Allies

So I'm heading into work today and hear a story about women and Saudi Arabia, (on NPR, which means it was actually a whole story and not just a headline). I knew that women are not allowed to drive and must ask a male "guardian" for permission to leave the house. The utter absurdity of one restriction just struck me; a group of women cannot get on an elevator if there is a man in it, they have to wait for an empty car. For some reason that one little detail put a spot light on how depraved that society actually is. Break any of these "laws" and women are likely to be beaten by the religious terrorists knows as Mutaween. (Beaten mind you, as in with a whip. Are you fucking kidding me?)

These people are allies? Imagine the Saudis declaring that a black man was not allowed on an elevator with a white man. Imagine them dragging a black man into the city square and beating him with a whip for driving a car. The USA would be screaming for sanctions in every hall in the UN - and rightly so. Hell, we would park an aircraft battle group or two off their shores, aim a big barrel directly at Riyadh, and dare them to drag another black man off to a public beating. Furious crowds would gather around the Saudi Embassy and, should someone upload a U-tube vid of such a grotesque act of barbarism, probably burn the place to the ground. And you can bet your ass not a single politician in all of Washington D.C. would utter a single syllable of support for King Abdullah. (Speaking of which, exactly why is it we are such big fan of a King? Wasn't our democracy launched in defiance of Kingdoms?)

But the Saudi brutality toward women is a religious and cultural thing, so we give it a pass. That, and they have a lot of oil. It can't be just oil though. We give a pass to Iran when it comes to women as well. The US government is mute when it comes to women's rights in Pakistan or Afghanistan. In Iraq, with the approval of the US, woman's rights were sacrificed to appease the new Islamic Theocracy. (Iraq, the country we "liberated" from Saddam Hussein? Are you fucking kidding me again?) In fact, the more I read about it, the more amazed I am that American women haven't already set fire to the White House.

Maybe its because we good Americans sort of understand. After all, Christianity doesn't have much to boast about when it comes to treating women as equals. Our own Christian fundamentalists are doing their best to walk back the civil rights of women with the help of all kinds of political types. But even they aren't crazy enough to suggest that women shouldn't be allowed to drive or should be beaten in the public square. (Not allowed to have sex? That they would go for. And they do like their beatings, though children are the usual victims of that particular abuse. I didn't say they weren't a little bit crazy.)

It doesn't really matter that Saudi Arabia is a Muslim society. When the United States was born most of its citizens believed that Christianity supported slavery. Then some changed their minds and decided that Christianity opposed slavery. Now, most US Christians see slavery as an evil thing regardless of what the Bible might say or the history of their religious tradition. South Africa was a "Christian Nation; the USA worked to end apartheid anyway. In the US people go to prison for beating their children to death even when they do it in the name of god. Honor killings are not ignored by our legal system regardless of the religion of the murderer. Very often religious people work with their secular neighbors to move society forward. And, like slavery, it is in defiance of what their holy writings might say or the history of the ideology. (Which is to say that religious people often transcend the worst part of their own traditions and are better at serving humanity than are the gods they worship.) Maybe, someday, Islam will look on its history with women with the shame it deserves. (Maybe, someday, so will the Christians.)

Protesting abuse, oppression, and slavery isn't a religious thing, it is a human thing. The USA should be protesting the abuse of women where ever it occurs, loudly and consistently.