Saudi Arabia

Megan Stack's recounting of her life in Saudi Arabia is a reminder that for all the ink that's been wasted on bringing liberalism to the Muslim world by bombing Muslim country or yelling really loudly at Iran, there are much more obvious things that could be done:

The rules are different here. The same U.S. government that heightened public outrage against the Taliban by decrying the mistreatment of Afghan women prizes the oil-slicked Saudi friendship and even offers wan praise for Saudi elections in which women are banned from voting. All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels don't let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay; women checking into hotels alone have long been regarded as prostitutes.

People could organize a boycott in the US and Europe against Western fast food franchises that enforce this kind of gender apartheid abroad. The Saudi market's not that big, in the scheme of things, it would be relatively easy to put companies in a position where it's not financially worth it for them to keep operating Saudi franchises under those conditions. Maybe the Saudi regime would let them operate differently. Maybe they'd agree to pay the price of isolation and activists would need to move on to the next economic sector. It does, however, seem to me that the Saudi elite prizes maintaining some degree of integration with the cultural and commercial mainstream and wouldn't want to see Western brands all withdraw from their country.

Comments

Dumb Idea! It would put the Saudi government in a totally untenable position and even if there were to make changes they would be mostly superficial and the downside would be the danger of the most important Arab country becoming even less integrated with the world economy

Posted by Ali | June 6, 2007 11:42 AM

In almost every way the Saudis have always been the worst of the worst, the biggest exporters of fundamentalism and terrorism, but they're major oil producers and our allies -- and the Bush family is all kissy-faced with them too.

Many of the justifications of American Middle East policy fall to pieces once the Saudis are taken into account.

Posted by John Emerson | June 6, 2007 11:47 AM

An aside; My father, sister and mom lived and worked in Riyad in the early eighties. Mom and sis had to leave after 3 years, they couldn't take it. No driving, No unaccomanied anything. They lived on commpounds that (secretly) allowed almost anything, including homebrew. But that started feeling like a prison.

Posted by judson | June 6, 2007 11:55 AM

I dont know if it would work because the rulers of Saudi Arabia, as bad as they are, are apparently socially moderate compared to the general population who might welcome the withdrawal of all those unclean foreign companies with their unclean non-Saudi ideas.

Also, IME most non-Saudi Arabs hate the Saudis and the US government being all kissy-faced with them is another reason for anti-US feeling.

Posted by michael farris | June 6, 2007 11:58 AM

Similarly, I hear no one hates the Saudis more than the Iranians.

Posted by JP | June 6, 2007 12:02 PM

That's a non-starter.

There is no way that such actions will put real pressure on the Saudi government to reform. Boycotts, sanctions and such measures against dictatroships are totally counter-productive as North Korea, Iraq and Zimbabwe clearly show. The ones who will suffer are the people, while the regime benefits from the suffering and increased ddestituteness of the people, thereby strengthning its hold on power and allowing it to increasingly crush dissent.

True, in the case of Saudi Arabia, Starbucks leaving isn't gonna make the population destitute, but it isn't gonna affect anything.

Far more useful is for an honest introspective analysis of how America has for decades helped foster such despicable regimes in the Arab and Muslim world, and how the US helped crush all modernizing democratizing elements within Arab societies.

When morons like Marty Peretz ask why there are no proper dissidents in the Arab world working for democracy, equality and social change, they ought to be reminded that they were all killed with American weapons, or rounded up with the help of the CIA in the prisons of America's favourite buddies. This is true for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan and countless other countries.

If you want to think about it, imagine all of the most progressive elements in American society for decades were constantly killed, imprisoned or driven to exile. Today we would have in America a President Tedd Haggard and vice-President Pat Robertson. The most extreme progressive would probably be Hillary Clinton.

Posted by saifedean | June 6, 2007 12:03 PM

Why does America play nice with the regime in Saudi Arabia? The answer lies in a song title.

Posted by Peter | June 6, 2007 12:13 PM

Great post, Matt.

It's worth clarifying, however, that the US government is probably not in a position to twist the arms of the Saudi regime.

It also bears repeating, as often as possible, that our leaders are doing more harm than good with their selective and hypocritical use of human rights issues to justify a war on some types of terror and tyranny in some countries, except for the ones who have lots of oil and good relations with the US. It undermines our nation's credibility and discredits the people who really are working to improve the plight of women in the Islamic world.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 6, 2007 12:23 PM

I think this is a good idea. First, they don't need American Fast Food franchises. It certainly wouldn't leave them horribly oppressed. Oh no, no McDonalds! Second, it's hard to argue that we're trying to force our cultural value of feminism on them when we're just withholding parts of our culture. Third, "the danger of the most important Arab country becoming even less integrated with the world economy." They can never become significantly integrated as long as they treat women the way they do.

Posted by MDtoMN | June 6, 2007 12:27 PM

Boycotts, sanctions and such measures against dictatroships are totally counter-productive as North Korea, Iraq and Zimbabwe clearly show.

They worked against South Africa.

Posted by dob | June 6, 2007 12:30 PM

The problem is that Saudi treatment of women isn't a top-down phenomenon that can be changed if only we exert enough pressure on the government. The problem is Saudi society; I abhor their values in this respect, but a boycott doesn't seem to be the appropriate mechanism for change. All we can do, I think, is continue exposing them to American norms wherever we can and endeavor to win the long-term war of ideas.

Posted by Steve | June 6, 2007 12:49 PM

The problem is that Saudi treatment of women isn't a top-down phenomenon that can be changed if only we exert enough pressure on the government.

While social norms in Saudi Arabia may support this behavior, it is quite a stretch to say that the government has no control over it. They could outlaw the religious police. Allow women to vote or drive or be alone in public without harassment. Given the autocratic control the ruling family has over the country I would think they could have some effect on this.

Posted by Col Bat Guano | June 6, 2007 1:03 PM

I am ambivalent. Not sure I want more organised activism mobilised against arab societies. Marty Peretz would back you tho.

Posted by otto | June 6, 2007 1:32 PM

dob:

"'Boycotts, sanctions and such measures against dictatroships are totally counter-productive as North Korea, Iraq and Zimbabwe clearly show.'

They worked against South Africa."

That is exactly my point, dob. South Africa, as racist as it was in the apartheid years, was a democracy for whites. It was not a military junta in charge, and it was not a despotic monarchy. The leadership was elected. When sanctions were placed on the people, the people responded (admittedly after years of intransigence) with electing for change. South Africans were sick of not being able to play cricket and rugby and not buying oil and not trading with anyone (except Israel, of course) to the point where they accepted that ending apartheid is better. That is why these sanctions work against coutnries with some democratic regime in power, as opposed to unelected despots like North Korea, Saudi Arabi and Zimbabwe.

And this is why we should use those boycotts against Israel to make the Israeli public have to weight the costs of their continued criminal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem. If Israeli citizens realized that voting for Sharon, Barak, Olmert and their despicable likes will mean that they will not be able to trade freely with the world, they will be faced with a price to pay for all their criminal occupation, and will elect to change their policies.

This in the long run, will be better for everyone involved.

Posted by saifedean | June 6, 2007 1:38 PM

The point, though, after all of the handwringing, is that we're not willing to stand up for women being systematically opporessed because (wait for it) we need Saudi oil. That's it. Outside of war zones (Iraq, Darfur, Gaza, etc.), there is really nothing worse in our world today from a basic human rights perspective than Saudi treatment of women and dissidents. Even worse than China. Women (and yes, that's 51% of the population) are basically slaves. Anyone who complains is brutally beaten. Eventually, if you continue to complain, you're tortured. Then killed. Rape (especially of indentured servants brought from southeast asia) is common, and unpunished. If we as a people had any sense of decency, we would be demanding that colleges and universities divest from companies that deal in Saudi oil. We would demand that U.S. companies not do business where they are required to discriminate. But we don't. Because we need the oil.

Posted by IP Guy | June 6, 2007 1:58 PM

I would get behind a boycott of Starbucks, McDonalds etc. on this issue, or certainly a media campaign to embarass them. Not because we can exert any pressure to change the Saudis, but simply because a U.S. corporation that wants to enjoy the benefits of U.S. legal protection should not be condoning this sort of behavior. The management and directors of Starbucks should be frankly ashamed of themselves for allowing this to go on, and they shouldn't operate franchises in countries where they are required to obey rules that are, I hope, completely offensive to the vast majority of their shareholders. As Matt says, it's not as if it would be a huge financial sacrifice to write off the Saudi market either.

Posted by vanya | June 6, 2007 2:18 PM

In Saudi Arabia there's actual slavery, pretty much. A Filipino-American friend of mine was involved in sheltering a Filipino slave who escaped from her masters when they had the nerve to actually bring her to the US with them.

Posted by John Emerson | June 6, 2007 2:40 PM

AFAIK no holy text for a middle eastern religion explicity condemns slavery. Anti-slavery movements were mostly secular propositions (with some foggy, unspecific religious ideals thrown in). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Any society that doesn't recognize any authority besides a middle eastern holy text isn't going to be upset at the idea of slavery or do anything substantive to prevent horrible exploitation of servents by their masters.

Posted by michael farris | June 6, 2007 3:14 PM

The American and British anti-slavery movements were pretty religious, including Quakers, Methodists (I think) and various splinter sects such as the Come-outers. So were the prohibition movement and the suffrage movement.

Posted by John Emerson | June 6, 2007 4:01 PM

"People could organize a boycott in the US and Europe against Western fast food franchises that enforce this kind of gender apartheid abroad. "

Yeah, right. That will work out as well as boycotting the Olympics. You simply won't get a large scale boycott of going against (say) McDonalds based on their business in Saudi Arabia.

Posted by James Robertson | June 6, 2007 4:04 PM

One difference with Islam WRT slavery is the concept of manumission. The child of a white slave owner and a black slave would most likely remain a slave in the antebellum south, but this isn't necessarily the case in Saudi Arabia. For example, 'Prince' Bandar, the former Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., is the son of a black slave and a Saudi Arab 'prince'.

Posted by Fred | June 6, 2007 4:05 PM

"The American and British anti-slavery movements were pretty religious"

In a way, but did they support their anti-slavery positions by citing scripture? in which case, which scripture? I wasn't aware of any biblical prohibitions (or even of strong criticism) of slavery, just the occasional exhortation detailing how it should be carried out.

Posted by michael farris | June 6, 2007 5:52 PM

michael farris

Anti-slavery movements were mostly secular propositions (with some foggy, unspecific religious ideals thrown in). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're incredibly wrong, you're so far off you should be working for Fox News or something making up history to fit ideology. Read a history book or watch the movie Amistad or something.

The abolitionist movement in the U.S. & U.K. was HEAVILY Christian, not just that but specifically heavily evangelical. It is commonly argued that without the growing evangelical movement in England, the 1807 law abolishing the slave trade would never have passed. The main abolitionist organization in the U.S. was the The American Missionary Association, indenominational Christian but growing out of the evangelical movement.

Christian as in Christ, as in New Testament, not Old Testament, as in Christ coming to bring a new order to things, as in mercy, charity and giving hope to every soul that they can be saved. The majority of Christians were not abolitionists, but the abolitionist movement was surely heavily Christian. Even today there are evangelical/missionary groups all het up about the supposed continuing practice of slavery in pockets around the world.

The word "secular" is hard to fit into the 19th-century but if you try to find what we would call "seculars," or agnostics, I would venture a guess chances are many more slave owners fit into this group, relativists to the max, Christian in name only, non-church goers.

As to your question about support for abolitionists and rationalizing that with biblical text, in a quick google I found this sermon which addresses it quite well:

http://www.oldsouth.org/sermons/nst11mar07.htm

Posted by artappraiser | June 6, 2007 8:35 PM

Thanks for pointing out the Stack article; if you hadn't done so I would have missed it.

That said, it's another one of those "culture clash" rants in which I feel vicarious anger for the fellow Western female humiliated, but know fixing this problem is not going to be as simple as boycotts by Starbucks Inc. As others have pointed out, it's a bottom up problem:

Muslim Women Don't See Themselves as Oppressed, Survey Finds

I once read someone very trenchantly point out that the use of abaya or burka or hijab ARE steps on a road towards independence for women in some societies: it allows them to go out on their own!!! Previously, they were truly prisoners in their own home, lots of Mideastern home architecture formed with a courtyard for women so they wouldn't be seen in public. How many still are prisoners? Sometimes I really wonder in the Mideast news photos I see, nary a woman on the streets in many countries except for in the largest cities. Once again, back sympathizing with Stack's P.O.V., when I see such news photos, as a Western woman, I wonder how many Western men notice that there are no women out and about.

(It's always helpful to think: when did women in the U.S. finally get the vote, and how long did it take, and how many women said they were happy just as things were and didn't agree with suffragettes/later feminists at all?)

Aside to judson, re: his comment 11:55 AM:

My first college roomate (U.W., Jan. 1972, radical leftist haven, but the dorms there were still sexually segregated--fancy that!) made the same trek every summer to the indigenous American Aramaco reservations in Saudi Arabia to visit her father. She described the reservations as a suburbia right out of a John Updike "Rabbit" novel or one of Betty Friedan's nightmares. They had the lawns, the sprinklers, the booze, the barbecues, the cocktail parties and the infidelities out of boredom. Her dad, an engineer with an interest in anthropology, would take his 3 girls on expeditions outside the compound to see Bedouins and the like. He'd let them drive through the desolate areas and they'd switch seats while still going 70 mph if anyone else showed up. They usually didn't cover themselves on these trips beyond the usual dress: jeans and cotton shirt, as there aren't religious police checking the desert. But she did recount some really frightening stares at her uncovered neck and upper chest from a guy or two at a gas fill-up. Imagine never seeing a woman except those in your own family and in magazines and TV....

Posted by artappraiser | June 6, 2007 9:13 PM

The real problems with Saudi Arabia are a.) their whole system of government b.) the way Saudis are treated, c.) the way non-Saudis working in menial occupations are treated, and d.) their export of Wahhabi fundamentalism. Segregated Starbucks is pretty low on the list.

The "they don't feel oppressed" game has been played with serfs, slaves, and every other oppressed group every time the idea of liberation has ever been raised. Sometimes it's coerced, sometimes it's sincere, sometimes it's ignorant, sometimes it's not. Often people without real hope of anything better resign themselves, even though they would have been happy for a of freedom that they thought was real. Making waves causes you trouble, and unreasonable hopes make you miserable.

Posted by John Emerson | June 6, 2007 10:17 PM

the downside would be the danger of the most important Arab country becoming even less integrated with the world economy

A nation with almost no native skill base, almost no fertile land and a shitload of oil is never going to be anything less than integrated with the world economy.

Posted by ajay | June 7, 2007 7:08 AM

Question for the room...

How did Iraq compare to other countries, like Saudia Arabia in its treatment of women?

Posted by TC | June 7, 2007 7:46 AM

This is a really good idea Matt, and Could be really effective. Maybe you could include it in the "Untitled Matthew Yglesias Foreign policy Project"?

Posted by Ikram | June 7, 2007 8:58 AM

I'm sure I'm underappreciating the contribution of people of faith in the fight against slavery.

That said, the link provided sort of makes my point, the bible doesn't really condemn slavery and those who wanted to argue against it on religious grounds had no direct scriptual references to fall back against.
Instead they did something that in modern times would be regarded as pretty secular - they substituted a literal reading of the Bible for a meta-reading - abstracting out values inherent in the text and placing the literal text within a particularist framework (how very post modern of them).

There's little or no tradition of that process in any kind of modern Islam (which seems more about the letter of the law than the spirit of the law) especially in a place like Saudi Arabia. So slavery (whether it's called that or not) isn't going to bother most non-slaves very much.

Posted by michael farris | June 7, 2007 9:41 AM