Monday 31 October 2016

‘I Live in a Lie’: Saudi Women Speak Up - NYTimes.com

Interesting letters from Saudi women to the New York Times about life in the horrid misogynistic Saudi Arabia, America's "most important ally" in the Middle East. And the largest customer of American arms sales. Which it uses to massacre civilians in southern Ethiopia. And prop up its cruel, misogynist dictatorship. 
What a joke. 
Of course the downside of abandoning this "ally", might well be hugely worse: yet another conflagration, then victory of ISIS-like Sunni extremists. 
Still, does the US leadership really have to remain silent about these gross abuses? To those that say "mind your own business" that was not the way of the world when it came to South African apartheid. This is sexual apartheid. Even worse, some might say as women can be freely beaten and are not free even to leave the home without a male guardian.
In Saudi we see Islam in operation. 
/snip
Most of the responses focused on frustration over guardianship rules that force women to get permission from a male relative — a husband, father, brother or even son — to do things like attend college, travel abroad, marry the partner of their choice or seek medical attention. 
LATER: And French Muslim author Kamel Daoud in his essay, "Saudi Arabia, an ISIS that has made it". He says it all in the first sentence of his article.  For which, of course, he's been labelled as an "Islamophobe".
What a truly horrid country, and what a scandalous shame to call it our "ally".