A major political ‘Sheikh-up’ (sic) in Saudi Arabia is intended to drag the backward nation of cultural retards, perhaps kicking and screaming, into the 19th Century for a start, then hopefully on, and into the 20th, then the 21st, catching up to the West within the next thousand years.
King Abdullah, the great reformer, has sacked a whole caboodle of powerful religious dinosaurs and political cormorants in a wide ranging revitalization of the cabinet and other government posts, and assumed control of the Ministry of Religious Paranoia himself.
One of the dismissed men was the head of the controversial religious police force, the Mutawwa: Chief Inspector Ali Bang-Bang. The other most conspicuous was the Minister for Graft and Corruption, Mohammed al Sleaze.
The King has also appointed two women as the country's first-ever female government secretaries, to head the Ministry for Burkhas and the Ministry for Stonings.
In a country where women are considered mere chador-garbed chattels and chances of their emancipation more at scent than substance, this is indeed a historic first.
A British news source recently highlighted the suffragette and down-trodden plight of Saudi women when it reported a young boy lost in a shopping mall could not recognise his mother as he had never been seen her without a burkha.
However, and fortunately, the reforms have made no mention so far of allowing Saudi women to drive.
The BBC's Arab affairs analyst Abdul bin Bagg says the pace of change has been historically slow in the retarded kingdom, with it taking several years just to get a lightbulb replaced, the wearing of underpants or use of toilet paper still unknown and Strictly Come Mecca Ballroom Dancing rigourously banned.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been likened to a Stone Age culture with electricity and cars. Its traditional exports of sand paper, prayer mats and camel’s hump soup continue to be the trading mainstays after oil.
Tourism has never really taken off in attracting Western / Christian types due the country’s reputation for asinine harsh religious laws where a person can get flogged, stoned, have a hand chopped off, and / or get beheaded for such everyday civil offences as spitting on the pavement, chewing gum, parking on double yellow lines, or driving in the camel lane.
One US national working for the Aramco oil and gas conglomerate in Dhahran was sentenced to fifty lashes with a cat of ten tails last year for sending a Valentine’s Day card to his gay neighbour.
The only tourists visiting Saudi are foreign Muslims doing the Haj for a head-banging prayer session in Mecca each year, where 40% of the Hajis normally croak due contracting dysentery, food poisoning, typhoid, cholera: and / or all four.
The sacked head of the Mutawwa, Chief Inspector Ali Bang-Bang, who enforced Saudi Arabia's fascist brand of Islam, Wahhabism, caused controversy last September when he said it was permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes such as BBC One’s Songs of Praise, Wallace and Gromet and Desperate Housewives.
The Mutawwa commission has wide powers to search for alcohol and drugs, to crack down on prostitution (male, female and goats) and ensure shops are closed during prayer times.
But for a nation ruled, riddled and corrupted by a culture of xenophobia, religious paranoia and double standards, where slavery continues to flourish, enforcement of half day closing for slave markets on El-Gumah (Friday, the Islamic Sabbath) seems like total hypocrisy.
Despite the shake-up, foreign correspondents say the kingdom remains an absolute monarchy and a totally fucked up basket case, with significant political change not being on the agenda this century.
Ministerial changes:
Mohammed al Mohammad has been replaced as Minister for Tea-towels and Caps by Mohammad bin Mohammed. (no relation)
Abdul bin Mohammed assumes control of the Ministry of Camels.
Mohammad al Abdullah takes over at the Ministry of Goats.
Mohammed bin Bagg will become head of the Ministry of Garbage.
Abdul al Scimitar takes charge of the Ministry of Beheadings.
Ex-government Chief Whip, Ali bin Lasher takes over at the Ministry of Floggings
Ms. Fatima al Mohammed becomes head of the new Ministry of Burkhas.
Ms. Rocky al Pebbledash becomes the new Minister of Stonings
Mohammed bin Grit to be the new Minister for Sand.
Mohammad al Slick appointed as Minister for Oil.
Abdul bin Rayban appointed as Minister for Sun Glasses.
Due global warming and a lack of rainfall, the Ministry of Puddles has been abolished and will be replaced by the Ministry for Potholes, to be headed by Sheikh Well Before Using
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