Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC

October 19, 2012

Commentaries and Analyses

Women, the Prophet, Denial of Worship, and Who is the Enemy

 

Educated, Unemployed and No Longer Invisible, Despite Black Covering

CDHR’s Commentary: Ninety percent (90%) of unemployed Saudis are women. They are educated, able and eager to earn an honest living, but are denied the right to work. This is happening in a country that employs an estimated 8 million foreign nationals in its public and private sectors. However, after being marginalized by their government and society since the inception of the Saudi state in 1932, women are silent no more. They are not only speaking up against their repression; they are advocating for a reorientation of Saudi society and of the government’s political and economically driven discriminatory policies, dressed in religious and tradition excuses no one buys anymore, if they ever did.

Saudi women are not only demanding to work, but to drive themselves to their places of employment in order to emancipate themselves from financial and mobile dependence on their male relatives and the government’s handouts. Despite the resistance of the state’s autocratic and theocratic rulers and traditionalist males to women’s call for equality, women are slowly making their voices heard and some of their demands are being realized, albeit in a very limited way.

One of the major achievements Saudi women have accomplished in recent years is an increase in employment at stores that sell women’s lingerie. A number of years ago, a few courageous women, led by Jeddah-based economics professor Reem Asaad, organized a campaign to implement a shelved royal decree that called on businesses that sell women’s lingerie to hire Saudi saleswomen to replace the mostly foreign, male workers. The campaign gained domestic and global attention and propelled the Saudi King to support the women’s movement, or “Bra Revolution,” as described by some media outlets.

Despite Saudi King Abdullah’s support for the lingerie and make-up shops’ requirement to employ only Saudi saleswomen, it is evident that the government is doing very little to enforce this Royal decree. Foreign workers continue to dominate industries in which Saudi women are supposed to be operating. In addition, the regime seems hesitant to increase employment opportunities for women in other fields. Instead, the regime is focusing on the “Saudization” of jobs (requiring employers to hire Saudis to replace foreign workers) in fields that are off limits to women.

A conference held on October 3^rd in Riyadh, entitled “Maximizing the Employment of Saudi Women,” discussed issues that lead to the exclusion of women from the public and private Saudi workforce such as the strict gender-regulation rules as well as how employers can create work environments for women that remain in line with the religious guidelines and cultural traditions that severely restrict women’s freedom.

Continuing to prevent Saudi women from using their full potentials to help build a better and more prosperous country is hurting Saudi Arabia financially, politically and socially. A recent report by the British-based Oxford Strategic Consulting, which was presented at the Riyadh conference, found that increasing the number of Saudi women in the workforce would significantly increase Saudi Arabia’s GNP as well as boost productivity and innovation in the Kingdom. The report even gives suggestions on how to increase women’s participation in the workforce despite the numerous destructive limitations imposed on them by their institutions.

Despite the Saudi regime’s unstated reasoning for restricting women’s full employment, women are a force to be reckoned with and continuing to repress them can only lead to instability and a violent outcome. Like their counterparts in other Arab countries, Saudi women are leading the way in transforming their country’s pre-modern institutions, male-dominated perceptions and treatment of women. The Saudi oligarchs are pursuing a failed policy toward women. It is hard to understand the Saudi ruling family’s state of mind.

How can the ruling princes not understand that millions of educated Saudi women see the world differently than their nomadic mothers and grandmothers who could not read or write? How can the ruling princes not understand that modern, educated Saudi women spend much of their time on social media debating their dissatisfaction with the status quo? Saudi women and men did not spend the recently celebrated national day dancing and singing in the streets (as it is not allowed), but instead decried their government’s failure to realize that the Saudi people, especially the younger generations, are part of the fast changing world in their region and globally.

 

The Saudi Grand Mufti: Insulting The Prophet Boosts His Glory

CDHR’s Commentary: In what seemed to be a Saudi government dictated statement, the Saudi Grand Mufti (top religious authority), Abdul Aziz Al-Alshaikh, asked Muslims not to react violently against those who defame Islam and depict Prophet Mohammed negatively. He said that belittling Prophet Mohammed ‘… only helps in spreading the glory of the Prophet (pbuh) with greater vigor.” At the same time, the cleric cautioned “…that all Muslims are willing to sacrifice their lives and properties for the cause of their dear Prophet (pbuh).”

While advising the infuriated Muslim protesters to refrain from violence, the Saudi Mufti asked ‘the international community to take steps to criminalize any act of abusing great prophets and messengers such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them).’ It is ironic that the head of the Saudi religious establishment, the Mufti, included the names of the Christian and Jewish Prophets, Moses and Jesus, in the list of Prophets that must be glorified. This is the same Mufti who called for the destruction of Christian churches in the Arabian Peninsula. Jews are not even allowed to visit Saudi Arabia.

Under the Mufti’s watchful eyes and as per his commands, non-Muslims are not only forbidden from practicing their religious rituals publicly in Saudi Arabia, but if caught doing so privately, they can be punished and deported. The Saudi Mufti’s advice to the mobs of trigger-happy Muslim extremists has to be taken with a grain of salt. His overriding objective, which he shares with the 56 Muslim countries that form the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is to abolish freedom of the press and all forms of expression worldwide. He considers all forms of assemblage (except praying in mosques) antithesis to the content and teachings of the Muslim faith.

The good news is that the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia and around the Muslim World is losing its credentials. This is due to the fact that young and educated Muslim women and men are becoming increasingly aware of the Muslim clerics’ duplicitous actions and behavior. These clerics use religion to justify repressive and backward state policies from which they benefit handsomely.

The social media, YouTube and satellite channels (the inventions of the “infidels”) are to be thanked for exposing the Muslim clerics’ repressive and double-dealing practices.

 

Saudi Authorities Denied Nigerian Muslim Women the Right to Worship Unless…

CDHR’s Commentary: As portrayed in this article, the Saudi male-dominated cultural and political mores and practices, especially as they relate to women, are overstepping all borders of man-made and divine laws, including denying women their God given right to fulfill their religious obligations. One of Islam’s five pillars is the pilgrimage to Mecca by all “able bodies” at least once in one’s lifetime, known as the Hajj. A group of Nigerian women embarked on an expensive and long pilgrimage journey to Saudi Arabia to perform one of their religiously commanded pillars, but were held hostage at the port of their arrival in Saudi Arabia and deported back to Nigeria because they were not chaperoned by male relatives as the Saudi system demands of all women, regardless of their status within the Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is the only country on earth where women’s movement, education, work, marriage and health are controlled by men under the denigrating system of institutionalized male guardianship. This system is designed to render women as perpetual minors, regardless of how educated, achieving, intelligent, old or rich they may be. Even though this system is attributed to tradition and religion, it is purely crafted and put in place by the Saudi authorities for political and economic reasons. Now the Saudi autocratic and theocratic rulers are imposing their contempt for women on citizens of other countries.

The impact of the Saudi regime’s bigoted policies against women on Saudi society is multifaceted. It creates frustration, idleness, family frictions, societal divisiveness, inequality, disunity and male sense of false superiority. Despite these deeply rooted social clashes, millions of educated and aspiring Saudi women are challenging the Saudi regime and its zealous religious establishment’s primordial policies and practices against gender equality. Women are demanding full citizenship including full employment, equality in the state’s segregated educational system, voting in municipal elections, the right to drive and the removal of the denigrating male guardian system, which the Saudi authorities used to deny the Nigerian Muslim women their right to perform Hajj. 

 

Israel Is Not the Enemy, Arab Dictators Are

CDHR’s Commentary: Arab dictators have long blamed external powers for their enormous failures at home. More than any country or historical event, Israel has been the scapegoat for the lack of scientific advancement, human development, political and social reforms, and respect for human rights in the Arab world.
Since Israel declared itself a state in 1948, Arab autocracies, their state-run media and echoing intellectuals have focused on blaming Israel and its small, but incredibly industrious, Jewish population for the Arab world’s own political, social and economic failures. While Arabs have long been mired in wars, poverty and intolerance, the Israelis have been busy building one of the most vibrant democratic nations in the world.

As this courageous former Saudi naval officer correctly stated, “The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.” The sentiments expressed by this Saudi analyst are held by many, but not enough, Arabs, especially among Palestinians, whose interests can best be served not through warfare, but by striking deals and allying themselves with the Israelis and obtaining the liberties Israeli Arabs currently enjoy.

Using the Arab-Israeli conflict to divert their subjugated populations’ attention from their enormous failures, the Arab regimes have created societies that can easily be baited into mob violence directed at religious minorities or foreign embassies. Examples of this have been dangerously evident in recent years due to several highly publicized incidents of cartoonists and other critics portraying Islam and the Prophet Muhammed in a negative light.

The volatile nature of Arab dictators and societies, as illustrated during recent uprisings in Syria, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, provides yet another example of these failures and the dangers these autocrats pose for the Arab public. The broader consequences of those failures - war and political instability - should be of significant concern to the international community and action must be taken before they cause the world further pain.

The Israelis, the US and the European Union ought to reach out and support those Arabs who believe in true democratic values, like the Saudi author noted above, and who are willing to pay the price to be free. 

 

Saudi Women: Challenging Impediments to Progress

CDHR’s Commentary:  Due to a multitude of institutionalized discriminatory policies against women in employment, millions of educated and qualified Saudi women are unemployed. The Saudi private and public sectors imports over 8 million underpaid and overworked laborers to do jobs most of which can be done by Saudi women, but for better salaries, benefits and a healthy work environment. Millions of the imported expatriate laborers are maltreated housemaids and family drivers or “Saudi Modern Day slaves” as described by Saudi and non-Saudi individuals and groups. Tragically, some of the maids are taking revenge in brutal manners.

Working Saudi women are using these tragic instances to demand daycare centers where their children would be protected while they work. Presently the very small number of Saudi working women has no choice but to leave their children with angry maids. Building private and public daycare centers by employers would allow women to work without having to worry about the well-being of their children. In addition, more women would seek employment to feed their families if they knew their children were cared for in safe environment. 

In addition to having daycare centers for children of working mothers, other institutionalized impediments that prevent women from working have to be eliminated. The women’s right to drive tops the list. Currently women are not allowed to drive and are rarely allowed to take public transportation alone. In order for them to commute to work they must either get a ride from a male relative or hire a driver which most Saudi women cannot afford. Male relatives often have their own jobs and are not able or willing to regularly drive a woman to her job. As long as the Saudi system continues to forbid women from controlling their own means of transportation, the majority of women will be unable to find and maintain employment.

Increasing employment opportunities for Saudi women and men is unlikely to happen soon. This is due to the fact that foreign laborers work for very meager wages, live in unhealthy and cheap camps and have no benefits. Furthermore, companies that tend to hire Saudis prefer men because hiring women requires employers to accommodate gender segregation requirements, including separate work facilities.  Preventing women from working and earning an honest living forces them to seek government handouts. 85% of Saudi applicants for government unemployment benefits were women in 2011, according to the Ministry of Labor.

Establishing daycare centers by public and private employers will prevent the killing of innocent children by maltreated maids and enable mothers that need to earn a living to work without having to worry about losing their children. This is a step that can help, but it is only one small step in the scheme of what must be done to remove the unnatural impediments imposed on women by the Saudi state institutions.

 

Reining in Saudi Arabia’s Religious Police?

CDHR’s Commentary: The government of Saudi Arabia has recently taken small steps to curb the actions of the Kingdom’s most notorious agency, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and its zealot religious police known as the Mutaween (or domesticators in Arabic). It should be noted that these reforms have been measured in nature and that although the Committee has been partially restrained from its flagrant excesses, it still employs thousands of indoctrinated men tasked with the enforcement of the extreme Saudi version of the Sharia law, which forbids codified social contracts (non-religious rule of law), all forms of free expression, women’s rights and religious freedom.

In January 2012, King Abdullah appointed a trusted ally, Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, as the new head of the fanatical Committee. Despite being descended from the founder of the Wahhabi doctrine, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, Al-Sheikh has taken some steps to restrain some of the unrestricted violent behavior of the religious police; many of whom are said to be drug addicts and former convicted criminals. This organization is what the government uses to spy on people, monitor their movement, and enforce dress codes and appearances.

Recently it was announced that the powers of the Committee would be further reduced, barring them from making arrests, conducting interrogations, or carrying out searches without the consent of the local governor. Some duties of the Committee will be handed over to other institutions, such as the ability to make arrests, which is being transferred to the regular Saudi police force. In addition, the Committee will also be more limited in its ability to enforce the strict social codes of conduct; in particular they would be prevented from scouring public locations such as malls and harassing women who fail to meet their dress codes.

However, these reforms are quite limited and strict rules of public conduct are still in place in Saudi Arabia. Women are still prevented from driving, dress codes must still be abided by, public entertainment is banned, beheadings and flogging are routine and political rights are practically non-existent for those outside of the Royal Family.

 

When Trust Leads to Heinous Crimes:

CDHR’s Commentary: The institutionalized destructive gender segregation (Gender Apartheid system) in Saudi Arabia has resulted in a multitude of social, political, educational and economic impediments to national unity, productivity, constructive competitiveness, religious tolerance and human development. However, Saudi women are the main targets of the brutal politically and economically instigated gender segregation system.  

In instances such as this tragic crime, similar to the heart-wrenching case of the gang-raped Bint Al-Qatif, (daughter of Qatif), Saudi women can be punished for being raped after sitting in public negotiating the return of photos they gave to men they trust but who, in turn, threaten to use the photos given to them out of love to blackmail the givers.

Saudi women are an easy target for men’s heinous aggression because of the Saudi male dominated institutions, especially the arbitrary Saudi religious courts which are staffed by men who consider women less than full human beings and responsible for luring men to assault them. However, women are not only rejecting the imposition of men’s control over their lives and livelihood; they have also become the most outspoken citizens against social injustices, discriminatory policies, intolerance, inequality and the government’s inconsistent domestic and foreign policies regarding human rights.

What the international community, especially in the West, does not seem to understand and appreciate is the fact that Saudi women’s rights cannot be achieved without defeating the forces of darkness in Saudi society, namely the religious extremists.