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Tahawy on Saudi Arabia treatment of women

I can’t find it online, so I am republishing below this fine op-ed by Mona al-Tahawy where she makes the obvious yet crucial point that Saudi Arabia’s medieval practices (only one manifestation of its backwards ideology) have been tolerated far too long:

Gender Apartheid
by Mona Eltahawy

NEW YORK — Once upon a time, in a country called South Africa the color of your skin determined where you lived, what jobs you were allowed, and whether you could vote or not.

Decent countries around the world fought the evil of racial apartheid by turning South Africa into a pariah state. They barred it from global events such as the Olympics. Businesses and universities boycotted South Africa, decimating its economy and adding to the isolation of the white-minority government, which finally repealed apartheid laws in 1991.

Today in a country called Saudi Arabia it is gender rather than racial apartheid that is the evil but the international community watches quietly and does nothing.

Saudi women cannot vote, cannot drive, cannot be treated in a hospital or travel without the written permission of a male guardian, cannot study the same things men do, and are barred from certain professions. Saudi women are denied many of the same rights that “Blacks” and “Coloreds” were denied in apartheid South Africa and yet the kingdom still belongs to the very same international community that kicked Pretoria out of its club.

She rightly points out that, aside from the oil reason, Saudi Arabia has been enabled by the collapse of any alternative ideology in the Arab world, with the Saudis having bought the silence (or enthusiastic support) of most other Arab regimes. As they say, RTWT.
Continue reading Tahawy on Saudi Arabia treatment of women

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Links for 11/9/07, and a little on Saudis

Regarding the last article on Saudi Arabia, Hamid makes the argument that the US should put democracy-promotion at the forefront of its policy because lack of democracy creates terrorism and extremist ideology, and calls for conditionality on the US arms deal with Saudi Arabia. It seems to me that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of both Saudi Arabia and the US. The Saudi regime is an active exporter of terrorism and extremist ideology, and this has nothing to do with lack of democracy. It is a long-standing, deliberate policy backed at the highest levels of the royal family. This is a country that has funded and provided manpower to paramilitary movements in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and many other places. It has also exported and financed the most intolerant strands of Islamic theology throughout the Muslim world. At one point the US backed this, or was tolerant of it at least. But it is very much the same phenomenon that is taking place today, only this time against US interests.

With regards to conditionality, the Saudis could very well buy the weapons themselves, and the deal is a boon to the US arms industry. The important thing about the deal is not the money or weapons being delivered but the underlying strategic alliance that provides security for the Saudi royal family. But this regime will continue to promote extremist ideologies at home and abroad, and genuine democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia (a goal desirable in itself but that is certainly not linked to greater stability) would be better served by weakening, not strengthening, the al-Sauds — not that this is going to happen, for obvious oil and corporate power reasons.

IntelliBriefs: Saudi Arabia’s media influence

Saudi Arabia’s media influence:

Saudi Arabia’s takeover of the region’s media is a reflection of what is occurring globally where a handful of multinational companies increasingly dominate the media. This spills over from entertainment into news coverage.

To Saudi Arabia such control is paramount in an era when the media is increasingly pervasive, because Riyadh’s political and economic clout – and the survival of the Royal family – depends on the kingdom retaining its position as a leading player in the region’s power politics. To retain this balance of power – held in the region by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia against an ascendant Iran and non-governmental actors – informative and potentially damning news on the kingdom needs to be squashed.

Saudi Arabia’s approach to media under its control, and the harsh punishments on those that do not portray a rose-tinted view of the royal family and the kingdom, is mirrored in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which have similarly draconian media laws to retain monarchical power bases. Qatar can be considered somewhat of an exception with Al Jazeera, but when it comes to the channel applying the same exposure to governmental malfeasance and social issues in Doha as it does elsewhere in the region, Al Jazeera comes up short.

Although much of Saudi media ownership revolves around entertainment, as the Managing Editor of Beirut-based Middle East Broadcasters Journal, Habib Battah, pointed out: “MBC, Orbit, Rotana – all these companies have a big Saudi stake and are not really about Saudi Arabia, but about appealing to a pan-Arab audience,” that is perhaps the point, with Saudi shareholders – most linked to the royal family – being able to dictate what is, and what can be, aired to a pan-Arab audience, even if it is only entertainment.

Worth reading in full, even if it only skims the surface.

Saudi to create oil protection security service

From Le Figaro, an article on how Saudi Arabia is creating a new security service specifically dedicated to protecting petroleum installations. Beyond threat perceptions about attacks on these centers, there is also the factor that this will create yet another service, exclusively under the control of Minister of Interior Prince Nayef and his son — with a rumored budget of $5 billion and staff of 35,000.

L’Arabie crée une force de protection des sites pétroliers:

POUR EMPÊCHER un attentat terroriste contre ses installations pétrolières, Riyad vient de décider la création d’une force de sécurité spécialisée, d’environ 35 000 hommes. Jusqu’à présent, la protection des 80 champs pétroliers et gaziers, ainsi que des 11 000 kilomètres d’oléoducs du premier exportateur d’or noir au monde était répartie entre une multitude de services (sécurité publique, forces spéciales, Garde nationale, etc.), soit au total 15 000 hommes.

« Compte tenu de la persistance des menaces terroristes ou des tensions avec l’Iran, les Saoudiens se sont rendu compte que la solution du détachement des personnels et des matériels n’était pas satisfaisante », explique un diplomate occidental à Riyad. Annoncée récemment par le ministre de l’Intérieur, le prince Nayef, à la Shoura (une assemblée dont les membres sont désignés par le régime), cette décision n’a pas encore été rendue publique.

La protection des sites pétroliers représente un important enjeu de pouvoir entre les différents clans de la direction saoudienne. La Garde nationale, toujours commandée par le roi Abdallah, gardera certaines prérogatives. Mais le dossier et ses investissements induits – on parle de 5 milliards de dollars – seront gérés directement par Nayef et son fils, les principaux responsables de la lutte antiterroriste dans un royaume durement frappé par al-Qaida depuis 2003.

This will mean more investment into arms purchases and other security technology, much to Western suppliers’ delight.