{"id":21850,"date":"2012-08-27T10:37:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T06:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=21850"},"modified":"2012-08-27T10:37:38","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T06:37:38","slug":"my-saudi-heroes-people-whove-made-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/my-saudi-heroes-people-whove-made-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"My Saudi Heroes: People Who’ve Made A Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

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August 15th 2010, Dr. Ghazi Al Qosaibi<\/a> passed away. He was a great poet, novelist, diplomat and administrator but more than that he inspired Saudis and showed them how much can be achieved positively, consistently and without hate.<\/p>\n

He passed away but there\u2019s still hope in the living. Hence my third list of Saudis like him who have made it a personal mission to make Saudi a better place.<\/p>\n

My first and second lists are available here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Al Qahtani<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s a man that can\u2019t be explained in sentences, just words. Selfless. Angry. Passionate. For years now he has been risking his livelihood, freedom and his and his family\u2019s safety to call on the interior ministry to practice due judicial process and not to imprison people for their opinions. He co-founded with Mohammed al-Bajady<\/a> a human rights association, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA<\/a>), which the government refuses to recognize. Despite the fact that his co-founder has been ceased and imprisoned since March 2011, Al Qahtani presses on. Now he is facing his own trial<\/a> and possible imprisonment and yet he still does not hesitate to document and represent anyone who needs his help regardless of their gender, sect, or nationality.<\/p>\n

For more on Al Qahtani click HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aisha Al Mana\u2019<\/p>\n

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Aisha Al Mana\u2019 is the first Saudi woman to obtain a PhD, the first Saudi woman to be a principal of a school and the first Saudi woman to be a director of a hospital. Being a pioneer is something to be celebrated but that\u2019s not why she\u2019s on this list. She\u2019s here because she was fighting for women\u2019s rights at a time when women who do are considered pariahs. Her 1981 PhD dissertation is Economic Development and its Impact on the Status of Women in Saudi Arabia<\/em> and many of its conclusions are still true today. She has always stood up for women\u2019s rights and never hesitated to support anyone else who does at whatever cost. There are legends (or horror stories if you\u2019re a muttawa) about Al Mana\u2019 and what she does when confronted for her beliefs. I\u2019m itching to include them here but as they can\u2019t be verified\u2026.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just call her the mother of Saudi feminism and leave it at that.<\/p>\n

For more on Al Mana\u2019 click Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hala Al Dosari<\/p>\n

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Al Dosari is a fellow blogger. She is also a women rights activist who dedicates much of her time in ensuring that Saudis learn about their rights. She runs a website, Saudi Women Rights<\/a>, on which she provides information in Arabic that is unfortunately scarce across the kingdom about human rights in general and in particular what to do in cases of domestic abuse. She also volunteers her personal time to confidentially look into all the options that an abused woman might have. Al Dosari recently took part<\/a> in a forum on Islamic tolerance and was viciously attacked on Twitter for it.<\/p>\n

Hala Al Dosari\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ahmed Al Shugairi<\/p>\n

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On Arabic channels you can watch an unlimited number of shows where a sheikh sits behind some big fancy desk and tells you how to be a better person and Muslim. Al Shugairi doesn\u2019t do that. He shows you. On his show, which is\u00a0currently in its eighth season, he looks at social, ethical and economical problems plaguing Arab societies and offers real solutions. Sometimes those solutions are his and other times he gets solutions from other countries where they\u2019ve been successfully addressed. In both cases he demonstrates with real life examples. My favorite episode<\/a> is when he examined the judicial system in Saudi and compared it to UAE\u2019s and Norway\u2019s. If you don\u2019t speak Arabic just watch the opening credits in the first two minutes of the episode and you\u2019ll get the gist of the show.\u00a0He has a Twitter account<\/a> with over 1,600,000 followers and I can only hope that his positive influence grows and grows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EMAN AL NAFJAN: They’re individuals who have inspired others with their courage, their humanity and their personal example. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":21855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,173,90,482,10,5],"tags":[14691,2943,4706,18275,8129,166,162],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}