Trending in Saudi Arabia

We baldies don’t want shampoo.

You can’t make this stuff up. Over the weekend, “We baldies don’t want shampoo” trended in Saudi Arabia. I got no idea who started it or why, but however it got started, many agreed it was a good idea. Shampoo is downright dangerous.

Others saw it not so much about safety, more like a civil rights issue:

But @figas_44 thought there are more important issues:

Several tweeters posted video of a bald man receiving a present:

@Hananbagazi offered some advice:

This young lady has my eternal gratitude:

But perhaps this guy had the best idea:

 

Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092. It depicts the war for the Muslim soul between those who seek to enforce shari’a strictly, persecute Jews and Christians, and stamp out "un-Islamic" science, and those who wink at a few sins, tolerate their non-Muslim neighbors, and write science books instead of burning them.

The Arab Tweet: Girls on Motorcycles

#Youth_seen_with_girls_in_Jeddah is trending in Saudi Arabia in the wake of sightings of young women riding on the backs of motorcycles. Mz-mz.net reports,

Young women seen on motorcycles in Jeddah October 9, 2014 A number of drivers were surprised at the South King Abdulazziz Road roundabout in the city of Jeddah at three o’clock Thursday morning by more than ten sports motorcycles going at high speed with young women riding on the back.

The reaction on Twitter has been generally negative. Some blame decaying values:

Others blame immigration:

@mamdohmohamad finds the practice unhygienic,

while @mohmd_5173 doesn’t believe they’re women at all:

@alqhtani_omar merely writes,

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Arab Tweet: US Bombing of Syria

Last night the United States and its coalition partners expanded their war against ISIS from Iraq into neighboring Syria, with an aerial attack that targeted both ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked group Khorasan. The reaction from the Arab world is overwhelmingly negative, in spite of, or perhaps because of, participation by the governments of Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates. Here’s a sampling:

A number of tweeters observed that these attacks help a guy who we say we oppose. This tweet from “Urgent Arabia,” a news service that promises credible accounts of the Arab Street, is typical:

Abd ur-Rahman responds to Urgent Arabia,

There are many attacks on the rulers of the coalition nations, such as this one from Qasim Yahya Khairuddin, whose about.me profile identifies him as a newscaster with the Palestinian al-Quds satellite channel in Beirut:

Dalaa al-Mufti, from Kuwait, is no friend of ISIS, but…

Finally, Joelle Achkar has this message for the coalition:

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Arab Tweet: Saudi National Day

Judging from today’s Twitter feed, the big story today in the Arab world is not the 130,000 refugees who crossed from Syria into Turkey over the weekend, the fall of the Yemeni prime minister in the wake of the occupation of government buildings by Shiite Houthi rebels, or even the Reuters story about the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, advertising for spies on its website.

Instead, today is a day of celebration: Saudi National Day, the anniversary of the day in 1932 when Hejaz and Nejd merged to form the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This tweet from @abdulrahmanoham is typical:

Note the hashtags. This is quite common: when I searched on the Arabic acronym for ISIS, I got a flood of National Day tweets. I’m not sure if the intent is to express solidarity with ISIS and al-Nusra, or defiance. The generally patriotic tone of the photos makes me suspect the latter.

@M__eh86 is dubious about the holiday. He writes.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com