Good morning!
Shir Khan: I had heard the news over the weekend about the Saudi women and as much as I was disappointed that the women can not vote in this coming election, I am delighted that the women now have the right to vote. Whatever I have done, it is nothing compared to what you and the other women have endured and accomplished. I HOPE that all of the women will stop, take a moment, and feel the accomplishment deeply, as you have. It is a time for celebration of a new beginning. All I can say is how proud I am of all of you who have risked your life for your rights. You are an inspiration. I support you now and always to getting what you rightfully deserve.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has granted women the right to vote and run in 2015 local elections and to be appointed to his advisory Shura Council, but some women’s rights advocates are not satisfied.
The decree, announced Sunday, is part of King Abdullah’s gradual opening of Saudi Arabia to various rights for women, said Qamar-ul Huda, a specialist on Saudi Arabia at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Huda noted that two years ago, the king opened a fully integrated co-ed King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, in the town of Thuwal. The king also appointed the first female deputy minister – of women’s education.
And “in the backdrop of the past seven months of the Arab Spring, I think they may have felt that it’s important to make some gradual steps for women’s rights inside Saudi Arabia,” Huda added.
But some advocacy groups, including Amnesty International, contend that the king shouldn’t stop there and should grant women other rights, such as the ability to drive. No law in Saudi Arabia says women can’t drive, but people must obtain local driver’s licenses and they are never issued to women. In June, several dozen women risked arrest by driving in cities around Saudi Arabia in protest.
Some critics also said women should be allowed to vote right away, starting with the next local elections on Thursday.
“Why not tomorrow?” asked Saudi feminist Wajeha al-Hawaidar,quoted the Associated Press. “I think the king doesn’t want to shake the country, but we look around us and we think it is a shame … when we are still pondering how to meet simple women’s rights.”
Huda said the waiting period might be not only logistical — to give time for women to register and mount campaigns — but also to test the waters of the religious establishment and work through anyone contesting the move before 2015.
Manal Omar, a regional specialist also at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said there are a lot of demands for change in the region, and the decree was a way of saying “although you’re not seeing it now, there are plans for these changes to take place.”
The announcement is crucial, but the big question is how it will be implemented and whether it gets delayed as 2015 approaches, she cautioned. “This is a great move, it’s very much welcomed, but we’ve seen where rhetoric hasn’t translated into reality very often throughout the region.”
As for the right to drive, Omar said it has a vocal opposition that is much less so for voting rights. “There are very few people who would deny or use a religious argument against the right for a woman to vote. It’s clearly within the Islamic jurisprudence — almost all Islamic countries with the exception of Saudi Arabia exercise the right to vote for women.”
In addition, Omar said women activists have told her their main concerns are for voting representation and economic rights, and they rank driving rights as less of a priority.
Huda said Sunday’s announcement breaks new ground in a country where women have had major roles in fields such as medicine, education and certain businesses — but not politics. “The Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Saudi Arabia is one of the most active in that region, but when it comes to politics and the public sphere and political participation, they’re invisible,” he said.
Anonymous: Thank you for posting about the death of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. My heart too goes out to her family.
For those of you who want to learn a little bit more about Maathai:
Environmentalist and Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai died in Kenya’s capital late Sunday after a long battle with cancer.
Even in the midst of jubilation over winning the Nobel Peace Prize, environmentalist Wangari Maathai put her beloved Kenya first.
Shortly after receiving the honor in 2004, Maathai described to VOA what the victory meant for efforts to halt the massive deforestation in her country.
“This recognition in many way[s] endorses the campaign and brings it to the forefront so that leaders in this country can really realize that protecting the forest in this country is a matter of life and death,”said Maathai.
Her life’s work has been to protect Kenya’s forests from politically-elite land grabbers. Maathai also spoke out for the rights of women at a time when most Kenyan women had little public presence beyond the homestead.
Maathai was a major figure in the pro-democracy struggles of the 1980s and 1990s. During her work, she was routinely harassed, beaten, tear-gassed and jailed.
But she also achieved a litany of firsts: the first woman in east and central Africa to earn a Ph.D; the first woman to chair a department at the University of Nairobi; the first woman in east and central Africa to be appointed as a professor; the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is this spirit of perseverance that her colleague Edward Wageni most remembers. Wageni is deputy executive director of the Green Belt Movement, an environmental, civic, and women’s rights advocacy group Maathai founded in 1977.
“What we have lost is somebody who has the courage of conviction, a person who focuses on an issue, who doesn’t really look at the people who are going to be applauding her,” said Wageni.
Wangari Muta Maathai was born in central Kenya in 1940. At a time when it was rare for Kenyan girls to go to school, she graduated from Loreto Girls’ High School in 1959 and went on to complete a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from Mount St. Scholastica (now Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas. She then earned a master’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D at the University of Nairobi.
In the 1970s, Maathai became active in several environmental and humanitarian groups in Nairobi, consulting widely with women in rural areas. It was then that her passion for tree-planting took root. Ever since the creation of the Green Belt Movement, more than 47 million trees have been planted in Kenya.
Her work also involved education campaigns and linking environmental degradation with bad governance.
Following the pro-democracy struggles, Maathai was elected a member of parliament for Tetu in the 2002 elections and was appointed deputy minister for the environment. Two years later came the Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, Maathai has headed up several international efforts, including a United Nations’ campaign to plant one billion trees as part of a global effort to fight climate change.
But for all the accolades, awards, and honorary degrees she has received, colleagues and friends say Wangari Maathai had her two feet firmly planted in the ground.
“She was very, very much connected to the grassroots – a person who would be able to interact with the lowest person at the grassroots, but at the same time be able to speak at the highest levels,” said Green Belt Movement colleague Edward Wageni. “So she was able to link the two – the international stage, and sitting down under a tree with women discussing issues at that level.”
Dr. Catherine Lore is a Ugandan doctor whose office is near the Green Belt Movement office in Nairobi. She says her neighbor was forthright, down-to-earth, and inspiring.
“I reflected back [on] the day that she received the Nobel Prize,” she said. “I came running here with palm leaves in a long, tall pot, which I put in front of the door there. So today, I’m shedding tears of joy, because today we are celebrating the life of a truly actualized African woman.”
Wangari Maathai died in Nairobi September 25 while undergoing treatment for cancer. She was 71 years old. Maathai leaves behind three children and a grandchild.
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Lance: There is no end to what the ruthless republicans will do to get there way. Calling to tax the rich “Class Warfare” is something they have been doing all along when the middle class paid more taxes and the rich got all the loopholes. But then again, you can thank the wannabee rich for that because they keep the republicans in office, and support their agenda, all the while they continue to HOPE that their day will come. Meanwhile they suffer too on the road to getting to a place they will never be.
James: I know this is the place to vent and I am all about venting. But…there is a time to do something too. I HOPE that you take your anger and resentment and call your representatives and tell them how you feel…vent to them. Obama needs our constant support.
Robert: That Human Events you posted is unbelievable. I can’t believe that they take the time to write such cruel commentary. But what is even more stunning is that a significant sector of these women do nothing to state that this is so wrong. I am so disappointed in the lack of support women give each other…no really, it’s worse than just lack of support. When women “woman-up” that is when the world will change because we certainly can not expect the men to.
And with respect to Cain, I knew I could count on you to break it all down.
Brenda: Thanks for your confidence in my blog’s reach and influence. All I can say is, I HOPE it is.
Norma: I dont censor my blog. And my opinion is that I want to know what I am up against. Knowledge is power. The more we know…the more it is in our face what racists are doing to get rid of the black guy, the more ammunition we have to fight back. The info is there. By not posting it, doesn’t dissolve it. If it did I would delete it immediately. Let’s use this as fuel to fight our fight for what is right.
Ellen: This one was my fave so far.
Prism Princess and Trish: I feel a coupling coming on. :)
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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