Bending the verses of Sharia

by Xanthippe 22 Replies latest members politics

  • shepherdless
    shepherdless

    My 2c worth:

    I put up that video, because it gives an idea about how young Saudis see themselves. You don’t get a view of that from sanitized media reports from fly-in fly-out journalists.

    There are strict legal requirements about how both Saudi men and women are required to wear when at work. When outside of work, men can wear “Western style” clothes (for want of a better term), and no head covering, and a lot of the younger ones do. It is not the same relaxation for women.

    Anyway, things are changing there reasonably fast. There has been a defacto coup in recent months, and a few of the old guard locked up. It appears one of the princes tried to assassinate the new crown prince a couple of months ago, and failed. There are a lot of bad stories about the new crown prince, but he is clearly willing to take on the wahabbis. Saudis will get cinemas by the end of the year, and drivers licences for women some time next year. They have recently allowed “Skype” messaging, even though some or its more moderate neighbours don’t.There are even plans to build tourist resorts on the Red Sea, although I can’t see that happening at the moment. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic, at the moment.

    There are a lot of reasons to be worried, too. The new crown prince is making lots of enemies (not just wahabbis), Saudi is still bogged down in an unwinnable war in Yemen, the oil price means they are running large budget deficits, there has been a virtual state of war with shiites in the north-east (amazingly virtually ignored by the international media despite a whole town being flattened by force), and it has a massive problem with a lack of real employment for the younger generation, who are well educated, have good internet access, and are often fluent in English.

    If the country holds itself together through this period, the country may well become a lot less xenophobic, which would in turn make them less interested in exporting and funding their hard-line version of Islam. It could make the world a better place.

    My guess is that the first pride march would not be 500 years from now. More like 50.

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    Great post Shepherdless.

    I certainly hope Saudi society 'relaxes' somewhat and Saudi citizens benefit from that.

    Although I gotta say, I'd have to disagree with your last sentence.

  • shepherdless
    shepherdless

    Thanks LUHE.

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