Migrant Workers in Saudia Arabia: Human Rights Violations

The most compelling news I found when searching for information about migration in or out of Saudia Arabia was news on the horrific human rights violations that have been committed in Saudia Arabia against many of the 8-9 million migrant workers from mostly from the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia.

The immigration visas are tied to the employers, which gives the employer control over the employees. The word "slavery" or "slave like conditions" was used in multiple articles I found. Many accounts of rape are reported on, but seem not to be reported in Saudi Arabia. The migrant workers who do speak out seem to be countered by the more powerful (in that situation) Saudi Employers. These sort of violations seem to be a trend seeing as immigrants in other countries have little agency. My experience in the United States has mostly been with Mexican and other Latin American immigrants. I worked for an immigration lawyer and learned about the fear of authority that is instilled in immigrants. Human rights violations seem inevitable in these situations as these people are easily taken advantage of, but the Saudi situation seems extreme.

Here is a story from the Guardian that gives a good backgroud on the situation.

Reverse Urban Migration in Saudi Arabia

This article Suburbanization boom as families flee costs is about an increase in suburbanization in Saudi Arabia from Arab News, an English Language daily newspaper, published just a few days ago. It’s very interesting to look at urban to suburban migration and the reasons behind it, they mirror many of the same reasons why Americans are drawn to the suburbs. Factors such as escaping high rents in cities, quieter life, schools and health centers etc. are the main pull effects to the suburbs, which match very closely to motives behind the boom in suburbanization in the US. It’s a short article but I think it’s telling somewhat of urban development in the Middle East and factors that draw people away from the city, and an important reverse in traditional rural to urban migration.

Blogging a Theme

Let's get this new blogging experiment rolling! I'd just like to remind everyone what we are doing (and get it in writing). I would like you to each post something related to your theme and the country we will be discussing in the upcoming week. So for this week, what can you find about movement and people in/to Saudi Arabia? Then the following week your post would be related to Iraq, etc. With this structure you will get a deeper understanding of your theme, and how it relates to different countries, while still staying focused on a particular place so we can have conversations across the different groups. Be creative in how you interpret your theme, if you can make the connection to us in your post--go for it!

So the assignment itself is at least 1 primary post and 1 comment. You may use your text from the blog within your moodle 'reflection paper' without penalty (not double dipping), but your reflection paper should also reflect on the reading assigned to the whole class.

If you have any questions, put them in the comments! :>

Route 181: ..." Documentary: International Response

The other evening I spent 4 and a half hours watching Route 181: Fragments Of A Journey In Palestine-Israel. It is a documentary film in which the directors followed the route of boarder drawn after the UN Resolution 181 in 1947, beginning a two-state society that we have still today. It was an incredible film in which the makers (one Israeli and on Palestinian) talked to hundreds of people along this boarder, Israeli and Palestinian. In their film, they showed patient, face-to-face interviews with the people they came across; asking them questions about what used to be here and what their feelings were about the state of the land. The film focused so much on the sense of place, always showing the surroundings, never leaving out a person's environment as they spoke to the camera. The makers also used many shots of the countryside and the ruins of Palestinian villages. Some of the most interesting interviews for me were those of the Arab Israelis who had such a starkly different approach to nationalism than the descendants of European Jews.

It was hard for me to find much media response because it was a 4.5 hour film and was not shown widely. (The makers clearly made many decisions that would lead to this lack of publicity.) It seems to me what they wanted was to patiently show/represent what they had found and were not to succumb to the "film media norms".

The film was banned and cancellations for political reasons. Here is an article a screening in France that was canceled by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication due to unease and anti-semitism in France. I see this as a parallel to the international sport scene brought up by Stephen. In sport, in film, in art, this political issue is raised in so many different contexts and responded to specifically each time.

An Israeli Playground, Armored Against Rockets

In a continued discussion about the roles of children in the recent conflict as well as the impacts of war on their development, I found a NYTimes story today entitled An Israeli Playground, Armored Against Rockets. This story focuses on Israeli children in Sderot but balances the story of an indoor recreation center with the impacts of this conflict on both Israeli and Gazan children. Interestingly included in the center are"two rooms set aside for counseling and a staff of mental health workers" and the author comments that "emotional trauma among the young is an area of great focus not only in Israel, but also in Gaza." The article is relativley unbaised when it focuses on children, it speaks to the great damage this is conflict causes to the children on both sides, but it ends admitting that Gaza may be worse off. Israeli children are being protected and considered, Israel can construct a recreation center to foster growth and support children affected by the conflict, and yet Gazan children are living in tents because their homes were destroyed.

When speaking to the actual conflict between Gaza and Israel, the article has a more biased tone, at least in my opinion: "Israel went to war in late December to put an end to the rockets, and though it pummeled Gaza for three weeks, killing some 1,300 people and destroying hundreds of buildings, the rockets have not stopped. On Tuesday, five fell around the Sderot area. Since the war ended on Jan. 18, some 160 mortar rounds and rockets, including nine long-range ones, have been launched from Gaza at Israel." It almost rationalizes the deaths of the 1300 people with the fact that Gaza continues to attack Sderot, even though the death toll in Israel is around 20. Obviously the article is focusing on Israel and the danger in the region, but in the section describing the similarities to the story of Purim and the current conflict, I felt like instilled some pity for Israelis over Gazans.

Disproportianate uses of force (sorry for the new post)

Hey, sorry I made a new post for this because I know we talked about keeping the remainder of our discussion to responses but I wanted to create a place for us to continue our in-class discussion of the disproportionate uses of force in this conflict. If you consider the crappy Soviet-era rockets against the 21st century Israeli military, the contrast is made very clear. To start, here is an article from the Huffington Post that discusses disproportionate use of force and self-defense, is concludes by saying that Israel's decision to bombard Gaza was ill-advised and that international criticism has mostly come from the UN and Sarkozy, while Obama has dodged the issue. If anyone finds any info regarding the quantifying/categorizing of force used by both sides, please post here,
Thanks!

Hamas and Fatah meet to talk about uniting

There was some discussion about what it would take for Palestinians and those who share the same views to gain some political leverage in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Recently the two political parties Hamas and Fatah who have so far been in heavy competition are having talks about Gaza's Future. As the article mentions, with any form of Hamas in the picture with government with a united two parties, official dialogue with the Israeli government would be pretty much impossible. Also talking with the EU and US could be problematic still if the new coalition is too Hamas-led. With possibly the same limited international governmental dialogue and a stronger Palestinian authority - is this a step back or a step forward for the region? What do you guys think?