Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Saudi Arabia news October 26 , 2013 - Saudi Arabia threats force women to cancel driving protest ( heavy handed threats by Saudi Interior Ministry to punish women daring to drive a car of course goes by without comment from US puppets ) .... Saudis fearful that allowing women to drive would encourage more demand for equality from women , fearful that might encourage downtrodden groups such as Shiites to demand greater equality or are they just all controlling paranoid despots and women just a symbol ? On a similat note , Saudis reacting to US almost similar to their women drivers - having made their threats as to the US , what do we see the Saudis do , if anything ? Saudis have cried " Wolf " and so far have not been appeased by the US - where or when do we see the Saudi whip ?
Saudi Arabian women are getting behind the wheel today to protest the ban that prohibits them from driving. So much respect. #Women2Drive
from Huntsville, TX, United States
Islamist clerics, who love them some subjugation of women, say driving will lead to “licentiousness.” So Hisham Fageeh, Fahad Albutairi and Alaa Wardi got together to produce this Bob Marley-inspired “No woman, no drive” satire which quickly went viral.
Hello, my name is Hisham Fageeh. I’m an artist and social activist. I don’t really listen to music, but while studying in the US I heard this song by this Jamaican guy that caught my attention. I decided to do my own rendition; with lyrics relevant to my culture, but without musical instruments. I hope you like it.
No Woman, No Drive is a single by Fahad Albutairi, Hisham Fageeh & Alaa Wardi containing 03:37 minutes of music.
One lyric snarkily celebrates “ova-ovaries all safe and well, so you can make lots and lots of babies,” a slap at the Saudi cleric who warned that driving damages girly bits and harms babies in utero.
A key group of Saudi feminists have called off their planned protests for Saturday against Saudi Arabia’s bizarre ban on women driving. (Some individuals may go ahead). They did so in response to dire threats from the Saudi Interior Ministry (i.e. secret police) of condign punishment against women who got behind the wheel today, and against those who gathered in public for protests. One woman protester in 2011 was arrested and sentence to ten lashes (yes). I am a worldly person who has visited countries in which, all together, perhaps a majority of the world’s population lives, and I am not quick to condemn other cultures. But really, whipping women with whips for daring to drive an automobile, is barbaric.
It is about the most pitiful thing one can imagine– a state that disallows protest altogether as a means of enforcing a brutal patriarchal order that deprives women of the basic right of mobility. Inability to drive limits women’s ability to pursue not just their careers (Saudi women have high rates of literacy and education) but even just hobbies. Wealthy women have chauffeurs, but contrary to stereotypes not all Saudi families are rich or can afford to hire drivers. Supportive Saudi husbands sometimes have to spend a lot of their time driving family members around.
AFP points to one of the motivations for the Saudi regime’s resistance to changing their stupid law about women driving– that conservatives fear that if they give way on this issue, it will open the sluice gates to further demands for reform in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with no constitution and no elected legislature, ruling over 22 million citizens and 7 million guest workers. The princes of Al Saud do not want middle class intellectuals telling them how to run things and do not want minorities such as the Shiites making demands for legal equality. Women have to be subjected in order to make the point that everyone else will be subjected, as well. And, the Saudi elite is attempting to spread authoritarianism in the region, pushing back against demands for democracy and human rights by e.g. Egyptian youth. A Saudi official told a friend of mine after the 2011 Egyptian revolution that Saudis still remember when Egyptian Khedive Muhammad Ali invaded the kingdom in the 19th century and they were determined to prevent any repeat of an Egyptian invasion (implying that the threat is now from Egyptian ideas about democracy and human rights).
Women activists said that instead of another one-day protest today, they would pursue an open-ended campaign for the right to drive.
Much more may be riding on their success than just one right of one group under Saudi rule.
Saudi women refuse to put brakes on driving ban protest
October 25, 20136:15PM ET
Will government threats deter women from participating in campaign?
A woman drives a car in Saudi Arabia. A conservative Saudi cleric has said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems.Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters
A petition in support of a Saudi woman’s right to drive has attracted more than 16,500 names in advance of a weekend campaign in which female motorists are expected to defy the kingdom’s rulers and take to the roads. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from operating a vehicle.
An estimated 100 women have already broken the ban in the run-up to the action sponsored by the Oct. 26 Women's Driving Campaign, activists say. Some have uploaded videos of themselves driving cars in cities across the kingdom. More are expected to join Saturday, but alleged threats by government officials compelled many activists to say the date is "symbolic" and opt for a continuous campaign instead.
But Saudi women aren't easily deterred.
"I'm scared, of course I am. It's not easy. But it's not the fear that's going to stop me," said Madeha al-Ajroush, a veteran Saudi women’s rights activist who told Al Jazeera she drove around Riyadh on Oct. 10 and plans to head out again this weekend.
On Thursday, Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour al-Turki warned that women drivers would be prosecuted. He told the AFP news agency, "It is known that women in Saudi are banned from driving and laws will be applied against violators and those who demonstrate in support (of this cause)."
"The Kingdom's laws prohibit activities disturbing the public peace and opening venues to sedition," the ministry's statement said.
On Friday, the petition was removed from the Internet in what appeared to be the result of a deliberate hack of the website. "Drop the leadership of Saudi women," read a message, which was changed throughout the day. But one member involved with the campaign told Al Jazeera that government officials ordered its server shut.
Activists deny they are breaking the law. There is no official legislation that prevents women from driving in Saudi Arabia, but they are prohibited from obtaining a license. In some areas, such as the compound of the oil giant Saudi Aramco in the eastern city of Dammam and remote Bedouin areas, women already drive.
"The whole campaign is not about protesting in a revolutionary way," al-Ajroush said. "It isn't about gathering. It's about women getting in their car and driving."
Moreover, activists note that the campaign is not centrally organized, making it harder for the authorities to target individuals involved.
Manal al-Sharif, a prominent women’s rights activist who spearheaded a driving campaign two years ago and was detained for nine days after posting a video of herself driving a car, told Al Jazeera that by not having a single leader, the campaign will prevent authorities and society at large from harassing one person.
"Having a leader diverts the attention from the movement itself. That person becomes a target for the government, people," she said. After the campaign, al-Sharif said she lost her job and custody of her son. She now lives in Dubai.
Repeating history
The right to drive has become a recurrent focal point for Saudi women campaigning for equal opportunities. The kingdom took a repressive bent in 1979 when, as a result of the Iranian revolution and the subsequent seizure of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, it enforced a more conservative stance.
In addition to being prohibited from driving, Saudi women need permission from a male guardian to travel, work or marry. They are also expected to wear a headscarf and an abaya, a black cloak covering the body.
In 1990, al-Ajroush joined a collective of 47 women who drove in Riyadh. As a result of that action she lost her job, she said. In 2011 she took to the roads again. She lost a job again, this time in Qassim, one of the kingdom's most conservative regions, where she worked as a consultant.
Despite the setbacks, al-Ajroush is determined not to give up.
"We waited for 23 years, and we never thought it would be that long," she said. "We're the only nation in the world (where women can't drive). Why is it taking that long?"
Andrew Hammond, a Middle East analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera he is pessimistic about the chance of change in the kingdom.
"The king (Abdullah) in many ways missed his chance," he said. "In the era of the Arab Spring everything has changed, and any concession … to people's demands is magnified in the rulers' minds as a dangerous precedent."
"The world is talking about us on social media," al-Ajroush said. "My Facebook (page) is used for one reason, for women's issues, particularly the driving. When I was detained in 2011, before I got to the police station, I got several phone calls. They knew about me via Twitter."
An online media campaign has succeeded in attracting international attention to the Saudi women's plea. The "Honk for Saudi Women" movement urged U.S. supporters to post YouTube videos of themselves driving and honking car horns. Several activists staged drive-bys in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
"It was great. It was very helpful," al-Sharif said. An official at the targeted embassy hung up the phone when asked by Al Jazeera about the driving campaign.
Aside from the grassroots action, three female legislators have taken up the issue at the Shura Council, the highest advisory organ to the king. Campaigners argue that the kingdom's financially strained middle class cannot continue to afford family drivers. There are also complaints that female passengers are often victims of harassment by hired drivers.
"It took us two months to prepare the study (on women's driving) which helped us come up with the recommendations on different issues which are usually supported with brief studies," Latifah al-Shalan, a Shura Council member, was reported in the Saudi Gazette as saying about her study in an interview with a Saudi news agency.
With the exception of two women who were briefly stopped by police, authorities have so far not intervened to stop any of the female drivers. But on Saturday, when many more are expected to challenge authorities from behind the wheel, that approach looks set to be tested.
THE ROVING EYE Will the House of Saud pivot to China? By Pepe Escobar
The favorite geopolitical sport du jour is to deconstruct the reasons why the House of Saud - that marriage of hyper-absolute monarchy and Wahhabi fanatics - has gone completely bonkers, with the ineffable Bandar Bush in the frontline.
They are terrified with the possibility that the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran finally tumbles down. They are terrified that those American infidels refused to fight "our" regime change war on Syria. They were horrified by (mild) criticism about hardcore repression in Bahrain (which was invaded by Saudi in 2011, by the way). They abhor the American worshipping of that weird deity - democracy - that allowed friendly tyrants in Tunisia and Egypt to be abandoned (Libya is different; King Abdullah had wanted Gaddafi snuffed since at least 2002).
The House of Saud is so mad as hell at the Obama administration that even "all options" are supposed to be "on the table". Which begs the question; what if Riyadh is actually dreaming of pivoting to China?
Beijing's self-described "socialism with market characteristics" badly needs Saudi oil; after all the House of Saud is already China's top supplier. King Abdullah looks East and what he sees is an aspiring superpower, flush with unlimited cash, which will never dream of interfering in Saudi internal affairs, not to mention contemplate toxic Arab Spring ideas.
So picture the dying King Abdullah dreaming of a Riyadh-Beijing axis as his legacy - with the inbuilt added benefit of displacing mortal enemy Iran as a supreme matter of national security for the Chinese (although Beijing would certainly see it as the proverbial win-win situation, keen to buy even more oil from Saudi as it keeps buying more gas from Iran).
Saudi Arabia produces roughly 10% of the global total, which stands at around 90 million barrels of oil a day. It is the world's top exporter, swing producer, and essential in influencing the price of oil - which remains very high not only because of Chinese and Indian demand but also due to ceaseless speculation.
Riyadh is carefully observing the possibility of the US becoming energy self-sufficient because of fracking technology - dirty, nasty and causing devastating pollution. They are certainly factoring that even with the US producing http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/us-now-leads-the-world-in-oil-and-gas-production-131008?news=851336 more than Saudi - around 12 million barrels a day, including ethanol - it still needs to import no less than 6.7 million barrels of oil a day in 2013. The US will still need oil - Saudi oil - in the foreseeable future.
If "all options" are really "on the table", the House of Saud may be mulling striking a decades-long deal with the energy-voracious Chinese, assuring supply for a certain price. But let's assume demand - especially from Asia - rises, as it will; the House of Saud knows the US may find itself in trouble, and graphically manifest its displeasure.
Losing my (petrodollar) religion The House of Saud also knows very well it is the solid anchor that keeps OPEC tied to the petrodollar system. Without Saudi Arabia the petrodollar is history.
That's arguably the number one scam in international relations. Virtually everyone and his neighbor needs US dollars which are mostly invested in US Treasury bills and other securities and mostly used to buy US dollar-denominated commodities like oil. How sweet it is to be bought by you; Washington keeps running up untold trillions of US dollars of debt that everyone must buy. The House of Saud of course duly invests its cascades of US dollars in US debt. Now imagine the House of Saud deciding to ditch the petrodollar. That would be Apocalypse Now for the US economy.
Slowly but surely times are changing. Iran under those declaration of war-style sanctions is pointing the way, selling energy in other currencies, accepting gold and even bartering (the House of Saud, by the way, is also terrified that with a US-Iran d?tente, there will be a lot more Iranian oil and gas on Western markets, thus diluting Saudi profits.)
Russia is now the number one global oil exporter, and China is the number one global oil importer - importing more from Saudi Arabia than the US. By 2020 China will be importing a whopping 9.2 million barrels of oil a day. So it obviously makes no sense for BRICS members Russia and China to keep using the petrodollar; that's a crucial feature of Beijing's recent call to "de-Americanize" the world. And Riyadh knows it.
The House of Saud also considers two other trends; it has been exporting most of its oil to Asia for years now; and China, inevitably, has become the top exporter - myriad manufactured products - to Saudi Arabia, ahead of the US. Beijing, once again, is playing a discreet, long game, investing in Saudi infrastructure. Aware that Saudi Arabia cannot export more of its heavy, high sulfur oil - because few customers can refine it - China is building a massive new refining/export complex. So, long-term, what we have is essentially a US-China confrontation (with Russia and Iran also weighing in) over the petrodollar.
The House of Saud utmost priority - whatever happens - is self-perpetuation. Then to keeping earning loads of cash - petrodollar or otherwise. And then to keep mortal enemy Iran - those "apostate Shi'ites" - in check.
But would that warrant a pivoting to China?
The mob protection racket is so sweet; because of the petrodollar religion, the House of Saud is essentially self-perpetuated by the Pentagon umbrella and those tons of weapons contracts.
But now House of Saud paranoia is developing on two fronts like a deadly virus. They are terrified the protection racket will not last if Iran is back in the game - worse, they imagine, with a nuclear breakout capability.
And they suspect that the much-vaunted - and so far inexistent - US pivoting to Asia is a not so discreet "say goodbye to your new friend", as in Saudi Arabia's preferred partner China. The pivoting could even be interpreted by a paranoid House of Saud as a double threat; directed towards China in the long term but also against Saudi Arabia, as in "don't even think about moving to the petroyuan."
So far, a House of Saud devoured by a vicious succession battle, as well as angry, fearful and paralyzed by fast evolving geopolitics, offers no evidence it would let escape the mongrel "special relationship" with the US. It's just throwing a fit. If, and when, it switches to losing my (petrodollar) religion mode, then the real action begins.
All signs are showing that the otherwise secretive Saudi regime is angry. Very, very angry. Not only did the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia refuse to take a seat at the UN Security Council, [1] but now the Saudi spy chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, appears to be threatening a "major shift" in "relations with the United States at its perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran".
The Wall Street Journal provides further details:
In the run-up to expected US strikes, Saudi leaders asked for detailed U.S. plans for posting Navy ships to guard the Saudi oil center, the Eastern Province, during any strike on Syria, an official familiar with that discussion said. The Saudis were surprised when the Americans told them U.S. ships wouldn't be able to fully protect the oil region, the official said. Disappointed, the Saudis told the U.S. that they were open to alternatives to their long-standing defense partnership, emphasizing that they would look for good weapons at good prices, whatever the source, the official said. In the second episode, one Western diplomat described Saudi Arabia as eager to be a military partner in what was to have been the U.S.-led military strikes on Syria. As part of that, the Saudis asked to be given the list of military targets for the proposed strikes. The Saudis indicated they never got the information, the diplomat said.
Bandar (aka Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, aka Bandar Bush) spent most of his career in Washington DC, where he was the Saudi ambassador from 1983 to 2005 and was considered exceptionally close to the Bush family. Not only that, he could observe, as no one else could, how the US went to war against Iraq not once, but twice, in 1991-1992 and, again, in 2003-2005.
So he, of all people, should now that:
the US does not have the physical capability to "fully protect" the entire oil region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia;
the US would only share a critical proposed strike list with close Anglo allies (the UK and, maybe, some other Anglo country). Not even the Israelis or the French would be given that kind of access.
So what in the world is Bandar upset about?
Sure, there are other good reasons for him to be angry: the entire Saudi strategic plan to defeat the Shi'ite in the Middle East has fallen apart. The Saudis wanted to trigger an insurrection in Syria, then execute a "false flag" chemical attack, then have the US take out the Syrian regime and replace it with a Saudi puppet regime of Wahabi liver-eaters. That would isolate both Hezbollah and Iran. The Saudis would let the Israelis deal with Hezbollah while they would then push the US into a confrontation with Iran.
As strategic plans go, this was a pretty good one too, but it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding the of Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah determination to defeat it.
We know that Russia sent a very powerful naval task force to the Syrian coast, we have pretty good information showing that Iran covertly sent both equipment and combatants to Syria and Hezbollah publicly admitted that it sent several thousands of its combatants into Syria. These combatants are really those who turned the tide of the war on the ground (especially around al-Qusayr).
What we don't know (but what must have happened for sure) is what Russia, Iran and Hezbollah told the US through their back-channel communications. I personally have a very strong feeling that some very serious threats were made by one or several of these parties and that these threats were taken very seriously by the White House. Yes, of course, we then had US Secretary of State John Kerry's "rhetorical point" about Syria giving up chemical weapons, but there are plenty of indicators that the US had already decided to "fold" two or three days before this actually occurred.
Whatever may be the case, it is clear that the US took the only possible sane decision and decided that it did not want to start a major war in the Middle East.
Did the Saudis really think that the US would take on Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia on their behalf?
Now let's look at the Saudi reaction. First, they refused to take their seat at the Security Council. So what? With the predictable exception of Kuwait and Bahrain, who is going to be heartbroken at not having the Saudis sit at the horseshoe table? Kosovo?
And now comes this threat of a "major shift" in the US-Saudi alliance.
What in the world is Bandar talking about again?
First, does Bandar really believe that the US vitally needs the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Does he not realize that the US will be self-sufficient in energy pretty soon? Or does he not realize that the days when ARAMCO was the key to the strength of the dollar are long gone and that now the strength of the dollar depends mostly on US military and financial power? And even if Saudi Arabia was vital to the strength of the dollar, does Bandar really think that he can threaten US vital strategic interests with impunity?
Second, if Bandar wants to shift away from the alliance with the US, where does he think he could shift to? Most definitely not China, which has a very serious "Islamic problem" on its hands in its western provinces; not the EU, which is faithfully committed to its colonial status in the US empire, and nobody in Africa - even less so after the recent carnage in Kenya. Nobody in Latin America for sure, if only because of its long history of anti-US struggle and its large Arab population which know what kind of sick ideology Wahabism is.
In Asia, maybe the desperate rulers of North Korea or Myanmar would want to explore options, but that's about it.
So unless Bandar thinks he can punish the US by shifting its alliance to some "heavyweights" like Kuwait or Bahrain, one can only be left wondering of what Bandar has in mind.
Think about it: first he threatens Putin with terror attacks during the Sochi Olympics [3] and now he threatens to "dump" the US. This would be comical if the House of Saud was not sitting on a huge amount of money which they have - and will - use to spread terror and Wahabi extremism all over the planet.
Which brings me to my last questions: does Bandar really not understand how fragile his regime is? Does he seriously believe that he can threaten both the US and Russia and get away with it?
Maybe the poor man believes that the Bush clan will do something about it, but if so, then that hope misplaced. Sure, the Bush family and the House of Saud are old accomplices in all sorts of ugly deals, but not only are the Bush people currently not in power, they will always love their money more than they will love their friends. And the truth is, neither the Bush family nor even the US need the Saudis all that much.
The reverse, however, is not true. The Wahabi house of Saudi is sitting on top of a treasure trove of Shi'ite oil (the oil rich regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are also the ones where a repressed Shi'ite minority lives). Both Bahraini and the Saudi regimes have held on to power only thanks to a ruthless and systematic repression against its population, especially Shi'ites. For the Wahabis, to stay in power means killing Shi'ites, lots of them. And to do that, one needs a "protector" at the Security Council. In the case of Saudi Arabia, this protector has always been the US. But just imagine what could happen if the US withdrew its protection of the kingdom at the Security Council. Imagine what kind of signal that would send to the repressed Shi'ites in these two countries?
Without even going into an R2P (responsibility to protect) situation, it is pretty obvious that the Saudi regime only serves "at the pleasure of the US President" and that it could be summarily dismissed.
But Bandar seems to be completely oblivious to that.
Bandar must have gone clinically insane. Either that or it is the entire House of Saud has gone mad, maybe as a consequence of its degenerate lifestyle. Who knows?
If Bandar is "retired" - administratively or physically - sooner rather than later, then its option one. If not, then its option two. But either way, the writing is on the wall for the House of Saud.
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