Skip to main content

Two women the start of a (at least modest) "revolution?"

Saudi Arabia has decided it will send 2 women contestants to the upcoming Olympic Games. A game-changer for the strictly Muslim nation? - that is, allowing women to complete publicly, let alone in a foreign country. FP comments...
For years, human rights organizations hoping to use the Olympics as leverage to challenge Saudi Arabia's restrictive gender policies have looked to the case of apartheid South Africa. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), after all, expelled South Africa in 1970 for its policy of racial discrimination -- a ban that stayed in place for 21 years, until the fall of apartheid in 1991. If the IOC took action against South Africa to help end race-based apartheid there, shouldn't it bar Saudi Arabia from the 2012 London Olympics in protest of gender-based apartheid in the kingdom?
The Saudi government moved to pre-empt such consequences this month by announcing that it would allow two female Saudi athletes to compete for the first time ever in the Olympics. The two Olympians are Sarah Attar, a dual Saudi-U.S. citizen who will compete in the 800-meter race, and Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, who will compete in judo. The IOC invited the women to the Olympics under a clause that allows athletes to compete "when their participation is deemed important for reasons of equality," even if they do not meet minimum qualifying standards. But human rights organizations looking to use this small concession to sweep away Saudi Arabia's restrictions on women will find that their battle is just as long, and no less difficult, than the struggle against apartheid.
It's not just the Olympics -- Saudi Arabia is hostile to women's participation in athletics at all levels. The ministry that regulates all competitive sports, including the 153 official sports clubs, does not recognize any female teams. Women aren't even allowed inside these clubs or be spectators at stadiums. Female physical education is not permitted in public schools, so the only way a Saudi woman can practice any type of competitive sport is through expensive private schools or colleges, and health clubs. But these organizations are prohibited from publicizing their rare activities, and women's teams of any sort are discouraged from publicly stating their affiliation with any institution.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pentagon's eye-popping spending....and waste!

Only a gigantic bureaucracy could get away with spending of such dimensions - and the amazing waste involved in part of that ginormous spend.   Think US Pentagon..... "From spending $150 million on private villas for a handful of personnel in Afghanistan to blowing $2.7 billion on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work, the latest revelations of waste at the Pentagon are just the most recent howlers in a long line of similar stories stretching back at least five decades.  Other hot-off-the-presses examples would include the Army’s purchase of helicopter gears worth $500 each for $8,000 each and the accumulation of billions of dollars' worth of weapons components that will never be used. And then there’s the one that would have to be everyone’s favorite Pentagon waste story: the spending of $50,000 to investigate the bomb-detecting capabilities of African elephants. (And here’s a shock: they didn’t turn out to be that great!) The elephant research, of course, represe...

Video: Israel demolishing a Bedouin village

From Mondoweiss - Israel's supposed "most moral army in the world", the IDF, engaged in immoral, and according to international law, illegal action.... "Israeli forces have demolished every home in the Bedouin village of Khirbet Taha in the northern West Bank district of Nablus during three separate demolitions since the start of the year. Unlike most Bedouin villages, the residents in Khirbet Taha own their own land. However that land falls in Area C, territory in the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control. The village’s only school was also destroyed, leaving children to study in a dilapidated 100-year-old mosque — the only structure left standing in the village. According the United Nations, Israel has demolished half as many Palestinian buildings in the first few months of 2016, as they had in all of 2015. In February alone, the UN found that more Palestinians homes were destroyed than any other month since 2009, when the organization began its docum...

What does a no-fly zone actually mean?

As some countries consider imposing a no-fly zone in relation to Libya, the pertinent question must be what does that mean and entail? FP provides the answers: "It depends on the circumstances. There are two primary types of no-fly zones imposed by air forces. The first is imposed by one military over another, while the two sides are at war. In practice, this type of no-fly zone amounts to a warning from one side that it will engage the other's aircraft if they are spotted in a given territory. The second type, more applicable to the situation in Libya, is when an outside power possessing overwhelming air superiority restricts flights over a given country in order to discourage an internal conflict or humanitarian crisis. This is a relatively recent tactic, which was used most famously in Bosnia and Iraq during the 1990s. No-fly zones are often a compromise in situations where the international community is demanding a response to ongoing violence, but full military interven...