By Ali Alyami
Saudi society suffers from many man-made political, economic, religious, educational, ethnic and social ills which impede basic human development in the country and set it apart from the rest of the international community in the most negative way. Prominent among these social impairments is the institutionalized discrimination against Saudi women. Practices such as denying women the right to work, drive, travel, buy property, marry whom they want, have any input in decisions that affect their daily life and survival, or even vote in municipal elections, are attributed to nomadic tradition, but more cagey reasoning is placed on religion. The question is: whose religious interpretation and whose ultimate interests does this ignominious use of religion serve. Simply put, the beneficiaries are the men in power; the Saudi royal family and its co-ruling “religious” allies, the descendants of the zealous and ferocious Wahhabi clan.
Denying the Saudi women the rights to full citizenship and participation in all aspects of Saudi society perpetuates a system of institutionalised discrimination, alienation and the domination of religious and power obsessed men. Excluding Saudi women from participating in decision and policymaking has a far-reaching impact that transcends Saudi domestic politics and socio-economics. Women cannot debate their country’s policies including religious intolerance, indoctrination of their children in schools and relations with other peoples. This has a fundamentally harmful impact on the role of Saudi Arabia in world politics, facilitating the perpetuation of a widely unpopular religious interpretation; Wahhabism. For example, having no impact on the institutional processes that govern the education of their children, women are denied the rights and civil obligations to influence the way their society functions. Even though there are female teachers in Saudi schools, they have no influence over the content of textbooks, the teacher-training programme, or the curriculum imposed on students thought the Saudi educational system. Where women have achieved full citizenship, society is progressive, productive, more humane, and less violent.
For Saudi society to throw off the shackles of institutionalised repression, tolerance of domestic difference and begin to conduct positive international diplomacy, women must be enfranchised as full citizenship. This will benefit Saudi Arabia first and foremost, and thus subsequently the international community at large. Empowering Saudi women will weaken the power grip over every aspect of the Saudi people by intolerant, chauvinistic, and power hungry men who seem to be willing to sacrifice the interest and safety of the country in order to maintain total control over people’s lives and wealth. The Saudi government allowed for exclusionary municipal elections where women were barred from voting. The next elections are supposed to take place in 2009 and there are no signs of allowing women to participate, if elections were to take place at all. The Center for Democracy and Human rights in Saudi Arabia, located in Washington DC, calls on all human rights group to support incl usion of women in the pending municipal elections.
Saudi society suffers from many man-made political, economic, religious, educational, ethnic and social ills which impede basic human development in the country and set it apart from the rest of the international community in the most negative way. Prominent among these social impairments is the institutionalized discrimination against Saudi women. Practices such as denying women the right to work, drive, travel, buy property, marry whom they want, have any input in decisions that affect their daily life and survival, or even vote in municipal elections, are attributed to nomadic tradition, but more cagey reasoning is placed on religion. The question is: whose religious interpretation and whose ultimate interests does this ignominious use of religion serve. Simply put, the beneficiaries are the men in power; the Saudi royal family and its co-ruling “religious” allies, the descendants of the zealous and ferocious Wahhabi clan.
Denying the Saudi women the rights to full citizenship and participation in all aspects of Saudi society perpetuates a system of institutionalised discrimination, alienation and the domination of religious and power obsessed men. Excluding Saudi women from participating in decision and policymaking has a far-reaching impact that transcends Saudi domestic politics and socio-economics. Women cannot debate their country’s policies including religious intolerance, indoctrination of their children in schools and relations with other peoples. This has a fundamentally harmful impact on the role of Saudi Arabia in world politics, facilitating the perpetuation of a widely unpopular religious interpretation; Wahhabism. For example, having no impact on the institutional processes that govern the education of their children, women are denied the rights and civil obligations to influence the way their society functions. Even though there are female teachers in Saudi schools, they have no influence over the content of textbooks, the teacher-training programme, or the curriculum imposed on students thought the Saudi educational system. Where women have achieved full citizenship, society is progressive, productive, more humane, and less violent.
For Saudi society to throw off the shackles of institutionalised repression, tolerance of domestic difference and begin to conduct positive international diplomacy, women must be enfranchised as full citizenship. This will benefit Saudi Arabia first and foremost, and thus subsequently the international community at large. Empowering Saudi women will weaken the power grip over every aspect of the Saudi people by intolerant, chauvinistic, and power hungry men who seem to be willing to sacrifice the interest and safety of the country in order to maintain total control over people’s lives and wealth. The Saudi government allowed for exclusionary municipal elections where women were barred from voting. The next elections are supposed to take place in 2009 and there are no signs of allowing women to participate, if elections were to take place at all. The Center for Democracy and Human rights in Saudi Arabia, located in Washington DC, calls on all human rights group to support incl usion of women in the pending municipal elections.
Source: The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia
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