The Black Hand

Many people wonder about the mysterious way shocking body-parts like arms get to be blocked out in black especially in Saudi Arabia. I will now share a well-kept secret with you:
The secret society responsible for this is the covert ”Black Hand”.

SHORT INTRODUCTION:
Not so many years ago, there was a desert country with lots of sand, and lots of oil underneath that sand. As the oil could be sold for a lot of money this isolated country suddenly got a big influx of people from other countries, with other customs and books, with new stories, and many other things and ideas.

Many people enjoyed this very much, but others got frightened by it. They read their own books, and tried to be as perfect as possible. They thought to be perfect they must follow every letter of their own books, and, just to be sure, they enhanced anything that could make life more difficult, and more uncomfortable. If they could be sure they were not enjoying themselves they múst be doing it right.

But they were unhappy, and didn’t dare to make themselves happy again in fear of doing it wrong. So they looked at other people who were happy, and decided they must make them unhappy too. So they went about and admonished everybody who seemed to think differently as they themselves. Because they were not happy anymore they forgot to do this is a friendly and loving way so nobody listened, but everybody was made unhappy now because all things fun got to be forbidden. Even friendship, and love, and especially freedom. This made the scared people feel a lot better, but they didn’t notice this because they now were very busy looking up anything that might be fun and forbidding it. One thing they wanted to forbid very much was images that were pleasing to look at, or that might show something forbidden. For example women, or pigs. Women are always haraam in any sense, both looking at, and actually existing, and pigs were forbidden to eat. So they thought it would be a good idea if they could pretend pigs didn’t exist. You can’t pretend women don’t exist, but you can lock them up.

Picture by Theodore’s world

But they were frustrated by the many books, magazines, and packaging entering the country, showing lots of pictures of forbidden things. So a secret society was formed: The Black Hand.
All these new imports contained one simple blessing: The Black Marker.

The Black Hand embraced the Black Marker, and vowed to erase all haraam pictures from the land. They formed special squads which would roam the streets at night, entering shops, warehouses, post-offices, and malls. The Black Hand has duplicate keys to any building they need to enter. These keys are obtained by force, blackmail, or provided by one of their secret members. They have small rucksacks, containing extra markers, and set to work: all items carrying a photo of anything that can be construed as haraam, is blackened out! Some secret members speak english, and can even black out words, like ”Pork”.

The members work very hard, but sometimes, (and more and more often) They miss out on an arm or a leg.

Punishments for these remissions used to be severe in the olden days: one digit used to be chopped off for any serious bit of skin missed. Missing a whole woman or even a pig, would end in a whole finger being chopped off. Miss a woman in lingerie and you would miss your hand.
And..
miss a naked woman….
Chop! went that part of the male anatomy that does most of their thinking!!!
This caused great problems in the secret society, after many years nobody could hold a marker anymore. there was also the fear of extinction…
When the young boys took up the duties of their fathers, the tradition of chopping off body-parts was discontinued.
With the advance of modern technologies, the members of The Black Hand have had to modernise. They are thoroughly against computers and the internet, but not to use these satanic contraptions themselves would end up in a lot of haraam pictures entering the country.
As you need some intelligence and education to be able to work with computers, this sub-squad is not very large, and they are even more overworked as the normal Marker Members. To compensate they close off anything that may possibly lead to anything haraam, or anything that contains words for female parts of the anatomy. If that happens to be important medical information, well, that’s just too bad. Women should’nt go to doctors anyway, that would take them out of the house.

WOMAN MEMBERS OF THE BLACK HAND

Although women are haraam in themselves, and the only solution to the existence of women is to lock them up and never let them out, the Society of The Black Hand has recognised the importance of a woman’s squad. because there some places where ”no man have gone before” nor will ever be able to go éver.

So in 1952 the first, even more secret woman’s squad of the secret Black Hand was formed. To celebrate this event, a secret photo was made, but as it has always been kept secret, this is the first time it is published. This may also be due to the horrendous mistake in that a few secret toes of a girl are showing.
They can of course be blackened out…
Their names have been kept secret. But the woman sitting holding the loaves of bread was the mother, and the other two were her daughters.

Typically the secret women’s squad are chosen from the same, closely related family. So they only need to have two mahram’s accompanying them. One to drive the car (in Riyadh a black hummer provided by the Commission for the Prevention of Virtue and the Propagation of Vice) and one to keep an eye on the women. Because you have to keep an eye on women. Because you can’t trust them: they can develop independent thought!

Because… one time… in 1979… a young girl actually tried to run away! Imagine that! Her family were deeply dishonoured, and they still haven’t recovered from the social shame. The girl in question was quickly married off to become the fourth wife of a great-uncle, his first wife (three years younger than himself) had just died at the ripe old age of 76. He was a responsible man who knew his responsibilities and kept her locked up in a room without windows. Nothing more has been heard of her. As it should be. She has produced a few children but they were only girls, so even in that department she was a disappointment.

FINANCES AND SUPPLIES

The Black Hand has many supporters, who gladly supply them with food, and markers. The religious police provides them wih a few battered cars, and the black hummer to move the secret woman’s squad to their secret destinations.

They also get bribe money from saudi businesses, such as Avent, and Sayidaty magazine not to blacken their products.

However… sometimes real disaster looms: it has happened that the supply of Black Markers had run out!
If that happens there is only one solution: a special task force of the secret women’s squad is send out to raid stores and offices!

The descriptions are always the same: A group of women, wearing black over-the-head abayas, and black niqabs, (tripple veiled ones), and black gloves, stockings and shoes.
Although there have been ghost pictures made, and the discriptions have been widely distributed, and there even exists a photo, no arrests have yet been made. Probably a result of corruption.

This rare photo shows a secret task-force flocking towards a car after a successful marker-raid in the province

THE FUTURE

It is feared that the future looks grim for the Black Hand; they are fighting a losing battle. What is the use of blackening a piglet or a woman’s arm if you can get any amount of porn-channels on saudi satellite television? As the Black Hand refuses to watch television they may not even be aware of it. Neither do they have any real geeks in their ranks so they are not aware that policing the internet is a lost cause from the start. Not to mention that any bans can be circumvented by simply using a proxy-server. As the twenty-first century progresses, the Black Hand will become more and more of an anachronism, a useless, lonely, dwindling secret, só secret that nobody will miss it once it’s gone.

If Tash-ma-Tash decides to start up again, they are welcome to use this article for a screen-play.
After a substantial payment.

Update:

I have been informed that subversive anarchistic elements counteract the pious efforts of the Black Hand by spraying a bit of deodorant on the page, quickly wipe it of with a tissue, and all offending images are in full view again!!!