Islam is not a Buffet

Thursday, 05 October 2006
By Sabria S Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette

Shoura Council members always surprise me with their reactions whenever women’s issues are brought to the table of discussion. They always take a confusing defensive position that makes it difficult to know which school of thought or even social group does this or that Shoura Council member belong. Sometimes when it comes to women’s affairs they all use the same language with few exceptions.
Last week, for instance, the Arabic daily newspaper Al-Hayat ran an interview with the head of the foreign affairs committee in the Shoura Council. He sounded so defensive about the role of women, in particular, their participation in the Shoura’s foreign delegations, such as the International Parliamentary Union (IPU).
He said women’s participation in the delegations is positive and effective and it is not aimed to please outsiders. But at the same time he said women’s full membership in the Shoura Council is a different issue and a matter of time.
In effect, he’s saying that it’s fine to have male and female Shoura Council members mix on planes while traveling on business and mix in foreign countries. This will please outsiders. But he also wants to please the conservatives in Saudi Arabia by saying that full membership in the council is a different issue.
Mr. Head of the Foreign Affairs Committee -- obviously trying to sound reasonable and convincing, especially to the majority of the Arabic press readers -- was humble. But he is still not convincing to critical readers like myself. To me, though I respect his opinion, I still have some questions:
First, let’s assume that women do exist in the present council, no matter what position they hold or what place they are seated. The questions remain: Where were those women when the Council decided to shut down the women’s driving issue without discussion or a vote, but based solely on the President’s decision?
What were those women’s positions on the issues of their fellow sisters regarding their rights in the Saudi courts, where they are treated as nothing but black moving objects?
What did they do concerning women’s lost rights at the Ministry of Labor when issues of wages, job opportunities and employment in lingerie shops were decided? What have they done about the way their sisters in the media are treated and what do they think about gender-based discrimination? What are the Council’s female participant’s opinions and recommendations on physical and emotional abuse of wives, sisters and daughters, defamation, or even imprisonment under the guise of protection?
If vital and effective roles for women from the point of view of Mr. Head of the Foreign Committee means listening and following the Council’s sessions from an isolated balcony and behind tinted glass, then I am sorry to tell him that we have different concepts of what is vital and effective participation by the women advisers.
This is not participation but decoration.
If this is also not to please outsiders, then how does he explain the contradiction between refusing the existence of women under the same roof with the male members and being with them on the same plane heading to Geneva this month?
Are those women going to talk to men in the IPU through closed circuit? Are they going to Geneva in a separate plane? Mr. Head, if you really believe in women’s compatibility and that they have enough brains to represent the nation abroad, then why does the Shoura Council deprive them of their right to participate in the Council as full members? Or do you believe that it is Halal to have them on the same plane and under the same roof as long as this is not on this soil?
Let’s stop this contradiction because we are simply making a joke of ourselves, especially to those who look for a chance to pick on us and accuse Islam of looking down on women.
Islam is not a buffet from which we choose what we like and leave what we don’t like. Islam is a religion for all times and places. It is not a Saudi product.