Saudi Arabia

[ronrat]

[David]

I've wondered about that. What is the experience of Shiites taking that pilgrimage? Must be at least some amount of teeth-gritting.

[Jezza]

The 1987 Mecca incident is the most notable event where tensions escalated with Shiites at the Hajj Pilgrimage where 400 people died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Mecca_incident

Also, last year it appears that Muslims had to disclose what sect of Islam they belonged to where they were required to fill out an application form to attend the annual Hajj Pilgrimage.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/saudi-arabia-hajj-application-muslim-pilgrims-asks-are-you-shia-1499231

[sixpoints]

Why's everyone got a problem with the Saudi's all of a sudden? That's no way to treat an ally!

2010 - the worlds biggest arms sale ever made is signed off between the U.S. and the Saudis. The U.S. agree to sell $60 billion worth. (84 F18 fighter aircraft, 70 Apache helicopters, 36 surveillance helicopters)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8000747/US-secures-record-60-billion-arms-sale-to-Saudi-Arabia.html

The Brits have sold so many British made war planes to the Saudis that now the Saudis have more of them than the Brits have!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11584269/Saudis-UK-made-war-jets-outnumber-RAFs.html

Let's not forget to top up on British made missiles why are at it. The Brits will divert the missiles they are making up in Scotland to the Saudis first. They will restock the Saudis and keep their own orders on hold. The Saudis need them more at the moment.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaking-news/2015/07/16/britain-diverts-bombs-destined--raf--help-saudi-fight--yemen/30236031/

Billions upon billions of arms sales to the home of Wahabbism, the home of Al
Qaeda, the home of 11 out of 15 of the 9/11 bombers, the home of women being second class citizens, the home of mass beheadings....our allies.

Presently the Saudis are using US & Britsh planes and missiles to attack another country in Yemen. The sovereignty of another nation has been breeched and countless killed in air strikes, but not a sniff of protest. Just like in 2010 when Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain to quell pro-democracy protests.
Invade and bomb other countries at your will and we'll even supply the hardware.
It's freely sold to them and they use it. When they use it and thousands die, of course no protest or condemnation occurs. Now they execute Nimr al Nimr and in doing so send an incendiary and provocative message straight to Iran.
These nut jobs think they have the imprimatur to do what ever they like.
The sad fact is that they indeed do.

[David]

Moving away from regional conflicts for a moment, here's something for those who actually want to know more about women's rights in Saudi Arabia – not just as a way of reinforcing simplistic narratives but actually to understand a little about how things are there, both in terms of the brutality inflicted upon women there and their struggle for a more liberated future.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/sisters-in-law

They're starting from a long way back all right, but they're making progress.

[think positive]

Way way way way too slow that progress! OMG. I'd die if I had to live like that, those poor women, fighting for rights that should have been theirs 50 years ago if not from year dot!

Curios if single men and women risk arrest for being seen together, how the hell do they meet a partner!

[stui magpie]

[David]

^ Yep, that's how arranged marriages work (or worked until recent times), in Israel, Japan, India and Congo, as well as every country in Europe. This - second-class treatment of women - is the history of the entire human race. Thankfully, even the stragglers are starting to leave it behind now. Cause for celebration, no?

It's not the best analogy, but seeing these cracks in the Saudi patriarchy is like seeing the slowest kid in school pick up his first book. It doesn't mean you no longer have idiots in your class or that he's suddenly a genius, but it does mean that things are changing for the better.

TP, how slow is too slow? By what measurement can we assess these things?

[HAL]

Your purpose is celebration no.

[stui magpie]

[HAL]

Will that accomplish your objective?

[David]

Like, right now? Arranged marriage is extraordinarily common in Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel and traditional Hindu communities in India, and was just about the only form of marriage allowed in Japan before WW2 (and still seem to be practiced there in some places there today).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage

[stui magpie]

^

I was more thinking of "every country in Europe" being recent when it was largely ceased in the 18th century.

[David]

Ah, I see - in that case I was definitely referring to the historical practice, although there are probably some small communities throughout Europe (gypsies, for instance) where it is still practised.

Anyhow, I found this entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica amusing. Shows how standards and perceptions can change:

http://www.britannica.com/topic/family-kinship#ref794409

[pietillidie]

^The error you highlight here, i.e., the mistake of judging different people in different cultural contexts by our own local perception of time, is behind a good portion of cultural misinterpretation at the moment.

We can actually now experience spatial difference much better than we can a difference of time, including sequence, development trajectory, and such. We can simply visit a place or even see a picture of it to know we're dealing with something vastly different.

Put jeans and sneakers on someone, and bring them into our geographic space, and the difference *apparently* dissolves. Except it hasn't, of course; instead, we just can't see it, even though it remains in the person's head and near social relations, and then that of their kids for a couple of generations.

The same applies to our grandparents, but we have grown up together and accommodate the differences, and can't remember just how insane many of their old views and behaviours were when we were kids. And if we can't remember something, it might as well have never existed.