Day: May 23, 2011
Driving the Saudis crazy
The Saudi authorities are cracking down on the spreading women’s protest, which intends to flood the streets June 17 with women driving. This is not the first time women have challenged the authorities on this issue, but the Arab Spring gives the protest a decidedly sharper edge this time around.
Religious conservatives worry that women driving will inevitably lead to breaks in the strict segregation of genders practiced in the Kingdom. They are correct. It will make women’s faces visible, reduce their dependence on male relatives and allow them higher-profile roles in the society. More than half the university students in Saudi Arabia are women, and have been since 1984. The Kingdom recently opened what is intended to be the largest women’s university in the world. It is high time that they come out from under the burkha, if they want to do so. And not just because they might need to drive if a husband suffers a heart attack, as the courageous Manal Sharif says disingenuously:
I wouldn’t want to suggest that the United States needs to fix this or any number of other respects in which Saudi Arabia’s policies are inconsistent with human rights standards. We’ve got our own problems recognizing that all people are created equal.
But we should not make the mistake of viewing this as a peripheral issue. It is not. Nor is Saudi Arabia completely immune to the infection we have come to call the Arab Spring, though it may be more resistant (as Chas Freeman believes). The King’s efforts to inoculate his population with hard cash and frequent consultation may not work with women.
I don’t know whether this protest will catch on or not, but if it does I am going to hope the women not only drive, but drive the Saudi men crazy.
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Gaddafi won’t stop or go
While Bashar al Assad won’t stop the repression in Syria and Ali Abdullah Saleh won’t leave office in Yemen, Muammar Gaddafi is willing to do neither in Libya.
NATO is pounding Gaddafi’s command centers more seriously than in the past, and the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council is gaining diplomatic prominence. Yesterday, the European Union’s “foreign minister” Catherine Ashton opened an EU office in Benghazi. I think some Americans are already there, though they have not made a big deal about it. President Obama said in his Middle East speech on Thursday that Gaddafi would “inevitably” leave power–when Americans use the i-word, they usually mean that they are trying hard to make it happen.
The Libyan oil minister has defected, Gaddafi’s wife and daughter are reportedly in Tunisia and the International Criminal Court prosecutor has requested a warrant for his arrest. As the prosecutor put it:
The evidence shows that Muammar Gaddafi, personally, ordered attacks on unarmed Libyan civilians. His forces attacked Libyan civilians in their homes and in the public space, repressed demonstrations with live ammunition, used heavy artillery against participants in funeral processions, and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after the prayers.
Also included in the request to the judges for arrest warrants are Gaddafi’s son Saif al Islam and brother-in-law, who heads the military intelligence service.
This real-time use of judicial proceedings is controversial, as it appears to close off options for Gaddafi and give him an incentive to continue his resistance. My own view is different. He has had lots of opportunity to stop the repression and leave Libya. The arrest warrants, if they are issued, will be a clear and compelling warning to his subordinates that they face the same fate if they don’t act soon to stop Gaddafi’s criminal behavior.
It is impossible to predict how much longer the military campaign against Gaddafi will have to continue before he leaves the scene, one way or the other. Smarter folks are saying there is a stalemate, but my sense is that Gaddafi’s military capabilities are gradually eroding and that at some point the Libyan people will discover that his fortress is largely empty. I wouldn’t want to be identifiable as being on his side when that day comes.
PS: On Saif and his relationship with Muammar, see yesterday’s New York magazine piece, “The Good Bad Son.”
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