so good?

So the Saudis, having no education, no industry, no infrastructure, no nothing in the 1960s are very rich and live rather luxurious life-styles by the 1980s. Within a generation they go from wiping their behinds with rocks to gold-plated bidets. For a while at least, they have so much money that they can`t spend all of it, no matter how hard they try. They have to invest the rest of their wealth somewhere and so they hire foreigners to build their roads, their ports, their airports, their refineries, their gold and iron mines, etc. etc. etc.. They also have to hire foreigners, roughly 4 million at last count, to run everything, from banks to convenience stores to oil refineries to the army, for them. And they also provide a cradle to grave welfare state to keep their people happy.

They, however, still haven`t run out of money yet. There is really nothing to invest in in Saudi so they take their unspent dollars and either invest it in the US Stock Market or in US-T Bills/Bonds. That is a petrodollar. The etymology is clearly derived from the Eurodollar accounts of the 1950s. US banks are now flush with funds which they lend to other countries. Parts of these loans are used to pay for very expensive oil imports--which leads, indirectly, to the Debt Crisis of the 1980s but that is another story.

So, Oil => Export Earnings; recyled back to West for imported goods and workers to give Saudis an OECD lifestyle; surplus is reinvested back into the West (with a crumb thrown to the Islamic Development Bank).

However, a Total Fertility Rate of 6.15, a population growth rate of 3.27% and a rise in life expectancy to 69 leads to a massive increase in the Saudi population: lots more Saudi mouths to be fed and found jobs for. However, combine this with declining per capita oil demand in the West, the oil price crash, huge bills from the 1991 Gulf War, massive spending on arms, etc. etc. etc. and you have a crisis in the brewing. Further combine it with the fact that 80% of the Saudis work in the public sector and that no Saudi ever actually wants to have to work for a living and you get a 0.4% real GDP growth rate. Only 4% of the Saudi workforce is in manufacturing and 12% is in the service sector. So Saudis want to work for the govt--i.e., be paid for 8 hours work while actually doing 2 (tops) or if they work for the private sector, want to start very high up the ladder, supervising Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis/Egyptians/Jordanians who do the actual work.

Lets add some more spice to this disaster pot bubbling on the fire. Why does it surprise you that the country is tottering on the brink of fiscal collapse when 20% of the college graduates in Saudi Arabia have degrees in Islamic theology rather than anything even remotely useful in the real world? (Actually, I thought the figure was more like 25% but this is all that I can definitely confirm.) You seriously think that a graduate of the Islamic University of Saudi Arabia is fit to do anything other than (not) work in a goverment office?

Where you got that grocery store analogy from, I have no idea. What makes you think that the Saudis haven`t been paid for their oil? What makes you think that the West ``owes`` the Saudis tens of billions of dollars that they refuse to pay back? Probably, if the Saudis were to liquidate ALL their investments in the US and demand to be paid back immediately (in Swiss Francs or DM or some other non $ hard currency) this would trigger a worldwide financial crisis and might well lead the US govt to freeze all Saudi assets, but that is far cry from what you describe.

Hope this helps.

hamidm

Are you trying to tell me that we should look at the whole west through the paradigm of these three countries..sweden, finland, and Denmark? I am appaled that you take me for that much of a phuddu.

It is true that these three countries did not colonize any of the third world country, but i recommend that you look into the brief history of those countries. You will see how their economies flourished through their natural resources that they sold to their colonial neighbors (which I dont think is a crime) but indirectly they have benefitted from their colonial neighbors. The question thus is whether these countries could still be that rich hadn`t they been in the vicinity of their colonial neighbors?

tahmad

Palestinians sold their land to jews happily? absentee landlords?..............are you totally out of your mind? Massacars of palestinians happened in 1948 and 3 million of them were forced out of their homes to live in refugee camps in neighboring countries. I have yet to come across a person who happily sells his property and starts living in a refugee camp in a neghboring country without any citizenship status. I am so glad that you found 3 million of them.

Look I appreciate you desperate attempts to give a human face to the colonialism and the attroicities that US and Israel are committing against Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general, but please spare me from this propaganda. You can still do it but plz dont address that post to me....it wastes my time.

Fuzair

I dont think so, but I am willing to listen and learn. But I assure you that despite all the niceties that you will use to describe the situation, one will reach to the same conclusion. Facts on the ground i.e. what is happening in middle east vs. US, are beyond those niceties. Anyway lets here it.

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Sigalph #41,

Yes, you are right about civility stopping you from making adverse comments about
Hamidm....but I am sure you know from your long presence at chowk that much of
what he says here is in jest. I guess ``Bengalis`` was thrown in there for purely alliterative
purposes.

As a fellow Bengali, I would like to believe that.

A recent report widely circulated from Pakistan mentioned that roughly 8,500 Pakistanis

were currently in overseas jails. And most interesting was the fact that out of these

over 5000 of these were jailed in Saudi Arabia.

Any questions or comments?


Ras

Fuzair:

``An uncle of mine, very Martial, really does believe that PMs make better soldiers than, say, Sindhis because there is such a long tradition of soldiering in the Five Districts that new recruits come already half-socialized into the Army`s ethos. ``

HAHAHA! This was funny. I guess a comparison could be drawn with Gujarat where no recruitment of any name takes place. You do have a point about the military ethos. My own feeling is this ethos may not go back more then 4-5 generations, that is all.

hamidm #36 Agreed on your basic point that western prosperity is not built - as the self-serving argument goes - on colonialism. If colonialism was all that was needed, the Mongols would have been the wealthiest people in the world. Western prosperity is based of course on the dawning of the Age of Reason, which in turn gave a boost to science, which gave rise to technological advancements, which in turn increased productivity. 18th and 19th century colonial empires were the result of this increase in western power and prosperity, not the cause of it. They did further boost their power through provision of raw materials, but those raw materials were mere inputs to the industrial machinery of the west, not the cause of it. And in any case, the colonies are long gone, and the west (and other countries in the world that have learnt from the west rather than closing their eyes to reality) has made incredible advancements in productivity and science and technology in the 50 years after that.

I dont think it is genetic though. After all, racially the Arabs and Europeans are much closer than either side acknowledges. a brief reading of history would make this clear - including crusaders in the 11th-13th century AD who settled down in the middle east, married locals, and for a long time there were christian kingdoms in areas stretching from modern day israel to southern turkey and syria and jordan. There were many other ways in which intermingling has taken place - janissaries were largely european boys and young men who were raised as muslims and formed the most loyal fighters of the ottoman empire; white slaves were captured by arabs from eastern europe, southern england and as late as the 16th century i think there was an arab slave ship that brought in fresh captives from Iceland of all places. It is not surprise therefore that many arabs are as blue eyed and blond as any european. and many europeans (including germans - are of arab descent - king Frederick I i think, great grandson of Charlemagne, had arab women to keep him happy, and he had arab soldiers in his castle in Germany.

So, it cant be genes that modern day arabs seem so incompetent. I guess that is good news. The entire genetic view of the world is largely hogwash i think (i think..)

Irrespective of what everybody else is saying, I fully agree with the author as the situtation is very much the same there in Saudi Arabia, from Khafji to Ha`il and to Jezan as nothing has changed much. At present I am stationed in the very center of the country and have been living with the actual natives for quite a long time.

It is nothing with Islam as I suppose as most of the local people are still illetrate and do not know about what and why they are doing...they still drive their GMCs, pray in the middle of desert on bare sand when it is 50`C and never bothered about whats going on around thier country and in the world.

However the economic situation is detiorarating very rapidly now. The major reason is off-course lack of education and skills among the saudis as the widely spoken bandwagon concept of `Saudization` has lost its effect due to people not moving into skilled trades and technical jobs. 95% of hospitals, technical, and professional arenas are all ruled by kharjis and Non-Saudi Arabic speakers. Saudis have strong self esteem and never go for lower jobs which is the major cause of their present condition.

As for the Labour class, it is nothing personal that most of the labour and blue collar workers are Asians, and due to lucratrive currency conversion rate, Bengali, Sri Lankan and Indian workers agree on very low wages as compared to Pakistanis or Filipinos. Most of the cleaning, watchman and other petty jobs are done by young Bengali lads who are low educated and are ready to do any job for a modest salary.

My host, a Saudi who is an American educated white collar professional and very good friend of mine, has two bengali workers and honestly speaking, he beat them very harshly with a cane stick when he found them doing nothing of the house work, sleeping at dinner time or not bringing his Ghutraa or head scarf from the Laundry early morning.

And still a bachelor at the age of 36 (when their parents used to get married at 16), he was telling me that most parents are asking so much dowry that no saudi lad can afford to pay (200k riyals or so for an uneducated saudi girl) when they can get a highly educated, beautiful Egyptian, Morrocan or Syrian girl for almost half of that price. He has gone to Hydrabad in India for some good proposals but due to language barrier hasetated to go forward, but so many parents were ready for the marriage and atleast three of his Saudi colleagues have married from Dakkan. Infact he gave me addresses of marriage bureaues he visited in India for a respective matches.

And no heart feelings as this is his true account that he and many of other young saudi lads like him have started using their male employees for their sexual satisfaction.

And the bitter part of reality is that AIDS and HIV+ cases are being diagonised regularly as on every Driving Licence renewal, the drivers are required to donate half a pint of blood and they are getting the facts now in picture. So it is nothing to do with islam what individuals or states are doing now as this is all self imposed ignorance and self mutilation which has nothing to do with the actuals religious teachings and obligations.

Albait, there are so many of hidden secrets still to reveal but the beating is still going on even today and the poor sufferers are the unfortunate Bengalis.

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Ref. #32,#42

Interesting comments by both.
Though I am analytical mathematician ( hobby) ,have some interest in statistics. Some times I use standard calculator to look at things for distribution. Out of curiosity decided to analysis the enemy side.
I took data published by Bharat Rakshka about deaths of died soldiers and officers of Indian Army in Kargil Jihad skirmishes.
This was good data to use( name of each dead soldier was given, age and address
and including surviors- like father(non married),wife(if married). It was given openly as they felt their people will send help. And it appears they acknoledge of help offered by people)
So I think data is representative.

I found almost the death amoung soldiers was following the distribution of population, like UP, Bihar, maharatha state, etc...
Exception was bengal and Gujrat not dead proportional to population. ( Bengalies are more Babu type log and may not have interest in defence, and Gujrathi being similar to sindhis both business oriented. South states lead by tamilnadu, Andhra, Karnataka and keral. Their contribution was proportional to demography( considered all major states in study). Then I compred both by standard , binomial and poission distribution and the curve were within normal range. There were analmolies like nagaland(highter counts) , Hariyana(higher), goa(low), delhi state(low). As above state have very small population compared to UP, Maratha state, Bihar so it should not give wrong representation.

( Students of staticstics knows why different cureves are used, but with disregard I compared to all three)

Conclusion: Indian army is representative of India ( there are no distortions)

Our Pakistani army is dominent Punjabi and Pathan. It sis because people like some vocations traditionally and they are good in that.

I am a student of mughal empire. Yes Marathas are or can be termed as Martial ( with whatever its pretensions). They are southern Afghans but more cultured and more sofisrcated. From 1680 Marathas rose as volcano. ( It s a puzzle why they got so inspired to fight Mughals, once they started fighting with Alamgir they fought till Mughal empire was practically destroyed. First 20 years with commanders of Alamgir(mostly Rajputs) then Alamgir started for maratha destruction faught for 28 years in maratha country ( in first 14 months he captured all maraths forts and military bases, which rajput were nnot able to do for 20 years.) And declared victory and even Pune was given name of his son. Maraths made helpless heavy artillery and started looting mughal areas. They began to loot places like Barhanpur 6 times in year. whlie Mughal army stationed in Maratha country they just slipped where mughal army was not there. Always keeping in contact with mughal armies but refusing to fight ( Chanakya said one of way to defeat enemy to abstain from battlefield and refuse fight and fight wherer you want). But at same time circling huge garrision of Mughal army. Cuttting at every possible way arriving tired new soldiers and supplies from north. In 28 years of Alamgir chasing but not a single major ``battle``. Field marshall Montegomery wrote about Maraths . Marathas have brains to plan strategic mobility games and strong wrists to carry out plans. Mughal were so insensed by Maratha`s they began to call them ``Pahadke Chuhe``- Mountain rats. Mountain rats knew how to kill big army. They were adopt useing local horses called `` Bhimthaddi`` Tattos. There are light horse but fast and better to climb mountains and they eat less. Big mughal forces could not get sufficient grass in dry lands of Marathas. In fast action, lightening attacks Mughal artillery was useless in fact burden. Maratha warrier were lightly loaded , they are small stature people extremely cunning people. I always wonder why they rose so strongly ( most hisotrian say it enigma). I feel that maratha saints and specially Guru of Shivaji Saint Ramadasi may be reason as he gave muscular philosophy to fight and finish Mughals. He asked to stop worshipping but take arms and follow Kshatrya Rama hindu king. Thais Ramadasibuwa was a marathi brahmin.

1957 was also led by marathas by peshavas and his brilliant servant, clerk Tantya tope. Tantaya tope a maratha Brahmin can be considered best tactician produced in subcontinrnt. He was commander ,broke connection(of east India company) between calcutta and Delhi after 1810 first time. ( Zansi queen was a maratha brahmin). Specially students (military history) will astonished that after devastating defeat at Kanpur crossring ganges with small army he went coliecting ragtag army went to Gwalior and attacked Fort and Kicked marata proenglish warlord and put that army to fight next one year. It was a loosing battle from start but a courage and conviction and intelligence. British letter made special units of 20,000 to chase and capture, they captured Tatya and Raosahib Peshava and hanged both.

Sage marathas understand they can not overpower British power they started their rat business, reformation, resistance in more refined way. Around 1880 maratha brahmin Tilak started Roaring against British empire with is news paper ``kesari``. I have visite maratha state some times. They are very smart and sofistacated, pro hindu and nationalist. They are not just martial ( like gurlkas, Punjabi . rajputs..) , In fact you may not feel them martial, they know strong hands needs brain, cunning, always unsatisfied , irritating people with long view. A maratha ruler will start sindhu diversion not any other. My feeling is they are most dangerous people to pakistan after all they demolished Mughal emire and make emperor a puppet of them from 1730 to 1810 . ( Maraths were defeated at in outskrit of delhi by comnany and emperior became english puppet).

I wrote this detail as amoung martial race they were not mentioned initially. Most of our people do not know as we are not given access to real history ( distored over that) and danger of Marathas.

Fuzair:

You are correct insofar as military as choice of vocation is concerned. My point of the Indian Army disproving the Martial Race theory lies in the fact that the Army has successfully raised regiments amongst earstwhile non martial races such as Mahars, Grenadiers etc and they have acquitted themselves in battle. That is ofcourse as far as the present is concerned.

However, even in the past, it is a fact that Bengal Army constituted the majority of the East India Company`s armed manpower. The Bengal Army was constituted of men recruited from Awadh, Bihar and Bengal. It was only post 1857 that the concept of Martial races was formally introduced and was based on reliability of troops rather than actual valor.

The points you make though about choice of Armed Forces as an honorable and in demand profession amongst certain communities more than others does hold true. I think the same is the case in Pakistan where Chakwal supplies a disproportionate amount of manpower though the Pathans may like to think themselves as more warlike.

Re: Pakistan`s martial races

Many come from the Salt Range region. There is a reason why they all join the Army! There`s nothing else to do!

The Anglo-Nepalese Wars predated the Indian Mutiny by several decades (i.e., 1810s) and Gurkha troops were used by the British to put down the Mutiny. Quite right that post-Mutiny, the Martial Race theory was used to justify removing the last of the Hindustani troops from the Army. This quite ignores the fact that it was these non-Martial troops who beat the Afghans, the Punjabi Sikhs (and associated Muslim troops), the Mahrattas, the Rajputs and the Gurkhas! This was in keeping with the prevalent British Victorian view that urban/educated/civilized/settled Indians were debauched and decadent while the ``hardy`` mountainmen (Pathans, Gurkhas, Dogras) and ``hardy`` peasant sons of the soil (PMs, Sikhs, Rajputs, Mahrattas) lived a cleaner and less debauched life and so made good soldiers. And the rest is history.

Stuka:
While there is of course nothing in the Martial Races theory as such, isn`t it still the case that the Indian Army is disproportionately ``martial?`` It is only Centrally imposed quotas that keep the Army representative of India as a whole, instead of it being, basically, a ``Martial`` army. I recall reading in the Indian press recently that while Haryana is 2% of the population, it provides 10% of the IA`s manpower. And the Sikhs have long complained that recruiting quotas keep them out of the Army: for every Sikh vacancy, there are several applicants while many South Indian quotas go unfilled. Many non-Martials simply do not see the IA as a viable/desirable career choice while many Martials see it as an honourable calling. An uncle of mine, very Martial, really does believe that PMs make better soldiers than, say, Sindhis because there is such a long tradition of soldiering in the Five Districts that new recruits come already half-socialized into the Army`s ethos. He also agrees that they come knowing all the dodges and malingering that marks the old soldiers!

---

Urstruly:

Your #35 betrays such an appalling lack of knowledge about economics and finance that I am left completely speechless. You have simply no idea at all what ``petrodollars`` are and how they work. I would seriously suggest a basic course in economics before you right something like this again!

urstruly #39 the situation in the middle east is indeed grave. i for one am more concerned about the welfare of our own (pakistani poor people, about whom i keep ranting about), most of whom live way below the standard of living of the average palestinian.

The arabs had enough chances and have blown them themselves: for a hundred years before 1948, palestinian landowners sold land to jewish settlers well aware of the fact that their fellow palestinian tenants would then be evicted. In 1948 and 1967 the arabs had two chances when they had overwhelming military strength compared to israelis - and lost due to their own carelessness and overconfidence.

Today, the israelis are far stronger militarily relative to Arabs compared to 1967. Not only are they far stronger in conventional weapons, and in smart weapons which they didnt have in 1967, but they are also considered to have over 20 nukes. If a full scale existential war were to break out today in the middle east, and if israelis were to start playing by Hamas rules of deliberately attacking civilians, it would take the israelis less than a day to wipe out the palestinians, and a few days more to overcome the rest of the surrounding arab countries.

The arabs can keep dreaming of throwing the israelis out to see, but that is all they can do. Its not going to happen. Killing of a few civilians in a bus every few days does nothing to reduce the military strength of israel.

Indeed injustice was done to palestinians in 1948 - but not to the absentee landlord palestinian who happily sold off the land and moved to a better life around the world. As for the palestinian tenants: As i said, i am more concerned with the pakistani poor people (including tenants who are at the mercy of pakistani landlords in sindh). 50 years of having the world revolve around their bloody problems is enough - there are far bigger problems facing the world, and far bigger problems facing hundreds of millions of people across the world - and these are problems of poverty, for which the solution lies not in blowing civilian buses but in educating people and learning to live in peace.

Mukhlis #32: Yes, Marathas were the other one. So out of the total, Gurkhas ended up in Nepal. Sikhs, Rajputs, and Marathas ended up in India. Pathans ended up in Pakistan. And Punjabis ended up mostly in Pakistan and partially in India. So, most of the Martial races actually ended up in India.

I am not sure whether the demographics are still the same in the Indian military, but in the Pakistan military, they are still about the same, at the troop/sepoy level. I would guess around 75% or so of the soldiers (non-officers) in the Army come from the five districts I mentioned.

You will rarely see a non-officer from Karachi (except in the Navy). This is because, people from Karachi are not interested in becoming soldiers. Due to the amount of money floating around the Karachi economy, a person in Karachi can make more money driving a cab or setting up a small shop, than he would as a soldier. You will see a lot of officers from Karachi though.

It is all economics. People who can make money as businessmen rarely go into the military. I assume the area that constituted the Martial race area had little industry and even agricultural to employ the population.

re hamidm

`more civilized than the bedouins, bantus and bengalis.`

It is the civility that you demean that keeps me from expanding that list by adding several other South Asian nationalities including your own.

++
If Arabs are providing free healthcare to their population then they cannot be exploitative and if they are exploitative then they would not provide free health care
++
sorry for the interruption.... but the above is absurd..... you can exploint on a 1001 ways.. and still provide healthcare... and get a fake certificate form URSTRULY...

tahmad

you are not grasping the gravity of the situation. The WWI started just by the assassination of one person. Now if you look at the situation around the globe and especially in the middle east you will see that the cauldron is set right on the bonfire, and this cauldron is filled with kerosene oil.

urstruly #34 So, you see a third world war brewing. Urstruly (and who else?) vs. the world?

urstruly,

.......... your argument that the west is rich because of colonialism and exploitation of the third world is silly ........... which countries did norway, sweden and finland colonize ????? ................. and what explains the fact that poland, hungary and other eastern european countries are more civilized than the bedouins, bantus and bengalis ............... the think it is genetic ..........

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arjun

Your reply betrays the original premis of your earlier posts and even this article; If Arabs are providing free healthcare to their population then they cannot be exploitative and if they are exploitative then they would not provide free health care to their population or build universities, or highways, or hospitals, or provide clean water to each household or build commerce centers etc.; wouldn`t they? You cannot eat cake and have it too.

But the matter is not that simple.

Let me enlighten you a bit on the concept of petro-dollars. Petro-dollars are like those visa or mastercards that are connected to your debit account (instead of usual credit account). If you have such account you are restricted to withdraw only a certain amount per day from your account even though all the money is yours. You can only use your visa card at the stores that accept Visa card. A western country X for eaxmple imports 1 billion dollars worth of oil in a certain period of time. The computer that maintains the account adds 1 billion dollars to your account as numbers - that 1 billion dollar may practically do not exist. Those 1 billion dollars may even not be printed yet. So the net effect of this transaction is that a commodity has changed hands but associated wealth hasn`t.

Let me make it simpler than that: Suppose you go to a grocery store and buy groceries; then you tell the cashier that you will keep his money but pick up groceries. You also tell him that you would only give him a certain part of his money but not the whole amount. And you do it over and over again. In order to keep the cashiers mouth shut you bribe him with a miniscule part of this deal which cashier uses to buy hookers and what not; you also provide some extra cash to the cashier so that he keeps the business running. AS long as this cashier is not audited he doesn`t get caught. Also suppose that the owner of that store is an invalid old lady who is made totally dependent by this cashier. So the cashier keeps on doing it and doing it until one day the lady starts feeling better and able and demands the audit.

Now take this paradigm and apply it onto SA. That customer is the West, the cashier is the Saudi Shahs and the old invalid lady is the Saudi people. The lady raelizes that cashier as corrupt and culpable may be, does not have any of her money. The actuall money is still owed by the customer. And when that old lady demands that all the wealth that the customer owes be returned the customer tells the old lady that he wouldn`t because she has a bad religion, which teaches intolerance.

tahmad

you are argumentative at best but least factual. If we use your logic we can also say that the Western countries wouldn`t have been so rich had there not been the so called third world countries. If there were no third world countries, West could not colonize them or could steel their resources and get rich and advance in technology like they have now. I am pretty sure that you would not want to extend your logic here. right? so lets keep the discussion objective and to the point. shall we? This is a serious matter since we are facing the prospects of a global deadly third world war here. The first phase of this war has already been declared and commenced. Stop seeing the third world war through the paradigm of first two. It is better for all of us.

Very well written article, and enjoyed reading it. I visited saudi arabia a few times in connection with work, and i thought they as individuals they were an easy going people, and some were quite good humored. The driver assigned to drive me around seemed a bit unhappy, until someone said that it could be because i was a lowly pakistani and the driver was a saudi (yes, all saudis are not rolling in wealth). So i made an effort to lift the poor chap`s spirits, and soon we were great chums and he even taught me basic arabic while driving around jeddah.
The achilles heel of the saudis remains lack of interest in education i think. Jeddah was loaded with shops carrying perfumes and other luxury items, but there was no book store in sight in the city. Heathrow airport probably has more bookstores than all of saudi arabia combined. Even Rawalpindi saddar bazaar probably has more bookstores and street-side book vendors than all of saudi arabia. A people who dont respect education can never prosper, no matter how much oil they have.


urstruly #29 so you say that the west sucked the saudis dry and their per capita income fell from 27,000 in the 1970`s to 7,000 today. you forget that before the west started buying oil from saudi arabia, the per capita income was 300-400 for the saudis. and you also forget that before the west started buying oil from saudi arabia, the west discovered oil in saudi arabia. If the saudis had been wise, the would have sought to diversify beyond oil, starting in the 1970`s. Instead, they took their prosperity for granted. And thus repeated the same mistake as the Nigerians (who also went from oil wealth to poverty because they misused their money to buy luxury items - even the furntiture of the rich in the 1970`s in nigeria used to be imported from europe).

Romair, I believe the 5th so-called ``martial race`` as defined by the English were Marathas.

During my stay in Saudi Arabia from the early to lates 80s, one could still see racism against South Asians even if the per-capita income at that time was much higher than what it is now. But it seemed like children were more active with the racial slurs than elders. Elder Saudis would try to stop the kids if they heard them uttering racist remarks.

My encounter with educated Saudis was also different. They were as polite and respectful as any other people from any other country.

By the way, there are places in Saudi Arabia where women can (or at least used to) drive. One such place was the ARAMCO colony area in Dhahran. But those women were mostly foreigners.

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Romair:

The Punjabis, Pathans, Gorkhas were selected because they were loyal troops of the English. The Initial British Indian Army was dominated by Bengali troops. In fact most of the battles fought from Plassey right upto 1857 were with Bengali and later United Provinces and Behar troops.

The Martial Race construct was created to reduce number Bengali and Bhayya troops as they had a major role in the Mutiny whereas the Punjabi Mussulmaans, Sikhs and Pathans stayed loyal. Gorkhas were recruited later, after the Anglo-Nepal wars.

The Indian Amry has successfully demolished the construct of Martial Races, but it really did not need to do so because an objective reading of history would have done so in itself.

Arjun-M

My reply is in One word:

Petrodollar

Definition: Dollar amounts paid to oil-producing countries and deposited in western banks.

Source: MoneyGlossary.com or any dictionary of economics.

Too many sharifs amasing in Saudi these days... ;)

#19 by Urstruly

``In 80s the per capita income of an average Saudi was US$ 27,000 (highest in the world) and in 2003 it is down to US$ 8000. This is an extremely sharp decline in the standard of living. The fact is that the US, Britian, and West in general has sucked them dry. At this pace, in next two decades, Saudi Arbia will just another third world dump``

why blame west this is what happens when you multiply like rabbits

regards saudi turning in into third world that will happen sooner

see, i knew there were cool ones.. :)
*i`m always right MUAAHAHAHAHA*
not being able to go to haram sharif isn`t too rough- at least she can go to haram sharif at all (its within everyday distance)...

glad you met them cipram..

faziiet #11: ``Martial races`` is a British construct, an imagined idea that Punjabis and Pathans (well, at least, Punjabis) have internalized.``

I believe the concept of Martial races was not restricted to Punjabis and Pathans. I believe it included Pathans, Punjabis, Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas and one more group.

These groups were selected by the British to form the nucleus of their ground troops. Why they selected them is something the British would have to be asked. On the whole, they seem to have done well, as long as they fought together under a British command. Once they started fighting each other, then it was anyone`s game.

I don`t think it was purely for physical size, that they were selected. Since the Gurkhas aren`t physically huge, yet are considered some of the best fighters in the world. As are the Vietcong.

From what is Pakistan`s Punjab and NWFP, the reason most of the individuals joined the military, was because they were from areas, where there was little industrialization and not much agriculture. I assume those from present day India joined the military for the same reasons.

Even now, it is actually incorrect to think that the Pakistan military troops comes from all of Punjab and NWFP. They infact comes mainly from five districts in northwest Punjab and Southeast NWFP. For the same reasons, i.e. little industrialization in these areas and no other jobs. This districts are basically in the areas of, Jehlum, Chakwal, Pindi, Kohat.

And amongst officers, the most succesfull ones seem to come from Karachi.

I am not sure how the anlogy of military troops applies to the servants of Saudis. In that case, the reactions of the servant would primarily be decided by how dependent he/she was on his employer.

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I agree with Ras sahib`s # 6 in that the generally humorous and illustrative nature of a good article is blemished by its own anti-Bengali tone. The author`s # 11 is a welcome clarification though decidedly a defensive after-thought. Oh, did I forget to mention that I am 6 foot 1 and Bengali? Passive we are not though certainly guilty of bearing too much with goodwill sometimes. As for martial races, well I think that nonsense was buried for good when 90,000 of the finest warriors meekly surrendered to the Allied Command on December 16, 1971.

That was a very funny, well written piece :)

The extent of absurdity that Saudi`s go to in their interpretation of Islam is really..quite absurd.

But its true what Urstruly says about it being quite simple why Saudis look down on people of South Asian descent- they are the people that provide the cheap labour in their country for the most part- the downtrodden, abused portion of the society. Ofcourse, it`s dum of the Saudis to generalize and stuff that attitude on ALL South Asians but then generalizations are, generally, dum.

there must be a couple of cool Saudis out there..though I haven`t met any.

..and saudis are very unattractive too...

I don`t think it is mind boggling to understand why Saudis look down upon Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians philipinos and others - i.e. people from worker class. In 80s the per capita income of an average Saudi was US$ 27,000 (highest in the world) and in 2003 it is down to US$ 8000. This is an extremely sharp decline in the standard of living. The fact is that the US, Britian, and West in general has sucked them dry. At this pace, in next two decades, Saudi Arbia will just another third world dump.

Now Saudi ruling class has two options: either recognize the problem and assign the blame where it belongs or ``ignore`` the problem and assign the blame to the weak and un-protected labor. Option # 2 is easy and has no immediate consequences. So an atmosphere is sytematically created in the society to divert the attention from real causes. They wouldn`t do anything about workers either because they need someone to drive their cars, build their buildings, and so on and so forth. But if they choose option #1 then they will not only have to tell the truth to the general public but also need to do something about it. If they choose to do something about it they (ruling class) suffer the fate of King Faisal at the hands of their colonial masters. Some people ask what is Osama Bin Laden`s beef with Americans or those of 19 hijackers - probably it was not their religion.

well written article..
having grown up in saudi arabia, i have to admit that the majority of labor class from the subcontinent happens to be from bangladesh unfortunately..and i do think this is how the author used it...not from a personal racial bias

Ahmadzai #10

``Its like picking the worst of America and applying the same on all Americans, picking the worst of India and applying on all Indians, picking the worst of Pakistan and applying on all Pakistanis.``

It t