Fundamentalism 101: Saudi Arabia, and Absurdity 101: Sudan

Recently in the news there were two stories involving Islam and its continued perversion by religious nutcases. First there was the case in Saudi Arabia involving the gang-rape of a 19-year old woman by seven men, for which she was sentence to 90 lashes and a prison sentence (upon her lawyer appealing the sentence and making public comments about it, the penalty was increased to six months in prison and 200 lashes).¹ Second was the case in Sudan about the British teacher sentenced to fifteen days in jail and then deportation after her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.²

Being a person who supports women’s rights and logic, I find these events mind-blowing.

If one thing is clear, it is that rape is never the fault of the victim. This woman did not ask to be gang-raped—she was simply getting a photo of herself from a male high school friend because she had recently married. It is true that she violated the laws regarding the segregation of sexes, but these laws themselves are unjust, not only because they are highly biased towards women, but if any violation occurs, the guilt is placed primarily on the woman. This ruling by the Saudi judicial system contains two messages: first, it’s the woman’s fault, and second, she asked for it. This is just one of the many such cases in Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights are shown little respect, if even acknowledged at all. Women are restricted from doing many basic things, including:

• Voting

• Driving

• Showing their faces

• Renting an apartment for themselves³

• Checking into a hotel alone³

• Going out in public without being accompanied by a male relative⁴

• Leaving the country without permission of a male relative⁴

• Marrying a non-Muslim man⁴

Women who break these rules risk arrest, torture, sexual abuse, and execution at the hands of the Saudi religious police, or Mutaween. Saudi Arabia’s cruel and inhumane treatment of women is well-documented. On March 11^th, 2002, fifteen Saudi schoolgirls died when they were beaten and forced back into their burning school by the Mutaween for not wearing proper Islamic dress. Scuffles broke out when the Mutaween prevented firemen from attempting to rescue the girls, stating, “It is sinful to approach them.”⁵ Foreign women are also subject to this same treatment. In 1993, Canadian nurse Margaret Madill and a female friend were taking a taxi home when they were stopped by the Mutaween, who locked them in the taxi in extreme heat for six hours, beat and accused them of indecent dress and public intoxication, and jailed them for two days before releasing the two without charge.⁶ Such occurrences in Saudi Arabia are common, and not just limited to women—human rights violations are a signature of the Saudi leadership.

Somehow I feel like we should stop giving the Saudis F-16s and oil money.

The whole uproar regarding Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher who let her class name a teddy bear Muhammad, is so ridiculous that it’s amusing. People were out in the streets of Khartoum shouting for her beheading. The Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas stated that, “What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam.”⁷

Oh really?

I’m pretty sure that a teddy bear won’t bring down Islam, but judging from the reaction of many Muslims and non-Muslims alike to this absurdity⁸, it will bring down whatever twisted fantasy these fanatics believe in.

Oh, and one more thing. If Sudan has a law against insulting religion and faith, maybe they should put one in there about war crimes, too.

-Gregory Proulx

Works Cited

¹ El-Magd, Nadia A. “Saudi Rape Ruling Puts Govt on Defensive.” The Associated Press. 1 Dec. 2007. 4 Dec. 2007 <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5itRFLIdKb8OnJpiQRpQl1tHq0oGAD8T8U0UO0>.

² “UK Teacher Jailed Over Teddy Row.” BBC News. 30 Nov. 2007. 5 Dec. 2007 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7119399.stm>.

³ Doumato, Eleanor A. “Saudi Arabia.” Freedom House. 4 Dec. 2007 <http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=182>.

⁴ SAUDI ARABIA: GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN. Amnesty International, 2000. 4 Dec. 2007 <http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE230572000?open&of=ENG-SAU>.

⁵ “15 Girls Die as Zealots ‘Drive Them Into Blaze.’” Telegraph. 15 Mar. 2002. 4 Dec. 2007 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/15/wsaud15.xml>.

⁶ “Women.” Amnesty International: Saudi Arabia. 4 Dec. 2007 <http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/briefing/4.html>.

⁷ Montesquiou, Alfred De. “Sudan Charges Teacher for Teddy Bear Name.” The Associated Press. 28 Nov. 2007. 5 Dec. 2007 <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iUYY9aFqMRYNGvVIYkw8XTkcTi0QD8T6PHKG1>.

⁸ “Sudan Teddy Insult Teacher: Readers’ Views.” BBC News. 30 Nov. 2007. 5 Dec. 2007 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7115400.stm>.

Reflections on Weeks Four, Five, and Six

Whoo...well, I have a lot to talk about.

I thought our question for week four, wealth vs. security, was a difficult one to answer. To me, it seems that to have one, you must have the other. You cannot be wealthy but have no security, but you cannot have security without wealth. For example, nations such as Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have great economic potential, but due to instability, are preventing from reaching this potential. On the other hand, if a wealthy nation, such as Saudi Arabia with its vast petroleum resources, did not have security, it would be pretty likely that a neighboring state would come in and take over. Hence, you must have a balance between wealth and security.

Week five was definitely an exciting week. Our discussion on what would be humanity’s response to aliens landing on the White House lawn gave me quite a few ideas for possible scenarios. I’ve actually thought about this topic before, especially after watching movies such as Independence Day, and what would happen if aliens did come to Earth. The conclusion I have often reached is that they would take one look at humans, utter, “What a pathetic, factional, warlike species,” and promptly eradicate us. In most of the movies I have seen involving aliens, they are always intellectually superior to humans, and most often come close to wiping humanity out. Fortunately for us, we end up putting aside our differences and banding together to defeat the alien threat. I can only hope we’d do that if we were faced with the threat in real life!

Several other highlights of week five were our visit to the State Department and our discussion on citizenship and what it means to be “American.” The State Department visit was very interesting, and I really enjoyed listening to what Gregg Sullivan had to say about US diplomacy in South and Central Asia. I found it very interested to hear about South and Central Asia, a region which the US has tended to ignore in the past, and all the potential that the region has. I felt that a few times he pushed the “official policy” line a bit too strongly, but overall I was very impressed with his presentation. Our discussion on what it means to be “American” was also very enlightening, for it raised the question of American identity and how it relates to ethnic and cultural background, national heritage, and so on. The questions on the current citizenship test, and the goal of those questions, raises a handful of good questions as well, such as: what values are we trying to instill in immigrants to the US? Should we focus more on what the country was founded on, or how it operates today? Should questions about the current political situation be included, or would that lead to partisan bickering?

And finally week six. I feel that the simulation went well (albeit with some editing errors) and that we got to see an in-depth view of the two sides involved in the battle over domestic content rules: those in favor of domestic content rules (such as GM, Ford, UAW) and those against domestic content rules (consumers, the Sierra Club, AIAM). One of the things I found most interesting was that even though AIAM, the Sierra Club, and consumers are against domestic content rules, the final decision was to keep them in place. This obvious disconnect between what the majority wants (consumers), as well as what would be good for the environment, and the domestic auto manufacturers illustrates the negative impact corporate campaign contributions have on our democracy.

Possibly my favorite thing about week six was the Sunday discussion on Iran. Iran’s saber-rattling and continued nuclear program are two major issues occupying political discussion today. I feel that a great deal of Ahmadinejad’s talk is simply bluster, but the Iranian nuclear program is a definite threat. The United States has seriously inhibited itself from dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat by embroiling ourselves in Iraq. With have little political or diplomatic credibility, and any military action against Iran would destabilize the entire Middle East and destroy whatever credibility we have left. Even if it did become absolutely necessary to strike Iran’s nuclear infrastructure to prevent the imminent acquisition of nuclear weapons, many of Iran’s nuclear facilities are buried deep underground, negating the option of surgical airstrikes with smart munitions such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) or GBU-28 “bunker busters,” the two prime guided munitions in the US arsenal. Also, unlike the Iraqi military, which was never to recover from its near-complete obliteration by US air power during the 1991 Gulf War, Iran has been steadily building up its military, unmolested, since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, obtaining advanced military hardware such as the Tor-M1 and S-300 air defense systems and highly-capable Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines from the Russian Federation, making any sort of military action further complicated. Rumors have been swirling about possible US plans to employ tactical low-yield nuclear weapons against Iranian nuclear facilities, but this would be an unthinkable option with disastrous domestic and international consequences. Iran might be saber-rattling now, but they could pose a more serious threat in the future. Still, the United States should not do anything rash, such as attacking Iran—we can’t afford any more mistakes.

In fact, we might even be able to take a lesson from Iran: saber-rattling doesn’t solve anything.

-Gregory Proulx