Article

2005-09-12 Arabia

"Don't kiss my hand," Saudi king tells citizens

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Posted by Fred 2005-09-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Is this a good thing (westernizing trend) or a bad thing (salafist trend)? The limited context of the article would seem to indicate that he is trying to placate the salafists rather than take a step into the 21st century.

Posted by 11A5S 2005-09-12 00:04|| 2005-09-12 00:04|| Front Page Top

#2 Total hypocrisy. I was in Dhahran when, then still Crown Prince, Abdullah came to visit Aramco HQ. It was the first visit by a ranking Royal. They spent 3 months building on and outfitting a special room just for him to park his ass and receive the line of hand and ass kissers. The sham included replacing the people at nearby computers he might choose to visit with Saudi drones - of influential families, of course. Impressive-looking bullshit was brought up on-screen, the expat was ushered out, and the drones were told not to touch anything, lest they screw it up. They didn't know if he'd want to wander around or what - so they did this in numerous areas, particularly in the Expec Bldg. Massive joke. Massive waste of time and materials. Etc.

Either he has time-warped forward several centuries, or this is signing off on one of their Western PR firm's suggestions to improve the Saudi image.

Pfeh.

Posted by .com 2005-09-12 00:14|| 2005-09-12 00:14|| Front Page Top

#3 BTW, the Saudi "news" on local TV used to be a 10-15 minute review of the day's Royal activities. Who sent greetings to the Royals. Who they sent greeting to. YaddaÂ³. Prominently featured was the hand and robe kissing receiving line - some visitors would lift the hem of his thobe and kiss that, instead of his hand. Guess they were of too low birth for the hand thingy.

In Bahrain, the "news" was the same, only this was the Little Emir - and his tradition was visitors kissing him on the face - usually on the nose - yeah, you read that right. I used to speculate that he had been exposed to more diseases than any other living human - as he "received" many of these sloppy kisses every day from emissaries from all over the planet. He probably had the Mother of All Immune Systems, heh. Miss that little guy - he had class.

Posted by .com 2005-09-12 00:22|| 2005-09-12 00:22|| Front Page Top

#4 Sounds like China Central Television's English-language coverage.

"Hu Jintao recieved a trade delegation from Hungaria today...blah blah blah"

Posted by gromky">gromky 2005-09-12 06:55|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/] 2005-09-12 06:55|| Front Page Top

#5 .com,

Hah, ha, hah....You made my day!!!!

Posted by TMH 2005-09-12 07:53|| 2005-09-12 07:53|| Front Page Top

#6 Impressive-looking bullshit was brought up on-screen

I used to have the best "boss key" before computers were found in the CEO toilet, hit the F5 Key and get a long memory dump looking thing with an artificial C: Prompt.

Posted by Shipman 2005-09-12 10:19|| 2005-09-12 10:19|| Front Page Top

#7 Kissing of hands no longer acceptable. Chopping off hands...no problem.

Posted by DepotGuy 2005-09-12 11:42|| 2005-09-12 11:42|| Front Page Top

#8 Relax kingly, I have had the same problem for years. People rushing up to kiss my, well, (ahem) hand.

Posted by Captain America 2005-09-12 13:40|| 2005-09-12 13:40|| Front Page Top

#9 And whatever you do, don't pull his finger.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-09-12 15:48|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-09-12 15:48|| Front Page Top

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