Saudi prince and billionaire backs letting women drive

[Riparian March]

Will they still require a male relative escort everywhere? If so, it's not progress. It just means they'll have to drive their minders around.

Well, I wonder who the male relative is if they are being driven by foreigners? I don't think they need a male relative escort everywhere. They just need another male relative around when they are in the presence of a non relative adult male. You know to protect their honour. How the current system where they are driven by foreigners works, I am not sure.

[Clintonia]

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has clearly never driven in Kuwait

Put on a zorro mask and drive and tell me how much peripheral vision you have

[Nazis in Space]

At least Saudi Arabia is making some progress.

'Get rid of filthy foreigners, let women drive'...

Eh. I dunno about 'Progress'.

Saudi Arabia, home to about nine million foreign workers, began a crackdown on illegal immigrants this year to boost the proportion of Saudi citizens in private sector jobs from the current 10 percent.

Had me lol, btw.

I for one hope for the Most Catholic Kingdom of Filipino Arabia in the near future.

[The Archregimancy]

At least Saudi Arabia is making some progress.

Divair, could you please try and put a discussion point in your OPs.

You've developed a habit recently of posting a news story and link followed by a one-sentence opinion (or in, the case of your gold and bitcoin threads, a one-sentence piece of snark). It would be helpful if you could extend that to a second sentence offering an explicit discussion point as well.

There's nothing wrong with the actual topics where I've seen you do this - they're all fine topics worth discussing; but ideally you could put just a bit more effort into the OPs.

[New Chalcedon]

Wow and here I thought America was the most patriarchal, woman-hating country in the world. Maybe those feminists should direct their energy towards countries like this where women actually are oppressed and treated unfairly under the law.

You mean like reactionary, absolute monarchies that hold vast leverage over key sectors of the world economy?

Because that sure will help.....

[The Archregimancy]

True, but it'd mean a lot more if the King or one of the (surviving) Sudairi Seven were to back it - the four surviving brothers are the core of royalist power in Riyadh, even though none of them is currently King. Sure, the others are "royal", but what does that mean with 7,000+ members of the Saudi Royal Family?

In the region, King Abdullah is widely believed to be in favour of allowing women to drive, but feels constrained from personally announcing as much.

He has certainly previously personally intervened to stop a woman from being flogged for driving.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/se ... g-abdullah
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 63197.html
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/mi ... g-abdullah

As the 2nd and 3rd links note, that prominent case came the day after King Abdullah had given women the right to vote and run in muncipal council elections and sit on the (admittedly powerless) consultative council.

None of which amounts to much by Western standards, granted, given the extensive de facto and de jure restrictions on women that are still in place; but by the limited standards and low starting base of Saudi Arabian attitudes towards women's rights, Abdullah is - relatively speaking (and I stress that conditional) - a reformer.

[Ethel mermania]

Clearly, he has nevrer seen mrs mermania drive.

[Samuraikoku]

It seems we have to explain to Saudis the economic benefits of every progress in advance of women.

[Kemalist]

Saudis (the family) are such hypocrites. A few years ago the Saudi prince along with his family visited Turkey and their princess was seen in a bikini.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHBHqYY15U0

These guys only use the religion for their own sultanate and wealth, nothing else.

[Nazis in Space]

True, but it'd mean a lot more if the King or one of the (surviving) Sudairi Seven were to back it - the four surviving brothers are the core of royalist power in Riyadh, even though none of them is currently King. Sure, the others are "royal", but what does that mean with 7,000+ members of the Saudi Royal Family?

In the region, King Abdullah is widely believed to be in favour of allowing women to drive, but feels constrained from personally announcing as much.

He has certainly previously personally intervened to stop a woman from being flogged for driving.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/se ... g-abdullah
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 63197.html
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/mi ... g-abdullah

As the 2nd and 3rd links note, that prominent case came the day after King Abdullah had given women the right to vote and run in muncipal council elections and sit on the (admittedly powerless) consultative council.

None of which amounts to much by Western standards, granted, given the extensive de facto and de jure restrictions on women that are still in place; but by the limited standards and low starting base of Saudi Arabian attitudes towards women's rights, Abdullah is - relatively speaking (and I stress that conditional) - a reformer.

It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia isn't a monolithic block of villainy. It's got the monarchy - which wants sorta-westernising reforms without actually losing any power -, it's got the Shiite clergy - which is responsible for a disproportional amount of the horror stories the international media gets out of Saudi-Arabia -, and it's got the Sunni clergy - which doesn't want reforms, but is still more than happy to release the aforementioned horror stories from Shiite judicatives to the media to make the Shiites look bad.

It must always be remembered that when we hear about a ludicrous flogging or death sentence for $Non_Issue, it's not information that's brought out of Saudi-Arabia by death-defying western journalists for justice, it's information released by one of the competing factions in Saudi Arabia to gain an advantage over its competitors, precisely because a large portion of the Saudi population thinks that these creepy court rulings are full of shit, too.

Yet, reforms are slow in coming. The King doesn't want to alienate the Sunni clergy a decent chunk of his power is based on, which limits the degree to which he can institute reforms (In addition to the whole 'I don't actually want to give up power' deal, that is). The Sunni clergy... Well, Wahabi. The population - well, it's living pretty wealthy lives, which rather sedates revolutionary spirit.

None of this stops, say, Saudi feminism (I should clarify: Islamic Feminism. It's about women's rights, but it's also, fundamentally, conservative. Roughly comparable to western first- but not even remotely resembling second- or third wave feminism) from existing (And actually being moderately influential - an influence that is only going to rise as females already outnumber male students in Saudi-Arabia), but with the domestic situation being as complicated as it is, well, such things take time.

[The Archregimancy]

Saudis (the family) are such hypocrites. A few years ago the Saudi prince along with his family visited Turkey and their princess was seen in a bikini.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHBHqYY15U0

These guys only use the religion for their own sultanate and wealth, nothing else.

I don't doubt the hypocrisy for a second, but the roots of that are down to a historical deal between the Al Sauds and the Al ash-Sheikhs / Al Wahhabs.

Across all three historical Saudi states dating back to the mid 18th century, the deal has been that the Al Sauds control the political institutions, and the Al ash-Sheikhs (via their descent from the founder of the al-Wahhab family) control the ulema. This mutual support pact has been in place since Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab swore an oath of mutual support in 1744.

The mutual support helps to legitimise each other's control of their specific field of responsibility, but neither family is therefore wholly in control of the organs of the Saudi state - in that sense Saudi Arabia is not quite the absolute monarchy that it's often portrayed to be. It's more accurately a diarchy or perhaps an oligarchy with two separate (though closely related via intermarriage) dynastic centres of control. The Al ash-Sheikhs (via their control of the Saudi ulema) even have the right to veto the succession to the Saudi throne.

Which in turn helps to explain why King Abdullah can't simply liberalise women's rights by personal fiat even if he is the cautious reformer that some of his supporters claim he is given the centrality of the ulema - and therefore the Al ash-Sheikhs - to everyday law and custom in the Saudi state.

[The Archregimancy]

It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia isn't a monolithic block of villainy.

A good point well made - and given my last post it looks like we were writing up similar points (though stressing slightly different elements thereof) at about the same time.

[UCE Watchdog of the Puppets]

Any way to progress but pure evil and slaughter is acceptable.

[New Chalcedon]

True, but it'd mean a lot more if the King or one of the (surviving) Sudairi Seven were to back it - the four surviving brothers are the core of royalist power in Riyadh, even though none of them is currently King. Sure, the others are "royal", but what does that mean with 7,000+ members of the Saudi Royal Family?

In the region, King Abdullah is widely believed to be in favour of allowing women to drive, but feels constrained from personally announcing as much.

He has certainly previously personally intervened to stop a woman from being flogged for driving.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/se ... g-abdullah
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 63197.html
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/mi ... g-abdullah

As the 2nd and 3rd links note, that prominent case came the day after King Abdullah had given women the right to vote and run in muncipal council elections and sit on the (admittedly powerless) consultative council.

None of which amounts to much by Western standards, granted, given the extensive de facto and de jure restrictions on women that are still in place; but by the limited standards and low starting base of Saudi Arabian attitudes towards women's rights, Abdullah is - relatively speaking (and I stress that conditional) - a reformer.

Which is impressive for someone pushing 80, accustomed to a life of absolute political power. He was, afterall, Fahd's Regent for the last few years of his reign, and one of the head honchos for many years before that - since King Khalid's death in 1982, certainly. If someone embodies the political Establishment in Saudi Arabia, it's him.

And yet he's a cautious reformer. Huh - go figure. I always knew he was a (relative) moderate, but was under the impression that he was going to let any real reforms be done by someone younger.

[Ethel mermania]

It seems we have to explain to Saudis the economic benefits of every progress in advance of women.

Exactly what benifit do the saudi's need?

[Socialist EU]

"He did not spell out the economic benefits, but Saudi officials have said they are worried about the amount of money being sent out of the country by foreign workers."

So it looks like the Saudi officials/bureaucrats are more concerned about pragmatism rather than matters of principle. Cynicism aside, of course it is progress, but far more is needed, such as not needing permission to drive from their husbands, or drive with a male relative and moving away from the hybrid diarchy/semi-absolute monarchism towards national elections.

[Samuraikoku]

It seems we have to explain to Saudis the economic benefits of every progress in advance of women.

Exactly what benifit do the saudi's need?

It seems it's the only language they know.

[Wisconsin9]

This will be an exceptionally good thing when and if it's actually followed through on.

[Greed and Death]

So women should be allowed to drive because we don't want to give money to foreigners ?

[Scandavian States]

I think people are missing a key point. What the King or his family might want isn't exactly relevant, because the clerics control the local political organs and you need a local driver's license to operate a vehicle. Those same clerics are reactionary dinosaurs who are mostly concerned with maintaining their political power, which they would largely lose if women had equal rights. There's a fairly apt parallel you could draw between the Catholic church and their Inquisition and the Wahabi clerics with their morality police.

But, don't confuse the political dynamic with the household dynamic. In most Muslim households, it's the women who rule the house with an iron hand and dispense discipline to the children. They also tend not to wear any covering in their own homes unless they know they are going to have guests.

[The Archregimancy]

I think people are missing a key point. What the King or his family might want isn't exactly relevant, because the clerics control the local political organs.

Funny, I must have imagined both Nazis in Space and myself making more or less precisely that point on this very same page in the last 10 posts or so.

[Greed and Death]

I think people are missing a key point. What the King or his family might want isn't exactly relevant, because the clerics control the local political organs.

Funny, I must have imagined both Nazis in Space and myself making more or less precisely that point on this very same page in the last 10 posts or so.

Neither of you are liberal enough to make that key point.

[Rocopurr]

Obviously I'm all for this even if its only for economic reasons. It's better than nothing, right?

[Kanery]

Still a bunch of ignorant sexists.

[Riparian March]

I think people are missing a key point. What the King or his family might want isn't exactly relevant, because the clerics control the local political organs and you need a local driver's license to operate a vehicle. Those same clerics are reactionary dinosaurs who are mostly concerned with maintaining their political power, which they would largely lose if women had equal rights. There's a fairly apt parallel you could draw between the Catholic church and their Inquisition and the Wahabi clerics with their morality police.

But, don't confuse the political dynamic with the household dynamic. In most Muslim households, it's the women who rule the house with an iron hand and dispense discipline to the children. They also tend not to wear any covering in their own homes unless they know they are going to have guests.

It is a bit more complicated than that, and it is difficult for an outsider to understand.