Posted by:
Tevai
(
)
Date: July 18, 2017 09:36AM
CateS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tevai Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > She is no more stupid than Rosa Parks, or
> > Elizabeth Eckford, or the three guys that got
> > murdered in Mississippi, or those countless
> > unknowns that wound up, for a few centuries,
> being
> > lynched in the pursuit of social and legal
> > justice.
> >
>
> These three you cite, engaged in their protests in
> public, risking and suffering immediate
> repercussions, including violent ones and were
> totally different from what this woman did.
No...not different at all.
In Saudi Arabia, the Religious Police are part of the highest level of power (in general), they have ENORMOUS legal power over the general public, and the punishments they have the power to enforce include caning (which can be incredibly destructive) and incarceration. They have the power to destroy people's bodies, and their psyches, and their families in any case where a given person does not adhere to their fiats.
> I was way too harsh on her. I wouldn't want to be
> stoned to death, either.
Thank you for saying this. :)
> But I don't put her
> behavior on the same level as the three you cite
> and not really courageous.
Imagine yourself as HER. Imagine getting the idea, and then carrying out that idea, when you KNEW what the potential consequences might be (not only to YOU, but potentially to your family members as well). I cannot see how you cannot call this "courage." This is a 21st-century DEFINITION of "courage" (Saudi Arabian-style).
> I can easily see how her behavior would be seen as
> flagrantly disrespectful and off-putting to the
> culture.
This is mostly beside the point. What she is doing is ILLEGAL.
> She's literally prancing through those
> abandoned streets. Maybe that is a good thing.
In this instance, Yes!!! Just as good a thing as a legally-defined "non-white" person sitting on a "White"-designated park bench in most any Deep South state in the 1950s...or a white person sitting on a "Colored"-designated park bench---either way, it is an act to overturn the status quo.
What this woman did is, legally and politically (and from the perspective of political action), the SAME THING.
> Who is she? Is she a local woman or a visitor to
> SA? If she's local, much bigger deal as she can
> and probably will be held accountable.
I don't know. I would assume she is local, but this is my assumption only.
She is pushing the boundaries.
(By Saudi law, women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, but in certain areas of the peninsula, women DO drive---and in those areas, male authority figures generally look the other way. Because SOME Saudi women are, effectively, legally "allowed" to drive, there has been (for some while now) a "pushing the boundaries" kind of cooperative action, to VERY gradually include more and more Saudi women in the "permitted" group. It is often an extremely slow process, and the increments may appear miniscule to outsiders, but in Saudi terms, every new woman who is "allowed" to drive without overt legal push-back is a victory. Something like this, I think, is what is happening here with this young woman. If she does this in a deserted area, within city walls, then the next step, taken by another woman, may possibly take place a few feet OUTSIDE of walls. Those few feet of difference, in Saudi terms, can count for a very great deal in the broad picture.)