Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah swore in 30 women into the previously all-male
Shura Council last week as criticism mounts from conservative religious figures
and Westerners for going too far, or not far enough.
The Council has 150
members and is not a legislative body, but advises the
government.
Westerners have criticized the announcement for not going far
enough, noting that women are still discriminated against in Saudi
society.
Brandon Friedman, a Lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a
researcher at its Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies,
told The Jerusalem Post that he does not agree with many Western analysts who
criticized the move as worthless since the Council can recommend legislation and
“decision makers in the royal family take its recommendations
seriously.”
He says that the women that were chosen are all very
accomplished with many holding PhDs and they represent the best Saudi Arabia has
to offer. However, the group is not representative of women in the country. He
also notes that the women are united in overturning the driving ban on
women.
In an article he wrote for the Moshe Dayan Center publication Tel
Aviv Notes in January, he writes that the Council was established in 1992 and
drafts five-year development plans, which influence the country’s annual budget.
Since 2005, it has had the power to summon government officials for questioning
and propose new laws.
The article quotes the Saudi backed London based
Asharq Al-Awsat on possible ways for implementing the change: “(1) moveable
screens, often used for families in Saudi restaurants; (2) a glass partition
that is a one-way mirror, common at Saudi universities in areas where female
students wait for their drivers; or (3) a fence made of wood with Islamic
patterns, as is common in the windows of some buildings in the old part of
Jeddah.”
Friedman adds that the issue of mixing the sexes in public is
still a sensitive issue and that the Saudis are implementing a slow-incremental
approach, though he says, “having women make up 20 percent of the Council is a
serious change. What they have done is make a change without jumping into the
deep end of the pool.”
Of course, this change does not meet Western
standards, but it must be seen within the context of a very conservative Saudi
Society, he says.
Saudi Arabia should be judged by its own “history and
social mores, and not some Western standard. And it is not clear to me that the
Saudis are aspiring to achieve such a standard in any case.”
The driving
issue has illustrated the conflict. Some religious leaders came out against
women driving.
Friedman mentions that one sheikh, Nasser al-Omar, came
out explicitly against because he considered it a “slippery slope,” which would
lead to Westernization.
The question is according to Friedman – does this
represent meaningful change or “is it merely a means to lift Western pressure on the
Saudi family in attempts to ease Western and internal pressure in the wake of
the Arab Spring?” Friedman believes that the changes are more than “token
gestures,” and that King Abdullah is trying to slowly institute some social
change.