Text 5546, 110 rader
Skriven 2007-11-28 16:07:52 av Alan Hess
Ärende: gender apartheid
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Saudi Arabia, which does not allow non-Muslims to worship freely, yet is like
the rest of the Arab nations in refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
because it claims, with a straight face, that no other country is identified by
religion, so Israel should not be, also discriminates against women in the name
of Islam.

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www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.saudi28nov28,0,3912863.story
baltimoresun.com
Saudi Arabia's gender apartheid

By Mona Eltahawy

November 28, 2007

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 to have and whether you
could vote.

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,
damaging 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government, which finally repealed apartheid laws in 1991.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 South
Africa.

To understand the heinous double standards at play, look no further than the
case of a 19-year-old Saudi woman who was gang-raped last year. A court in
Saudi Arabia sentenced her to 90 lashes because she was in a car with an
unrelated man before she was abducted and raped by seven men. Saudi Arabia's
ultraorthodox interpretation of Islamic law preaches a strict segregation of
the sexes.

The young woman had the temerity to appeal - and publicize her story in the
media. And so, earlier this month, the court increased her punishment to 200
lashes and six months in jail.

And the abductors and rapists? They got between two and nine years in jail. A
rape conviction in the kingdom usually carries the death penalty, but the court
said it did not impose it because of a "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of
confessions."

A few governments here and there have condemned the Saudi court's behavior, but
you can be sure that Saudi Arabia will be there at the next Olympics - even
though it bars women from the national team - and the world will continue to
fete the kingdom's representatives without a word of chastisement. Just by
agreeing to attend yesterday's Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Annapolis,
Saudi Arabia merited headline news.

The easy explanation of the world's apathy to the plight of Saudi women is that
the kingdom sits on the world's largest oil reserves. True.

The more difficult explanation - and the one that too many avoid - is that the
Saudis have succeeded in pulling a fast one on the world by claiming their
religion is the reason they treat women so badly. I am a Muslim who is
constantly wondering how it is that I worship the same God as the Saudis. Islam
may have been born in Mecca, in what is today Saudi Arabia, but the warped
interpretation of my religion prevalent in that country is like a perverse
attempt to undo any good that Muslims believe was revealed in the Prophet
Muhammad's message in seventh-century Arabia.

What kind of God would punish a woman for rape? That is a question that Muslims
must ask of Saudi Arabia, because unless it is we who challenge the
determinedly anti-women teachings of Islam in Saudi Arabia, that kingdom will
always get a free pass. It is easy to dismantle the Saudi clerical claim that
Islam justifies the outrageous treatment of girls and women. Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim country, is a place where women enjoy rights a
Saudi woman could only dream of, where they recite the verses of the Quran on
television for all to see and hear. In Saudi Arabia, a woman's voice is
considered sinful.

Saudi Arabia's neighbors - Egypt, Syria and the United Arab Emirates - are all
Muslim-majority countries: Women drive, vote, are judges and hold ministerial
portfolios.

The international community must not forget the many brave Saudis - such as the
gang-rape victim and her lawyer (who was suspended) - who continue to question
this oppression by their government and clerics. Their courage deserves the
same kind of support the world offered anti-apartheid activists in South
Africa.

Nor should the victims of Saudi atrocities be forgotten. In 2002, 15
schoolgirls died when officers of the morality police would not let them out of
their burning school building - and barred firefighters from saving them -
because the girls weren't wearing the headscarves and the black cloaks that all
women must wear in public.

How many more girls must die and women must suffer rape before the
international community names this gender apartheid and condemns it
appropriately?

Mona Eltahawy is a New York-based journalist and a lecturer on Arab and Muslim
issues. This article was distributed by Agence Global.

Copyright + 2007, The Baltimore Sun

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