by Thomas W. Lippman
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—On Palestine Street, in the heart of this steamy port city, the Baskin Robbins store and Dunkin’ Donuts have a new neighbor, Gold’s Gym.
Inside, the gym is presumably similar to others in the Gold’s chain, with the usual treadmills and muscle machines. But it’s hard to know, because unlike other Gold’s gyms, which feature big windows looking out to the street, this one is sealed off from the eyes of pedestrians outside by a solid black wall. A big sign on the wall—in gold letters, naturally—tells why: For Ladies Only.
Yes, it’s a gym for women. Until recently there was no such thing in this conservative country. Now there are many, another step in the march of Saudi women out of the past and into—well, if not the present, at least into the more recent past. Some girls now play sports in school, and in 2012 two women were members of Saudi Arabia’s team at the Olympic Games.
Exercise and participation in sports represent important progress for Saudi women, who have traditionally been excluded from most activities outside the home. It is not just a question of social evolution and liberalizing trends, it is a major public health issue. The kingdom has one of the world’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, more than 20 percent of all Saudi adults are afflicted with diabetes, which the government has recognized as a public health problem rivaling traffic deaths. A national diabetes research center is under construction at King Saud University in Riyadh. Local newspapers have reported that more than70 percent of adults over the age of 40 are medically obese.
The problem is acute among women. That is not surprising considering the nationwide addiction to fast food and the fact that until recently most women had little to do except shop and eat—although a male columnist for a local paper observed helpfully last week that women get more exercise than one might think just by doing their household chores.
Demand for exercise opportunities has been growing along with the need. A few years ago, an enterprising investor opened an all-female hotel in Riyadh—women only, guests and staff. A female journalist who went to report about it discovered that many of the rooms were rented not to travelers but to local women who wanted access to the gym.
The entire question of sports and organized exercise for women has long been controversial here. Women cannot just go out and run on the streets, or ride bicycles, as they do elsewhere. Until recently the country’s conservative religious establishment was firmly opposed to any form of exercise for women other than what they could do at home.
That is changing rapidly, as is the entire role of women in the kingdom. A newspaper reported the other day that the number of women holding full-time jobs in this country of nearly 30 million people rose from about 55,000 in 2010 to 216,000 in 2012 and the rate of employment is accelerating as more jobs are opened to women. The government has been encouraging the trend. By orders of King Abdullah, women now work in retail shops that cater to female customers, such as lingerie stores, from which they were banned until recently. In addition to their traditional jobs as teachers and pediatricians, women are employed by banks, insurance companies, the media, and even industry, in all-female factories. Now the government is reportedly directing private-sector employers to grant 10 weeks of paid maternity leave to full-time female workers.
More than half the students at Saudi universities now are female. That trend, coupled with the near-universal access to social media, has created a demand for exercise and physical conditioning, Saudi women say.
“People are promoting sports for girls, building walkways for them. It’s a big campaign,” said Samar Fatany, one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known advocates of women’s social advancement. Another, Reem Assad, an economist who led the campaign that resulted in the royal decree permitting women to work in shops, recalled that she was allowed to exercise as a girl—she took tae kwon do lessons—but “we were set back 20 years” by the conservative backlash that swept the country in the 1980s. Now given the opportunity once again, women are eager to work out, she said.
Over the nine years of his reign, King Abdullah has gradually but unmistakably opened social and professional space for women. He has appointed them to the consultative assembly, decreed that they will be allowed to run as candidates, and vote, in the next round of municipal elections, and encouraged the Ministry of Labor’s efforts to expand job opportunities. He has also reined in the social enforcers, often referred to as the religious police, who traditionally have roamed public spaces such as shopping malls to make sure the kingdom’s rigid code of behavior and gender separation was enforced.
For women seeking additional freedom, this may be the most important question as Saudi Arabia prepares for a transition from Abdullah, who is about 90, to the next king. Whichever prince inherits the throne can continue the liberalizing trend, or reverse it. Those gyms could still be shut down overnight.
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While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.
On Sept. 22, the Iranian [...]]]>
via IPS News
While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.
On Sept. 22, the Iranian parliament passed a law with an innocuous title but frightening potential. The “Protection of Children and Adolescents without Guardians or with Bad Guardians” allows a man to marry his stepdaughter or adopted daughter, in effect legalising child abuse.
The law repeals a previous piece of legislation passed by parliament in February that forbade such marriages. However, the Council of Guardians, a clerical body dominated by hardliners, disapproved the earlier law, finding it against sharia.
The latest iteration added an article (27) which says that a father may marry his stepdaughter or adopted daughter if the marriage is approved by the State Welfare Organisation and a court. In spite of this addition, many Iranians fear the new law will undermine the welfare of thousands of families with stepdaughters and adopted daughters.
Iranian women’s organisations and human rights activists both inside Iran and in the diaspora have organised massive protests against the law on Facebook. The rights groups and activists assert that the law legalises pedophilia, child abuse and rape under the guise of protecting children. Most Iranians were not aware of the controversy until the second bill passed in parliament last month.
Women’s sexuality is one of the most sensitive battlefields within the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Iran, women’s bodies are a political subject; control over their bodies is a reflection of political power. Women’s sexuality is a tool for Islamic conservatives to demonstrate their interpretation of Islamic ideology and identity.
While President Rouhani has talked repeatedly of his respect for women’s rights, he has been silent about the new law. In ratifying the law on Oct. 2, the 12 Islamic conservatives who make up the Council of Guardians demonstrated that they still have power and control over the most sensitive political matters. These are the same individuals who, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will approve or reject any nuclear compromise Rouhani makes with the United States.
Women’s rights activists are wondering whether Rouhani will speak out about the marriage law in the near future. If the president and his cabinet oppose this radical and immoral law, he will show that he supports democracy and equal rights for women. If he is silent, it will show that he either will not or cannot oppose the Islamic conservatives on a crucial matter.
Iranian women have shown that they have potential power to affect change in Iran in the direction of more democracy and human rights. Iranian women have been fighting for their rights for more than a century and the women’s movement began with the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Beginning in the 1920s, women began to attend universities although they did not achieve the right to vote and be elected to office until 1963.
Women were also in the front lines of the 1979 revolution against the Shah. But the Islamic government that replaced the monarchy diminished women’s rights, scrapping the Shah’s progressive family law and reducing the legal age of marriage from 18 to nine.
A re-invigorated movement succeeded in raising the age to 13. Today the average age of marriage for girls is 24. Iranian women have also attained a high educational standard, comprising more than 60 percent of university students. Population growth has slowed as women have become more educated; the average number of children women bear has dropped from seven in 1960s to two in 2010.
Women are also the most organised element of Iranian society, with about 5,000 women’s groups. They work together to promote their rights despite differences in religious beliefs, ethnic identity and political factions.
The best known effort is the One Million Signatures Campaign for Gender Equality, which has been promoted by key figures including human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The campaign has mobilised several thousand women debating women’s rights and collecting signatures to change laws that discriminate against women.
More than 70 women’s activists were arrested and sent to prison for their participation in this campaign, which was the most organised element during the 2009 Green Movement. “Women will build democracy in Iran,” Ebadi has said.
A victory for Iranian women is a failure for Islamic conservatives who view controlling women’s sexuality and oppressing women’s organisations as part of conservatives’ fight for survival.
In negotiating with Iran about its nuclear program, the Obama administration should not forget about women’s rights and the need to strengthen civil society and support for human rights and democracy in Iran.
– Fariba Parsa is a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Gender and Conflict, George Mason University School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.
]]>The bad news about Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s expanding constitutional powers in Egypt is the threat of another dictatorship in Egypt. The good news is that normal politics is returning to Egypt after decades of brutal authoritarian regimes.
Recent mass demonstrations in support of and opposition to Morsi’s new draft constitution [...]]]>
The bad news about Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s expanding constitutional powers in Egypt is the threat of another dictatorship in Egypt. The good news is that normal politics is returning to Egypt after decades of brutal authoritarian regimes.
Recent mass demonstrations in support of and opposition to Morsi’s new draft constitution and the political tug of war between Morsi and the judiciary — especially the Judges Club — signify healthy signs of democratic politics, which the Egyptian people fought for before and since Tahrir Square.
Egyptians are openly debating the meaning and implications of each of the 234 articles in the new constitution, ranging from the establishment of a four-year presidential term that can be served twice, to freedom of worship and social justice.
Opponents of the document correctly claim that it’s excessively religious, especially with the role assigned to al-Azhar Islamic University, and is barely inclusive. Rights of women and minorities are not clearly spelled out although followers of other Abrahamic religions have the right to select their own religious leaders and conduct their personal status matters according to their religious dictates.
These raucous and often turbulent constitutional debates and the verbal scuffles between the judiciary and the executive branch seem to signal the advent of rational politics and the promise of pragmatic political compromises. The upcoming popular referendum on the document will tell whether the Egyptian people support or oppose the draft document.
Egypt has not witnessed or enjoyed this type of political jockeying at the popular level since before the middle of the last century. Even if the draft constitution is adopted, Morsi can serve a maximum of two terms — something Egyptians have not known for generations.
The United States should not get involved in this debate and should allow the Egyptian people to sort out their political differences. Privately, Washington should point out to Morsi that tolerance, inclusion, and minority and women’s rights should be the hallmark of governance in the new Egypt.
Constitutional tensions in Egypt, however, should be viewed in the broader context of the emerging Arab Sunni order in the region. This new regional alignment is led by Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and tacitly supported by Turkey. It is perceived in the region and globally as a front to isolate Iran and diminish its regional influence, speed up Bashar al-Assad’s fall, and help break up the Iran-Syria-Hizballah “Axis of Resistance.”
This Sunni architecture could also pull Hamas away from the Iran-Syria camp and move it closer to the Sunni fold. The recent military confrontation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza had the unintended consequence of strengthening Hamas’ regional posture and cementing relations between it and Sunni Arab leaders, ranging from Qatar to Tunisia.
Although Washington has quietly endorsed the new regional Sunni politics, US policymakers and intelligence and policy analysts should consider the possibility that in the long run, the new order could also spell trouble for Arab democratic transitions and for the West. The short-term gains, while critical for the region, are already happening. Iran is becoming more isolated and its relations with Arab states and non-state actors are fraying.
Assad is on his way out, and within months or even weeks, Syria will begin to experience the convulsions of a new political order. Forceful Western warnings from President Barak Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton and others against the possible use of chemical and biological weapons could be the prelude of Western military intervention in Syria.
The Hizballah alliance with Iran and Syria is already breaking up. Hizballah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah have lost much of their legitimacy as a symbol of resistance or “muqawama.” Nasrallah’s vocal and consistent support of Assad is viewed in the region as naked real politic, which has undercut his standing as a regional leader.
In the long run, the emerging Sunni order could undermine the gains of the Arab Spring and threaten the transition to democracy in post-authoritarian Arab countries. More importantly, the new order could embolden Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and elsewhere in their continued repression of their Shia communities and other ethnic and religious minorities.
While the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are pushing for Assad’s removal, they are not necessarily wedded to democratic principles or to granting their citizens, especially in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, equal rights. Nor are they enamored by the principles of “freedom and human dignity” highlighted in the Egyptian draft constitution.
Unless the emerging Arab Sunni order commits itself to the principles for which millions of Arab youth fought for two years ago, and unless it goes beyond just containing Iran and toppling Assad, it will remain problematic and fraught with uncertainty.
- Emile Nakhleh is the former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World
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