Friday, November 30th, 2007
Once upon a time, in a country called South Africa the color of your skin determined where you lived, what jobs you were allowed, and whether you could vote or not.
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South Africa, decimating its economy and adding to the isolation of the white-minority government, which finally repealed apartheid laws in 1991.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. They 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 apartheid South Africa and yet the kingdom still belongs to the very same international community that kicked Pretoria out of its club.
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.
Despite being abducted and raped by seven men, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced her to 90 lashes because she was in a car with an unrelated man before she was abducted. Saudi Arabia’s ultra-orthodox 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. Her lawyer, a prominent human rights defender, was suspended and faces a disciplinary hearing.
And the actual 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 due to the “lack of witnesses” and the “absence of confessions.”
Farida Deif, a researcher at Human Rights Watch women’s rights division, who interviewed the young woman and her lawyer extensively, told me that one of the rapists had filmed the assault with his mobile phone but the judges refused to allow the clip as evidence.
Compare that to the use of such mobile phone footage to convict two police officers in Egypt on November 5, on charges of torturing and sodomizing a bus driver.
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 the 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 Prophet Muhammad’s message in 7th 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 we 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 it is Islam that justifies their outrageous treatment of girls and women. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, a place where women enjoy rights a Saudi woman could only dream of, where they recite the verses of the Koran 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 and hold ministerial portfolios as well as judgeships.
The international community must not forget the many brave Saudis such as the gang-rape victim, her lawyer and the activists 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 headscarf and black cloak that all women must wear in public.
How many more girls must die and women suffer rape before the international community names this gender apartheid and condemns it appropriately?
Originally appeared at the International Herald Tribune
Comments (12)
camille said:
Mona,
Excellent article.
Congratulations on being published in the IHT and the Washington post the same week!
December 3rd, 2007, 4:26 pm
George Ajjan said:
Who is this Camille person???
December 4th, 2007, 7:02 am
Wassim said:
Mona,
Courageous article and refreshing to find someone else who is unhappy with the crimes being committed in the name of their own faith. I look forward to reading much more and good luck!
December 4th, 2007, 8:37 am
Joshua Landis said:
Dear Mona, what a beautiful blog! I am jealous. Now we will know where to go to get your excellent articles, and I can tell my classes to read it.
Camille, you are a saint. Joshua
December 4th, 2007, 10:06 am
Amina said:
Great article Mona, i am so proud that we have women like you to be a voice for those who doesnt have one.
keep up with the excellent work.
December 6th, 2007, 11:37 pm
Mahmood Al-Yousif said:
Mona, gender apartheid is only one of many heinous discriminatory practices in the magic kingdom: religious, tribal, sectarian, racial and many other prejudices do exist and are propagated and even encouraged by religious clerics the efforts of whom are condoned by the ruling family.
Those attitudes are so entrenched as “normal” in that society now, that I doubt a simple removal of those religious “elite” would correct the situation and bring their society in line with the current century. Not even the removal of the ruling family can do that. The damage is quite deep and requires generations to be undone.
Sorry to sound so pessimistic. But on the bright side, the more these inequities are highlighted, the more pressure is applied on all concerned to reevaluate their position, hopefully to the better.
December 7th, 2007, 11:59 am
Frank said:
I find myself (unbelieveably) in almost complete agreement with Mahmood above. Magic Kingdom, indeed! While I was there preparing to go into Iraq, I sometimes wondered why, in fact, we weren’t simply taking out the ruling family then and there. We could have, and the “laws” of Saudi Arabia were certainly more oppressive than those of the country we were there to attack.
That the “religious police” were allowed inside our perimeter to make certain that any Muslims in our midst did their prayers on time and faced in the correct direction struck me as ludicrous. Had I been a general instead of a corporal, I would have denied them entrance and allowed the Muslim women in our midst to divest themselves of those abaiyas, sit and talk to American men and women, drive cars and all the rest.
Mahmood is correct, though. General Frank, did he exist at the time, would have been relieved of command and any Muslims under his protection would have been jailed. Had we gone back on our word and taken out the ruling family, set up a Western styled democracy, and occupied the country for fifty years, it would have been only a temporary solution. The entire society in Saudi Arabia is sick and the cure will require centuries of education and gallons of Arab blood soaking into the sand.
Mahmood declares himself a pessimist. I say he is more of a realist than a pessimist. He know that the solution is not a simple one, but he recognizes that change is possible.
I know of an American woman who was raped by a couple of Bedouins. To be graphic, they ambushed her while she was running to keep herself in good physical condition like any good soldier must do. One held her down while the other raped her, then they traded places and the other one raped her while the first one held her down. They did not ask her permission, they were not gentle, and they did not use condoms.
The crime was never investigated, so far as I know. The story was that it was her fault for running by herself and not being completely covered up. Therefore the men were blameless, having been corrupted by the brazen display of womanflesh. What a crock of excrement!
If this woman is ever in a position of authority over a military command in the Middle East, how do you think she will deal with rapists? They’d better hope that she decides to use a good sharp knife rather than a chainsaw when the richly deserved emasculation occurs.
The fact that Mona is willing to call the Saudi government, among others, on the carpet for the abuses she sees never ceases to amaze me. A “mere” woman leading the push for change in the Middle East, taking risks greater than any soldier in harm’s way for speaking out publicly against injustice?
My God! George Washington himself would bow at her feet and count himself fortunate had he ever met such a brave woman as Mona Eltahawy.
December 8th, 2007, 9:38 am
Tantor said:
Mona: “How many more girls must die and women suffer rape before the international community names this gender apartheid and condemns it appropriately?”
How many more girls must die and women suffer rape before the Muslim community names this gender apartheid and condemns it appropriately?
The non-Muslim world is not to blame for the barbarity of the most pious Muslim regimes. Instead of looking for people to blame on the other side of the Earth, take responsibility for your own problems and take action yourself to solve them.
December 9th, 2007, 12:31 pm
The Libyan Observer said:
You stated that the women was charged and sentenced for being alone with a man who was not her relative in the beginning of your article, and then nearing it’s end you insinuate that she was charged and sentenced for being raped? Which is it?
You also fail to mention that BOTH the male and female rape victims where charged with the “crime” of being alone with a member of the opposite sex. Thus from this little omitted detail one can deduce that the sentencing was NOT motivated by the gender of the accused, and hence their was NO double standard.
One may conclude on the other hand that since both the male and female victims of the rape who where sentenced adhered to the Shia religion, the sentence could have possibly been motivated by sectarian prejudices the judge presiding over the case may have held.
December 9th, 2007, 3:12 pm
Lee Ann said:
It is my belief that clerics and judges in Saudi like to use rape cases as a “see what will happen if we just let women run around loose” kind of thing…she was raped because she was in a car with a person she should not be with…so her rape is a consequence of her actions…she should be punished for the action she took that led to her rape. The rapists, on the other hand, were minding their own business until a woman, not in her preordained woman condoned spot. intruded on their male space….therefore, they are not accountable for what happened next.
If the world needs any more proof that in Muslim/Arab lands women are punished twice…first for the rape…and then by either the court or society..then there it is…all over the headlines for all to see…and yet all we get a token response from the White House. How very helpful it was….wasnt it?
Good job Mona…your inspire others to greatness.
December 11th, 2007, 6:33 am
benita said:
I can feel my blood boiling from reading this article.
It is disgusting and horrible, and the sad part is we cannot do much about it.
December 11th, 2007, 9:10 am
The Required Generations : The Sudanese Thinker said:
[...] few days ago while reading Mona Eltahawy’s opinion on the sick sentence passed by a Saudi court to punish a victim of gang rape with lashes, I came [...]
December 11th, 2007, 10:07 am
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