Saudi Arabia, staunch friend and ally of the US, announce that they have arrested Malak al-Shehri for this appalling photo. Quite understandably Saudi citizens have been calling for her to be beheaded and her corpse thrown to the dogs.
Meanwhile the US has been busy trying to topple the Syrian administration and supporting Islamist rebels, many of whom are eager to impose the same lunatic restraints on women who at present in secular Syria are free to dress as they please and even (horror of horrors) drive cars.
America, fighting for the rights of women across the world! :rolleyes:
Despite the controversy, she’s dressed like someone from National Geographic exploring the Arctic in December, in a country who’s temperature plummets to 60 degrees in winter. Of course she’s hot.
I have lived and worked in the ME (not Saudi) for seven and a half years. I work with Middle Eastern people every day. Saudi is a full sharia nation. The people I know don’t agree with that but accept it. It is another culture from the US or the West, and it is my belief, having lived around the world, that we must accept other cultures as they are. If we demand every other culture or country live by our standards, we would not have any allies or very few.
You will note that Saudi does not demand we live by their standards. Something to think about: the freedom that Western women have leads to thousands every year being abducted, raped, and murdered. I don’t think that we should change in anyway the freedoms Western women have: certainly I expect them for myself, but the point is that a culture like Saudi Arabia would say the freedoms women in our culture have lead to a lot of danger for them.
I don’t think this woman should be arrested for what she did, but it is against the law in Saudi, so she knew what she was up against. We hear only the worst things about Saudi culture and form an understanding about it by those worst things. It’s just like other cultures knowing only the worst things about America and forming an overall opinion of the country by those things.
Some of the outrage has splashed over to Justin Trudeau, though I can’t readily find any specific comment he’s made on the issue.
Anyway, a theocracy acting stupidly is what we should all expect a theocracy to do.
Well, I’m open to the idea of stories like this being crowded out by extensive coverage of Saudi Nobel Prize winners, popular artists and technological innovators, but what are you gonna do?
Exactly. The law of the State is the strictest religious law of Islam. Total sharia law. That’s their culture. One of the few Muslim nations in the world that have full sharia law.
Your sarcasm illuminates closed mindedness. These folks are not Saudi, but they are from countries with very strong Islamic rules about the role of women in their societies.
Arab World
Year Laureate Comment
1978 Sadat, Anwar ElAnwar El Sadat First Egyptian Arab to win a Nobel Prize in Peace
1988 Naguib Mahfouz First Egyptian Arab to win a Nobel Prize in Literature
1994 Yasser Arafat first Palestinian Arab in Nobel laureate in Peace
1999 Ahmed Zewail First Egyptian Arab to win a Nobel Prize in Science
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These folks are not Saudi …
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No, they are not: they are Egyptian and Palestinian, and Egypt and Palestine allow women to do many things that that are forbidden in Saudi Arabia, including appearing in public like the woman referred to in the OP. Saudi Arabia has a very narrow interpretation of Islam: one that is not shared by most other Muslim countries.
I’ll gladly count all of them as Saudi for the purposes of this discussion and throw in Shirin Ebadi, Mohamed El Baradei, Muhammad Yunus, Tawakel Karman, Malala Yousafzai, Orhan Pamuk, Mohammad Abdus Salam and Aziz Sancar, bringing the total up to twelve, with seven of those for Peace, two for Literature, two for Chemistry, one for Physics. Surprisingly, the good that these 12 have done gets overshadowed by women threatened with execution for failing to follow a dress code.
Women get abducted, raped, and murdered in countries where they don’t have freedom. Freedom is a form of protection against violent victimization, not a cause of it.
No, the kidnappers, rapists and murderers of Western women have lead to thousands of them being abducted, raped and murdered each year. That is the ONLY response anyone in their right and logical mind could have when confronted by the idiocy that is blaming the freedom of women for their victimization. Maybe you’ve heard that BS from those around you who are down for Sharia law, that you choose to believe it as fact rather than argue its utter stupidity when you’re being hosted in another country.
But don’t mistake it for the truth or you erase all the culpability those who kidnap, rape and murder have earned. And stop spreading such a lie while you only look foolish for it on the internet.