Oh boy. This all sounds so familiar to arguments I grew up hearing from women in the family who insisted that they were not at all oppressed thank you very much and patriarchy worked for them very nicely.

The last line about women being better than men made me laugh out loud, because the last time I heard it was from a friend's mother, very wealthy family, trained as a doctor along with her husband in the States, never practised but rather stayed home to bring up her children and be a good housewife (with a small army of servants). Brave talk about how she had always done what she wanted and had all sorts of power in her traditional role as wife and mother, knowing full well that her family would never have stood for anything else.

Also familiar is the line about how "our tradition" is actually more liberating for women and advanced than the libertine West. Usually accompanied by extreme defensiveness about how the West thinks we're so inferior but Western women are sexualized and not respected blah blah.

Much as I respect these women's right to have that opinion and to challenge pitying views of them, I have to bristle at their characterization of women calling for change as an unrepresentative minority (easy to be smug and rationalize when you can use your wealth to get around restrictive rules). I also wonder what will happen to all these well-trained scientists' careers when they can't go to conferences attended by men or work with men.

dear mh,

a cursory glance at the saudi blogosphere - just start with my own aqoul article from sunday, 4 june 2006 - not only shows how free-spirited saudi women are (just like women everywhere else on this our planet) but also how many of them are not too fond of the mandatory dress code in saudi arabia.

faiza ambah's article is interesting & maybe even necessary, but she herself has already written better articles.

--raf*

From the article:

"Saudi women are the luckiest in the world and Saudi Arabia is the closest thing to an ideal and pure Islamic nation," Eissa said. "We don't want imported Western values to destroy that."

Reminds me of L's comment on the Karen Hughes visit.

Also, this struck me:

Faiza al-Obaidi, a biology professor, says she thinks the attempts at Western-style female emancipation are part of a religious war being waged by the United States, "an intellectual rather than physical colonization."

I think Qutb wrote something to this effect. Western intellectual imperialism.

Another useful entry from the archives - Meph's personal reflections on Saudi social heritage, women, etc.

Fucking hell I hate these women. So priggish and vile and blind and STUPID.

When will they look past their own smug, pious, safe, educated, middle class little lives at the plight of the voiceless Saudi women? The ones who are beaten, abused, in forced marriages, harrassed. The ones denied education, the right to work, the right to sovereignty over their own bodies? The ones who have their children taken from them, and their (supposedly Islamically guaranteed) rights stripped away.

But of course they can't look very far, can they? They've got a bloody great veil blocking out most of the light.

Meph's piece is fantastic and I hope she has published it in some form. Eliot and Austen and co. seem to be the mainstay of English lit. classes in South Asia too, and I always thought the women presented in these novels had a lot in common with the English majors in college taking a "ladylike" degree before they got married and entered the gilded cage. The difference being, of course, that the Victorians were rather more fiesty and actually chafed at social norms.

Wonder what our prisses would have to say about the sexual goings-on that are reported to be so widespread behind segregated doors...

I knew that "we live in the best of all possible worlds" line sounded familiar.
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/sex/archives/2005/04/wedads_cavalry_1.php#more

"Politics is a realm forbidden to all Saudis,” Hamida said in robotic monotone. “For we live in the best of all possible Kingdoms. Why would we want to meddle in politics when our wise rulers have everything in hand?” She winked and nodded toward a lawn chair by the pool where Zaeema Monem the Informer lay in a swimsuit and sarong under an enormous pair of sun shades. No one knew for sure, but it was said Zaeema had a direct phone line to the top Sauds in the national security forces. One had to be careful what one said around her. In fact, one had to be careful period. "

I will not add anything new, but I will go off on a couple of tangents, so excuse me.
The article is only regurgitant of what many already know- I am in the process of translating a few of the articles the mentioned Ms. Eisa writes- hoefully soon it will be known to many more.

My own beloved aunt is what we call a Da'aiah (perhaps the proper translation would be "sermoniser"?) and I too attend these "Islamic lessons" from time to time to please her, so I am very familiar with this atmosphere; from Afrah Al Humaidhi, to Moothi Al-Julhum, to their overlord Asmaa' Al-Ruwaished and her comrades. The rhetoric may be unbelievable, faintly redundant and ultimately absurd (I will never be tolerant of a culture whose only doctorine is planting fear and building on an already swelling inferiority complex, so, no I'm afraid, I cannot be tolerant of it and yes I will call it absurd as I may well please)but the reception it gets and the followers it gathers, inconcievable. It is a diverse environment, and that slightly terrifies me. From Egyptian women to Tunisians to Libyans to a German to Lebanse (there is even a Da'aiah who is lebanese! Although it's been a while, I remember her because she was the most hilarious.. she is clearly not Najdi and yet her dialect attempts to convince us of the contrary and that always makes me laugh). It is frightening that their message is being sent out through out the Arab world; and slightly so elsewhere. It may terrify me just how widespread such a culture has become, however the Europeans and the rest of the Arabs do not concern me; as they already have *some* of their basic rights and it is clearly just a minority- I am not sure, but I also believe that they are not as influential elsewhere as they are here. Saudi women do not have their basic rights, it is not just a minority here, and it is highly highly influential. It is the foriegn women's choice to live as such, it is not a choice for Saudi women.

I believe if we can convert just half of the women who attend such lectures to females who can think for themselves- not blindly follow,(which is what the insistent folks in the article are doing) if we can only slowly reach out to them, not mock them (which I myself am finding very very hard not to do) then maybe together we can work to get some rights. Seeing as how the likes of Ms. Hughes, sarcasm, and plain old rebellion have all proved futile, this is really all I can think of. I second Raf's comment. There are *some* great Saudi women; but with such a fervent militia, this minority ( as it seemingly is), it truly saddens me to say, is shrinking day after day.

And Secret Dubai, I'm afraid social-class has nothing to do with this. Asma'a Al Ruwaished may be extremely rich, and the rest middle classers, but many of their followers are not as fortunate. It gives them hope, I suppose is what it does. Also, these women are very very generous. I recall the "sadagat" that Ms. Ruwaished gave out; they weren't half bad.
Only the extremely fortunate ones whose parents were either educated abroad, or are still hanging on to the progressive-thought wave of the 70s,(most are by the way also middle classers) are encouraged to think outside the box, abstarctly and without any preconceptions.

To further illustrate just how hard we are going to have to work let me tell you how difficult it's been to bring together at least 5 (just 5!) non-english speaking girls (English speaking ones pose a threat, or so I've learned)to work on an Arabic blog together to steer the remainding girls (the apathetic ones) away from saaid.net and the filth of forums. Let me tell you it has been 6 long months. I only came out with 3, one of which is my cousin. She is only in it because I promised her she can stay in Riyadh with us for a whole month if she does.

On another note, I faintly recall having a run-in with one of these women, I believe she was the mentioned Dr.Al-Humaidhi. I was 15 years old and with the promise of getting 200 SR worth of "Miss Selfridge" clothes, I'd gone to one of her lectures. It was about "Rewards in Paradise," I recall I found it very biased. I felt it unfair that men got so much in heaven whilst women did not, and so as a 15 year old, I thought I should make that clear to the lady. Needless to say, we left early that night and I didnt get my 200 SR. worth of Miss Selfridge clothes; instead I got a very angry mother and aunt and a room full of women who wanted to teach me a lesson.

Felicitously, Gallup just did a poll asking Muslim women What They Want. Here's the NYT article.

June 8, 2006
Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed, Survey Finds
By HELENA ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, June 7 — Muslim women do not think they are conditioned to accept second-class status or view themselves as oppressed, according to a survey released Tuesday by The Gallup Organization.

According to the poll, conducted in 2005, a strong majority of Muslim women believe they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. In more than 8,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in eight predominantly Muslim countries, the survey found that many women in the Muslim world did not see sex issues as a priority because other issues were more pressing.

When asked what they resented most about their own societies, a majority of Muslim women polled said that a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption were their main concerns. The hijab, or head scarf, and burqa, the garment covering face and body, seen by some Westerners as tools of oppression, were never mentioned in the women's answers to the open-ended questions, the poll analysts said.

Concerning women's rights in general, most Muslim women polled associated sex equality with the West. Seventy-eight percent of Moroccan women, 71 percent of Lebanese women and 48 percent of Saudi women polled linked legal equality with the West. Still, a majority of the respondents did not think adopting Western values would help the Muslim world's political and economic progress.

The most frequent response to the question, "What do you admire least about the West?" was the general perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the "Hollywood image" that is regarded as degrading to women.

An overwhelming majority of the women polled in each country cited "attachment to moral and spiritual values" as the best aspect of their own societies. In Pakistan, 53 percent of the women polled said attachment to their religious beliefs was their country's most admirable trait. Similarly, in Egypt, 59 percent of the women surveyed cited love of their religion as the best aspect.

At 97 percent, Lebanon had the highest percentage of women who said they believed they should be able to make their own voting decisions, followed by Egypt and Morocco at 95 percent. Pakistan was lowest, at 68 percent.

The survey, "What Women Want: Listening to the Voices of Muslim Women," is a part of The Gallup World Poll, which plans to survey 95 percent of the earth's population over the next century.

Dalia Mogahed, the strategic analyst of Muslim studies at The Gallup World Poll, said the new data provide fresh insight into the Muslim world, where Western perceptions generally cast women as victims. "Women's empowerment has been identified as a key goal of U.S. policy in the region," said Ms. Mogahed, adding that Muslim women's rights have generated a lot of interest without much empirical information on "what Muslim women want."

Ms. Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and wears a Islamic head scarf, rejected the idea that Muslim women had been brainwashed by the dominant male culture, citing as proof the fact that women freely stated that they deserved certain rights.

"In every culture there is a dominant narrative, and in many cases it is constructed by people in power who happen to be men," Ms. Mogahed said.

dear sp,

that reminds me of western journalists in socialist countries asking "do you feel imprisoned?" and the answers always being "no, not at all."

if "a strong majority of Muslim women believe they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government" and the majority of muslim women cannot do either one of those three ... then i don't get how the header can state that "Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed, Survey Finds".

i guess we'll have to wait 'till we get the actual data from the poll (i couldn't find it online).

--raf*

ITA about question-framing, raf. I couldn't find the poll on the main Gallup Brain database, so I don't know what the actual questions were vs. how it has been reported.

I also have a quibble with the selection of countries in which to do the interviews - there are as many Muslim women in India and Bangladesh as in Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi put together, and many of these women participate very actively in politics - yet they don't count for the purposes of a poll like this. Which also then allows idiots to go on about how Muslims don't do well with democracy.

If anyone finds more details on the actual survey, please post.

One more thing, "I think Qutb wrote something to this effect. Western intellectual imperialism."

Yes, I do recall taking this at school. In fact, I recall taking it at KSU as well (although entirely irrelevent, I am a lingusitics and translation major !?) What is interesting is that it always manages to come up; thanks in part to the teachers as well as the text books. "Al-Ghazoo Al Fikry," is something we never tire of discussing, over and over and over again. Literally.

dear mh & e,

i keep getting e-mails from saudi arabia that comments made by people there do not show up on aqoul here. matthew - can you check the comments list? i do wonder if there's a block or something.

cheers,

--raf*

Ah, how precise.

I need usernames, approximate time of comment or IP address. I'm not going to randomly sift through 5-6k porn comments to find one lost soul.

If you're talking about the one that got junked today (just saw it now), the IP is flagged.

In general, people should email me directly re: comment loss. Some comments fail to even meet "moderation" requirements and go straight to the junk pile. Happens occasionally.

Also, the best way for high-risk people to avoid moderation or junking (i.e. due to flagged IP addresses) is to get a Typekey account.

BTW, glad Farooha made that comment. Very interesting.

dear e,

those poor saudi women had no idea that you're the one to complain to - they thought they'd done something wrong in posting. and i did not have username, i.p. address, time of commenting. i only got some questions a la "is there something wrong?"

also, i do find it interesting that saudi i.p. addresses seem to pe per se flagged.

farooha had actually written a really long comment - yesterday. so did another bloggerette, called "mystique" (although i do not know if she commented under that name).

cheerio,

--raf*

raf* --

Re: missing comments.

Thanks for bringing that up, I hope they can get in.

As techno-semi-illiterate, I defer to the Site Goddess (the divinity reference is allusion to the ego).

So people with comment posting problems should see above discussion and write to eerie@aqoul.com.

those poor saudi women had no idea that you're the one to complain to

Oh don't be patronizing. They knew you, so that's why they contacted you. It says "Editor in Chief and Site Administrator" under my name on the About page, and letters@aqoul goes to me. Not hard to figure out who runs things, just send a quick email with appropriate info and I can release lost comments.

[NB: I have since released Farooha's excellent longer comment on this thread and mystique's earlier note on the Saudi blog thread]

also, i do find it interesting that saudi i.p. addresses seem to pe per se flagged.

They are flagged because a lot of spam originates from them. Sometimes ME IP ranges (occasionally dodgy themselves) get "borrowed" by spammers, etc.

My comments pretty often (but not always, for some reason) end up flagged.

Indeed, I was thinking about your 1337 hax0r IP - supposedly Lebanese but in fact originates from some Slavic country?

The system gives you points if your comments have been published before, so it theoretically gets better over time.

However, with a TypeKey account I can flag you as "Trusted", which means you'll never be modded.

It seems to change from time to time. On the old Aqoul page, it was most recently registering as a "satellite provider", but now the Guardian thinks it's in borehamwood/gbr. On the other hand, the dns is in iastate.edu (as in Iowa State University).

My posts also get filtered all the time. Clearly, you don't trust me.

Speaking of Saudi and freedom of expression, what do the knowledgeable make of this optimistic piece:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5057106.stm

dear sp,

the bbc piece is cute. but it does speak for the writers surprising ignorance that he would call ibn taymiyyah "ibn tamir" - that's a rather obvious mistake.

so yeah ... k.s.a. isn't as bad as it used to be. but one only has to read the saudi blogosphere and keep skimming the news to see that it ain't anything but "progressing".

farooha's 1st comment above (now released from "the dungeons of all that looks like spam") gives a great account the likes of which you'd never find in the media. and these aspects of contemporary saudi society - like the self-brainwashing farah described, the self-policing of the net (see my post from a few days ago), the complete & utter lack of even beginning self-reflection - are more worrisome than, say, the prohibition for women to drive.

--raf*

Yeah, I thought they meant to say Ibn Taymiyah but then figured their might be some other old scholar called Ibn Tamir I'd never heard of.

Speaking of brain washing and policing on the net, there was a great piece in the NYT a few days ago about how some online groups in China use the net to keep vigilante-style tabs and to carry out Cultural-Revolution era denunciations on those who go astray socially...a cautionary tale for anyone who believes the internet is a radically liberating force (cough*TomFriedmanfastandslowworlds*cough)

I suppose perhaps it's a way for them to regain control over their own lives, by becoming their own oppressors. Perhaps there is some bizarre emancipation in having the right to restrict yourself further than men already restrict you?

There's a similar theory for the prevalence of anorexia in N. America, though obviously not in response to formal oppression/restriction.

Secretdubai, you may be on to something - this also sounds rather like the Islamist women in Egypt, who make a big deal about their agency and voluntarism in being pious.

Piety and anorexia - now there's a fun comparison.

Re saudi net self-censorship. It is worth noting that the religious types in saudi were the first to jump on the internet bandwagon even before the internet was formally introduced in saudi in 2000 (yes, that late). For a few years all you could see in terms of saudi web presense was the da3wa websites, the ask-a-mufti and the religious forums (usually salafi oriented), not to mention the religious warfare hackers (usually in collusion with said salfist forums). this, in my opinion, was a necessary ground work for what would come later. cf al-qaeda's almost perfect utilisation of the net to its own purposes. It really is hard to get your head around, but the internet was one of the great enablers of the current wave of religious activism.

In other words, as the arabic saying goes, they had the net for lunch before it could have them for dinner. It is interesting to see how salafism - seeing how it prides itself in being 'backwards' - predicted the influence of the net before much of the arab and islamic world woke up to that fact.

Re: NYT article on Muslim women "do not see themselves as oppressed"....

It sounded immediately like a planted story, you know to throw off suspicion from the reality and try to sway people away from paying attention. "Well, they're OK with it, so whatever..." seems to be the desired response to such an article. It just doesn't ring, especially if you stand it up next to Farooha's post on the same subject as she is coming from within the context of the situation itself.

Stories like this get planted and pop up all of the time! It should not come as a surprise that this could be happening. It is a common occurance for political agendas to include this kind of lopsided polling. Given the Bush family proximity and relationship with the Saud family, is it any surprise to see things like this pop up in mainstream media sources? Under such clandestined political arrangements, one thing is for certain----if the Saud family wanted a smokescreen story to run in a major American newspaper or media program (including the news), they could have it done. I'm not saying that for sure this story was initiated at their beckoning, but the scenario or a variation of it is so not outside the realm of possibilities. Like, all a royal would have to do is call up Georgie or his daddie or Jebbie or Marty or someone on the farm and say could they please run a story about how Muslim women are satisfied and aren't in unrest? That's ALL they'd have to say. Down comes the request through the various chains of command ("call your people at the newspaper, tell em to run a story about the high satisfaction level of Muslim women, I want field reporters out there doing a survey, this is Gallup so we want it to be good, ask some questions but don't get too close or personal, and if there's any complaints just leave em outta da piece")....or something like that.... and there it is in the paper.

And who owns Gallup Poll? These are political people, political pollsters. Go figure. And these people interviewed..it makes it sound like a random cross section, but was it? Or did inside people inform the surveyors who to talk to to get certain responses? And what was that last statement about all cultures "having a dominant narrative" and "constructed by people in power who happen to be men"...like the imbalance of power is a mandate? An imperative? And then it relating to gender like it's just a random roll of the dice----oh it "happens" to be men--- like it wasn't decided upon. What a load! Like the presence of a hierarchical power structure and ruling class is "needed" by human beings in order to live? Ever heard of the Native Americans?

Americans do not want to believe that this sort of thing happens. They want to think that they live in this myth---this Polyanna myth---where perceptual manipulation doesn't occur. And it does, the efforts at least, a LOT. The mainstream media is NOT the free-form checks and balances system against the wiles of the power structure as it once was. It has become part of it. It is an arm of the trans-national superstate that is forming around the world capable of great disinformation and manipulation and is corporate-owned ---Westinghouse owns CBS, General Electric owns NBC and MSNBC, and on and on---and these corporations FUND politicians. These funded politicians enact laws all of the time enabling these corporations and big business to do terrible things all over the globe. Even if such a decoy news story isn't coming from within the kingdom (through the Bush or some similar connection), if big businesses wanted to move to try to keep citizens in America from adequately understanding people of other cultures and from understanding the current and historical trends of behavior within those cultures and thus further isolate each culture from each other and further promote an atmosphere where it is easier to control the citizenry, they would run a story like this to drum up support for war-efforts or things like that. Differences between people can be a source of communication breakdown or they can be a source of curiosity and learning. What are we allowing ourselves to choose? Why does it have to be all one or the other, total assimilation or total isolation? American political efforts that run through the domestic press are designed to keep the citizens from really feeling the presence of other people in the world and promote this perception of living in a bubble where everybody is like them or just "not there at all". And if they're NOT like them, then they need to "be changed" or "be liberated" or "be eliminated" or something, just not "be understood".

If I wanted to build cultural bridges, if I were in the position to do so, I would ask something like "What are two things you like the MOST about American culture?" and "What are two things you like the MOST about Islam?" to different people. This retarded poll just focusses on the negative ("what do you admire the least") without balancing it out with something positive and is glaringly obviously full of DISINFORMATION. One of the real hypocrisies is that the governments buy up western technologies and make all sorts of weapons deals with other militaries and enter into all sorts of business arrangements with big corporations and international companies and broker land deals that bring these amalgamations INTO your countries, and then turn around and denounce them to your face and impress upon you to do and think what they say. Even though they are telling only half of the frickin story. Like the western corporations are entering the countries and building their buildings and businesses against the wishes of the ruling class? C'mon. Did fast food companies (which are satellite companies for much larger corporations like energy and technology companies) force their way into the country and set up businesses? NO FUCKIN WAY DUDE! They were BROUGHT in through deals with the heads of state! They get paid off in more ways than one every time a corporation builds on their land, and the amount and breadth of personal gain is exponentially astronomical. Your heads of state were SHOWN how having corporate interests in their country makes THEM way more wealthy way more quickly. If they're feeding you all of these lines about "western influence" and "oh no we have to do something about it, close your doors, close your minds..." they are MESSING WITH YOUR HEAD.

The state of humanity worldwide has become like this big frickin PUZZLE, and we cannot make sense of it alone.

Long and painfully dim comments are so very boring.

Re: NYT article on Muslim women "do not see themselves as oppressed"....

It sounded immediately like a planted story, you know to throw off suspicion from the reality and try to sway people away from paying attention.

No, it doesn't. It sounds like what it is, an article covering the response of a more or less priviledged and conservative profile of women.

They exist.

"Well, they're OK with it, so whatever..." seems to be the desired response to such an article. It just doesn't ring, especially if you stand it up next to Farooha's post on the same subject as she is coming from within the context of the situation itself.

Well, my dear idiot, Saudi women - like humans everywhere - are not a hive-mind organism in which everyone reacts the same way.

Farooha is a Saudi liberal, it would appear in the context of her posting (which I confess I do not follow closely).

Already as a woman blogging - and doing so in a foreign language - she represents a quite narrow profile.

I would warn against drawing many conclusions about Saudi - or indeed any society - from the profile of bloody online whanking. At best it is naively stupid.

Stories like this get planted and pop up all of the time!

An assertion.

A boring assertion, not made more interesting by the juvenile use of the exclamation point.

Given the Bush family proximity and relationship with the Saud family, is it any surprise to see things like this pop up in mainstream media sources?

Nothing in this confused mess of conspiracy theory type is "surprising" - typical empty headed Left fuzzy mindedness, from the supposed "Bush family relationship" with the Al Saud to the vague connexion that this somehow means that one will find reputable newspapers publishing "planted" stories.

Rather less taxing on the principle of rational analysis is the simple observation that the article reflects a certain slice of Saudi society and certainly probably results from some effort on the part of the conservative women to promote their views (as noted in the article), as well as the journalist's legitimate interest in the same.

I am leaving aside your juvenile whanking about "clandestine political arrangements" - the sort of idiocy that naive little twits believe in.

Americans do not want to believe that this sort of thing happens. They want to think that they live in this myth---this Polyanna myth---where perceptual manipulation doesn't occur.

Spin is one thing, my dear silly git.

Your over-heated conspiracy theoryesque imaginings is quite another.

And it does, the efforts at least, a LOT. The mainstream media is NOT the free-form checks and balances system against the wiles of the power structure as it once was.

In a mythical past.

A mythical past.

The permanent state of things not being as good as they "once were."

It is an arm of the trans-national superstate that is forming around the world capable of great disinformation and manipulation and is corporate-owned ---Westinghouse owns CBS, General Electric owns NBC and MSNBC, and on and on---and these corporations FUND politicians.

Really, the FUND politicians, rather than merely give donations lower case funding politicians.

Oh the scandal.

Oh the horror.

Companies own things. Hasn't been new since, oh say the days of Hearst, for the United States.

These funded politicians enact laws all of the time enabling these corporations and big business to do terrible things all over the globe.

Whinging on about big business' evil all over the Globe is so 1995 my dear twit.

Simple minded ill-informed addled anti Globo blither is boring and unfactual.

As responding to this simple minded tripe is giving me a headache, I will stop.

I don't know why you bother L. I am just amused by the assertion that this story was planted by the Saudis to (wait for it) "drum up support for war-efforts".

At least if you are going to spin an elaborate conspiracy theory (with imagined pieces of dialogue, mind) try to make them make sense.

Wooweee! And we're off to the races.

Denial is such a predictable response.

Ali K: Here is what I wrote:

"...if big businesses wanted to move to try to keep citizens in America from adequately understanding people of other cultures and from understanding the current and historical trends of behavior within those cultures and thus further isolate each culture from each other and further promote an atmosphere where it is easier to control the citizenry, they would run a story like this to drum up support for war-efforts or things like that."

Here's what you said:

"...I am just amused by the assertion that this story was planted by the Saudis to (wait for it) "drum up support for war-efforts."

Where you get Saudi's from what I said above, I don't know. Might want to check your scoffing at the door, though, especially since you don't seem to have an inkling as to what actually goes on in America. The US has a billion+ dollar a day military and defense spending budget. They NEED to have an enemy (real or imagined) to justify this level of spending (of public tax dollars). Running stories that have a negative spin from people in another culture allegedly throwing down American culture is one way to serve this purpose. Much totally unnecessary killing has occurred through the US war efforts because too many decent and peaceful Muslims were targeted as radicals or extremists when they were not. This is one of the principal dangers of propaganda and spinning negative perceptions. How many people in the west view Muslims, and in particular Arab Muslims, as terrorists and extremists? When Muslims know perfectly well that that is not true. How frustrating is that to be viewed and treated as someone not yourself? And how frustrating is it to see a tiny cross section of a biased poll reflect views about you and your culture that you as a member of it do not share? And reflect it to the world, to be viewed and treated as an enemy when you are not. Why is it like that, brother? Maybe you might want to think about that before you jump on someone else's bandwagon of denial.

Look at the phrasing of this article:

THE TITLE: Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed

Does this not sound like they are referring to all Muslim women? They don't say "some Muslim women" or even "most Muslim women". They say "Muslim women".

AND THEN THE FIRST SENTENCE THAT PEOPLE WILL READ:

Muslim women do not think they are conditioned to accept second-class status or view themselves as oppressed, according to a survey released Tuesday by The Gallup Organization.

They do not say "some Muslim women", they do not say "most Muslim women". They say "Muslim women". The poll, conducted by Gallup (Gallup does polls for US presidential candidates, just so you know who else they talk about), reflects the views of 8,000 Muslims women, certainly a terrifying low number of Muslim women out of all Muslim women in the world, and presents their responses in a unilateral way. As though the whole female population of the culture views this way and thinks these things. It's not that these polled women don't feel this way, or that there don't exist Muslim women who think this way. It's just that the information portrayed in this light leads the reader to believe that all Muslims women have these views. It leads the reader on, it does not proclaim in absentia for the reader. I know that if I read this article and I did not know better, I would believe that hype.

In presenting views in such a biased manner, support can get generated for war efforts, because information is being spun in a way that says to Americans, "They hate us for our freedom" or "They are a threat to our freedom, our way of life". And that's exactly what the president stands up there and says to the public.

Oneviolin-

My comment wasn't really discussing the content of the article itself so don't bother there. And had your diatribe been about the article, its flaws, and the way it is worded then I might have even agreed with you on some points. After all this is what is done here in aqoul at a daily basis.

Instead, you chose to talk about how the story must have been planted by the saudis - or big business; I did say your conspiracies don't make sense.

Why don't you make your mind up? Was the article a negative article written by big business to drum up war efforts, or was it a plant by the saudis to show them in a good light? It can't be both.

I am sorry I said you said the Saudis planted it to drum up war efforts. I had assumed that your conspiracy theory was consistent about who's planting what for what purpose.

The Lounsbury:

What planet are you living on?

What I said, which you quoted:

"Well, they're OK with it, so whatever..." seems to be the desired response to such an article. It just doesn't ring, especially if you stand it up next to Farooha's post on the same subject as she is coming from within the context of the situation itself.

Your response:

Well, my dear idiot, Saudi women - like humans everywhere - are not a hive-mind organism in which everyone reacts the same way.

Farooha is a Saudi liberal, it would appear in the context of her posting (which I confess I do not follow closely).

Already as a woman blogging - and doing so in a foreign language - she represents a quite narrow profile.

When I said:

"...'Well, they're OK with it, so whatever...' seems to be the desired response to such an article." .........

What I'm talking about is American responses from reading such an article. A desired response of stereotyping and complacency, and a numbing to the existence of the many voices, female voices, within Islam calling for change. (Not necessarily calling for Americanization, but change). Do you even know any Muslim women, Brit?

Deliberately juxtaposing the news article and Farooha's post is meant to highlight the blatant differences in content, how glaringly DISSIMILAR they are, indicating that there is NOT a "hive-mind mentality" going on. How you drew that conclusion from what I said, I do not know. Perhaps when one just wants to talk some smack they miss points.

Farooha is a human being, by the way, and if you must persist with labels, try Muslim.

The denial that you exhibit about the state of human affairs in the world lends a fair bit of credence to the effectiveness of ad campaigns. Unless, that is, you're fronting and are on the payroll of say, BP or the British Secret Serviles and are just making rounds.

There is so much that can be said about the way that small and large numbers of organized groups operate around the globe. That they operate is a given, and that some operate above the law is also a given. That it is all one big monolith where everyone is in lock-step with each other and agrees on every issue is not a given, however, and I don't think that is happening and therefore do not deign to promote that view.

That being said, I'm posting some relevant links for those who are interested...hopefully y'all in Saudi and elsewhere have proxies and such to view these if you are having blocking problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

Take a look at the trans-national group of western superstars....

------
http://www.mind-deprogramming.com/

Go to the list of videos in the middle of the page, click on

9/11

When the next screen comes up in that video window, click on

"Loose Change 2nd Edition"

It's a free documentary that is also being distributed publicly on DVD. Just so everybody knows, it does not point negatively toward Muslims and actually points out that upwards of 9 or the alleged hijackers have been found alive (by the BBC, no less) and had nothing to do with the incident OR with terrorism and were not even in the US at the time.

Also on the same site (which is just a host) and in the same video window, click on

"Alex Jones Documentaries and Video Clips"

and then when the next video screen comes up, click on

"Charlie Sheen Interview Calling Official 9/11 Story a Cover-Up"

This radio interview by the internationally known actor was widely publicized in the US and covered by major news sources and got the attention of a LOT of high-up people. Why? Many people in the US believe at least that 9/11 COULD have been an inside job, if not outright believing that it WAS an inside job.

-------
Lounsbury,

Your own countryman, Gary McKinnon, is garnering international attention for his hacking of the major US armed forces, NASA, and others' databases. Millions of people are aware of what he has done. Why? In his public statements aired by the BBC, he names the following organization:

http://www.disclosureproject.org/

A not-for-profit organization....

There's more, but I'll leave off with this....

John F. Kennedy---assassinated 1963
Medgar Evers---assassinated 1963
Malcolm X----assassinated 1965
Martin Luther King---assassinated April, 1968

Robert Kennedy---assassinated June, 1968
See:
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/

Moving to bring about large-scale positive social change has been fraught with difficulties. This is no easy task, and probably not understood by those who have never really had to suffer at the hands of another in this lifetime. Nonetheless, to my sisters in the desert, keep ya' head up and keep da' faith! Please tell us more what we can do. If you're having a hard time getting literature, like civil rights literature I was seeing people wondering about on their blogs, those of us in America can get them for cheap and send them, if your gov doesn't block the mail too. :-) Not all of us are stingy, self-righteous zipperheads with no heart.

Whank, whank, whank.

Almost like a duck quacking.

Ah by the way, I find this rich: "Do you even know any Muslim women, Brit?"

In the Biblical Sense or generally, whanker?

In any event, the answer to both possible questions is yes, lots. I live and work in the region, speak the languages fluently and generally have nothing but contempt for simple minded lefty idiot gits like yourself.

Lounsbury:

....whatever.

Ali K:

Yeah, the content.... This article is not a rogue piece, tons more like it have been being printed for years, vacillating between smearing and confusing. This one is confusing, how raf* said it above.

Why do it? As for who wanted it printed, ??? It's hard to say exactly who, just that there are benefits to certain others from portraying such inaccurate pictures. I really doubt it was one lone journalist being excessively irresponsible all by herself and using the Gallup poll to do it with--- making her rounds, gathering her data, writing it up, and then drawing an opposite conclusion. If anything is cliche, it's that 1984 Orwellian garbage.

They can't vote, they can't work, they can't serve in office...but oh, "THEY'RE NOT OPPRESSED". I don't know where you're from, but in the US this kind of "reporting" is so common, and it's common practice to plant a piece that is deliberately misleading. It's not really a "conspiracy theory", it's just how the ball bounces over here. The "We want you to run a story that says...." is SO ordinary here. It's a status quo, really, it is. (perhaps that's why we're so scintillatingly well-informed about the rest of the world...NOT :-)

A benefit that stuck out right away---American gov PR putting out confusing propaganda referring to differences between American and Muslim women to fuel an ongoing conflict and give that little push to American women toward feeling superior...

(hey, I'm living here and for American women to hear that a bunch of Muslim women don't have the rights to vote, work, or serve in gov while American women can, and do....and that the Muslim women polled find the handling of the female body in America as vulgar, smutty, and blasphemous while many American women see that as freedom...and then have that all placed under that doublethink title---it just says to Americans we're better see what freedoms we have see how much they're in the dark and they don't even know it...fueling that obnoxious uppity attitude that the rest of the world can't stand...and fueling superior attitude/fear-complex patterns of behavior that are being used to invade other middle east countries and bring the "superior way of life" to the "heathens"... an AVOIDABLE yet currently unfortunate fact.

Whether or not the al-Sauds are connected to this particular piece or not I cannot say for certain as I am not running in those social circles, but I find it interesting that it with its peculiar wording and particular polling slant should come out in a major US newspaper right after the Saudi blog-blocking articles came out, right when people started paying attention to Saudi online bloggers and what they are saying about, well, their lives...

Nothing to say really (why bother?), except maybe you should fix your own misconceptions before lambasting other americans.

How about some articles on 'Aqoul about the prevalence of conspiracy theories in MENA and USA and their convergence? That'd be lovely.

Boring.

[I mean by the way the suggestion re pondering conspiracy theories - there's just little that one gains other than irritation]

aw. You're no fun anymore.

I think you are like one of my friends who doesn't bother with explaining people to whom 2+2=5. A cut-the-crap pragmatist. I think it's endlessly interesting how people want to deceive themselves. Major force in society too. Distracting discourse. Twisted minds in power, paranoid dictators. Stuff like that.

I grow weary from time to time. Besides, this idiot doesn't even make sense (other than some peculiar 'sisterhood' rubbish I vaguely can make out). Arguing against pure incoherence requires too much effort.

I was thinking more along the lines of why there are so many conspiracy theories in MENA, and USA. Sociology factors, political culture. I once read something Fisk said: that at each dinner table in Libanon, there should be a seat reserved for The Plot, since it somehow managed to get in everywhere.

USA, I have no idea. MENA, word of mouth tradition combined with poor media and a genuinely conspiratorial political culture (again deriving from non-transparent in any form decision making). Not particularly profound, but there it is.

As L said, the arab populace has grown very wary of the usually secretive arab politics that the official line is almost always distrusted. Add in a factor for denial, ignorance, and poor media coverage and there you go. It is a favourite pastime in some quarters (*cough* Egypt) to come up with the most elaborate conspiracy theory to prove that you are 'in the know'.

The USA conspiracy theories are of a different nature as you can see from the above rants. Idle hands and all that. No self-respecting arab conspiracy theorist would believe in all that UFO rubbish.

PS. I think we should be told.

Ali has it.

It's really not that interesting a phenomena. Or maybe I am just tired of it. It does seem to afflict, by the way, Israel's neighbours more than others (e.g. in the Maghrib one tends to hear somewhat less bizarro conspiracy theories re Israel) - so I suppose one can add the added sense of powerlessness in that context.

Typical human need for an overarching explanation for all, and preferably one that doesn't include "we [speaker's own group] really suck" but rather the other side is mysteriously powerful. (Ahem, Egypt)

Boring, like I said.