Speaking Truth to Power
“Al-Ra’ees Al-Khalidi, we can’t keep using the economic crunch as an excuse for downsizing or the company will face major delays in important projects,” Youssef Al-Mutairi said. He was a tall, distinguished looking middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, dressed in a white thobe and red-checkered ghutra.
(Ed note: Al-Ra’ees roughly translates to “president”, Al-Khalidi is a Saudi Arabian surname, and the thobe and ghutra are traditional Saudi apparel. It’s the ankle-length white robe [thobe] and the headscarf [ghutra] that you see them wear on television or in movies. Ghutras are secured to people’s heads by a black cord called an agal.)
“How old will you be this year?” Suleiman Al-Khalidi asked. It was a weird deflection of the issue Youssef had raised.