Saudi Arabia has not even reached its centenary, with the year 2014 representing its 84th National Day. While many try to argue we have come a long way in a short amount of time, all it takes is a simple hop across the border into the neighboring countries of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, or Kuwait to get some perspective on just “how far we’ve come.”All of these nations are younger than Saudi Arabia. All of them generate significantly less in oil revenues than the Kingdom. All of them have substantially less tourism thanks alone to Mecca and Medina. Yet all of them have out-performed Saudi Arabia. Though none of these nations is perfect, their citizens enjoy comparatively less corruption, better infrastructure, more social benefits, and greater freedoms than Saudi nationals do, and they have achieved all these things with much less than we have.But, Saudi Arabia has also managed to outperform many other nations in several different arenas. It has topped the charts as the world’s most obese country, most repressive society, most unjust country for women, and least welcoming state for foreigners.As people wave their flags on this National Day, I cannot help but think of the Saudis of whom I am incredibly proud. Many of the people I believe have the potential to move this nation forward are sitting in prison cells as criminals, for advocating on behalf of freedom and human rights for their fellow countrymen. Others have been intimidated into silence by the state, placed under house arrest, currently live in exile, have been stripped of their nationality, or killed.
via Why I Refuse to Celebrate Saudi National Day
If they assume as normal the way the Sauds reached power, celebrating it (even when all those outside the royal family have different feelings kept intimately), how can we keep any hope for them to feel affected by what happens to those they see as “the others” in their cultural portion of the globe?… e.g.: Arab Shiites, Arab Christians, Arab Yazidis, Arab Alawis, Kurds, Turkmens, and then… other Gulfians… and Arabs of the Levant, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians… and then Egyptians… Berbers and other Maghreb Arabs… Sahrawis… Sudanese… Somalis… and then a legion of workers from India, Pakistan, Philippines …
If they celebrate the example given by King Abdulaziz, according to the way he behave with his own folks… how can we be surprised by how Saudis really see all those who are not Saudis? The worst part is that they set an example to be followed by too many.
Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) 