Mrs. Bush in Black

Director’s Comment: Mrs. Bush is the First Lady of the most democratic and powerful nation on earth. During her recent visit to Saudi Arabia recently she covered herself in the Saudi black abaya, which Saudi women are forced to wear when in public or work places. Whether she knew it or not, Mrs. Bush was validating one of the most repressive symbols of human oppression and isolation. The Saudi ruling religious and political families take advantage of and use symbolic gestures to validate and reinforce their draconian policies against women, religious minorities, expatriates and non-Muslims. The First Lady of the US donning the oppressive black garment sends the wrong message to aspiring Saudi women and their supporters in and outside Saudi Arabia. As an intelligent and principled woman, Mrs. Bush should have known better than to help reinforce the Saudi government and its extremist un-Islamic, unnatural and inhumane discrimination against Saudi women. Forcing women to hide themselves under black layers of stifling, blinding, and isolating black garments is a crime. As such, Mrs. Bush should condemn and fight the practice and encourage President Bush to denounce it publicly at every relevant occasion. Mrs. Bush should have refused to listen to the State Department pundits' advice when it comes to anything that has to do with the Saudi government.

Saudi women have no choice but to clad themselves in the disfiguring and dehumanizing black abayas. If a Saudi woman shows her face, hair or ankle publicly, she could incur humiliation or interrogation and must sign an affidavit never to repeat such a "sin." The marginalization of Saudi women has nothing to do with tradition, Islam or culture. It is a Saudi-Wahhabi political strategy to keep people divided and to exonerate the system from dealing with its full obligations to all citizens. Women in Saudi Arabia had more rights 60 years ago than they have now. When this writer was growing up in Saudi Arabia, the overwhelming majority of Saudi women did not cover their faces. In parts of the country they in fact worked, socialized and danced with men, especially in the Southern, Western and Eastern regions.

The fact that Mrs. Bush campaigned to bring awareness to the dangers of breast cancer and help Saudi women talk about it is admirable and humane. However, it is interpreted by many educated Saudi women as paternalistic and part of the US's continuing support for the Saudi absolute monarchy. Mrs. Bush and others in the US government, NGOs, media and think tanks should be fighting the root causes that prevent Saudi women from fending for themselves. They should be empowered to form local, regional and national committees, training centers and independent women's associations to help less privileged Saudi women understand and demand their rights.

Educated and progressive Saudis have been seeking a way to liberate themselves from their authoritarian government's policies. More than any other population in the Middle East, the majority of voiceless Saudis see America as their last hope to support their efforts in this regard. Winning the hearts and minds of the Saudi people and supporting them in their efforts to rid their country of religious extremism and totalitarianism are in the best interest of all Saudi citizens, the people of the Middle East, the US and the international community. Empowering Saudi women will go a long way in empowering Muslim women worldwide. This will contribute significantly to the eradication of religious extremism within Islam, which poses real threats to our civilization. Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and the international community will benefit immensely from the empowerment of Saudi women.
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Oppression and Marginalization of Saudi Women

Director’s Comment: Saudi reforms are a charade at best, contrary to the deceptive and misleading pronouncements by the Saudi government and it propagandists in Europe and the US. King Abdullah has initiated high-profile changes such as the formation of government human rights agencies, national dialogue, and the partial and exclusionary municipal elections in 2005 (women, anyone under 21 and all members of security and military personnel were barred). The king also announced the building of economic cities, called women his "mothers, wives, sisters and daughters", and even relaxed stifling censorship on media (as long as the ruling family is not criticized). Despite these steps, very little, if anything, has truly changed. In reality, Abdullah has been reinforcing his family's total grip on the country more than any of his predecessors. Nothing could testify more to the lack of progress on the ground than the appalling continuing marginalization and condescending treatment of Saudi women by the ir government. As the article below painfully demonstrates, women, regardless of their education, sophistication, abilities and desire for freedom are denied their basic human, citizen and God-given rights.

The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) located in Washington, DC, denounces the Saudi government's segregationist and discriminatory polices against Saudi women. We appeal to women's organizations, human rights and democracy advocates to hold the Saudi government responsible to for not complying with all declarations on women's rights. Empowering Saudi women is not only a moral imperative; it will tilt the scale in favor of tolerance, harmonious co-existence and empathy with peoples of different faiths and nationalities. Participation by Saudi women in all local, regional and national decision making will contribute to the eradication of the root causes of religious extremism and terrorism.
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Admonish and Beat Wives, But Don't Disfigure Them

Director’s Comment: Dr. Muhammad Al-'Arifi, a prominent Saudi cleric with substantial and mostly young followers, exerts substantial influence on his young audience. He is allowed to promote his denigrating and barbaric treatment of women on Saudi government national TV. Dr. Mohammed Al-Arifi is a young, handsome and charismatic religious preacher, which makes him all the more dangerous. He is a religious extremist who denounces non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi adherents and calls for jihad against Christians, Hindus and Jews. He reinforces the state's imposed theocratic policies against women, religious minorities and anyone who does not adhere to his austere brand of Islam, Wahhabism.

While it would be incorrect to characterize all Saudi men as wife beaters and all Saudi women as sitting ducks, it is important to understand that Saudi women have no legal protection. Men can easily beat their wives, divorce them and prevent them from doing anything they do not accept or see fit. Saudi women are subject to the men's and state's unjustified subjugations, deprivations and denial of their basic rights to earn a living or own property. They cannot even rent a hotel room to spend the night if they have nowhere to go or drive their children to emergency rooms to save their lives. According to the Saudi-Wahhabi rules, this is the will of God and is in compliance with its "only pure and righteous religion," Islam. This travesty has very little to do with religion, tradition or culture. It is an improvised Saudi-Wahhabi draconian tool to divide people and turn them against each other. This is done to eliminate social, political, economic and educational contacts betw een Saudi men and women.
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Amending Misperception?

Director’s Comment: A two-week trip to Saudi Arabia cannot possibly make anyone an expert on one of the most censored, isolated and undemocratic societies on this planet. Any conclusions drawn on the basis of such a short visit are bound to contain misunderstandings and poor generalizations. The article to follow is an account by a Tufts University student who is correcting another student for her misrepresentation of Islam and condemnation of the oppression of Saudi women. The writer met with elitist women from Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Middle East at a conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. While her personal experience is not in question, her assertions of the history of the oppressive dress code, segregation and marginalization of Saudi women are based on what she heard from women who are a part of and apologetic for the system she is criticizing.

Astonishingly, this intelligent student blames the US and its democratic allies for the "evolution" of the unnatural, disfiguring and dehumanizing face and body covers. She states, "This naive and uneducated outlook on the burqa (face cover) also ignores the much more complex historical and social factors that have shaped its evolution. For example, for many women, reclaiming the burqa began as a powerful form of resistance against U.S.-supported governments throughout the Middle East. Strange to think that the United States and Western encroachment could in fact be the force behind current movements of further veiling."

This misperception, illustrative of perceptions by some Westerners, is that Saudi women have choices. In fact, they do not. If a Saudi woman shows her face in a public place, she could be taken by the omnipresent terrorist religious police to interrogation centers. She would then be reprimanded, humiliated and forced to sign affidavits never to let any part of her skin be seen in public again. This is clearly not a choice.
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Saudi Foreign Minister's Deceptive Remarks

Director’s Comment: In an interview with a British TV channel in London last week, Saudi foreign Minister, Saud Al-Faisal was asked why women are not allowed to drive in his kingdom, the only society on the planet where women are forbidden from doing so. The highly respected and educated Prince said, "We [the royal family] are not the ones who decide on that. It has to be the families who decide on that." This is utter nonsense. Upon hearing the Prince's statement, two Saudi women activists, Foziyah Al-Oyuni and Wajeha Al-Huwaider, went to a government's driving agency and tried to apply for driver's licenses. They were flatly refused and were not even permitted to enter the government buildings, which are off-limits to women.

As the head of the ministry of foreign affairs, Saud Al-Faisal can prove his support for women by appointing one or two women to ambassadorial positions. To our knowledge, he has never appointed a woman to any important position in his large foreign ministry. CDHR challenges Saud Al-Faisal to appoint women ambassadors to set an example for other ministries to follow.
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