16.1.10

Inequality? GREAT!

Various shoes in a row

When a head of state was assassinated, it set an example to ruling governments in the neighboring countries to step aside and allow the Ashkenazim to run the entire region according to their whims.

The good news is that, throughout last quarter of the 20th century, relative calm and stability was maintained in the Middle East. Well, okay, not really. Iran had its revolution. Two Gulf Wars erupted. Lebanon and Syria muffled with internal conflicts, and the majority of Arabs in the entire region – said my Jordanian university lecturer – earn an income that is lower than Italy (which, he bitterly emphasized, is a region with the lowest income compared to other EU states).

But, I repeat myself, as far as the Ashkenazim were concerned, the Middle Eastern countries never dared to vote unanimously about anything, ever again.

Not Having the Right to Vote is GOOD

The anecdote explains to me why Saudis are okay with gender inequality. Why the government does not allow voting for legal amendments, or public representation in king’s courts. And why women don’t drive. Some folks just aren’t smart or ready enough to cast intelligent votes, or decide for themselves where their taking their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens.

The only snag is that, trusting others to control our lives and laws infuriates the more intelligent and unsatisfied flock. Not everybody is happy to have the boundaries of their personal freedoms be decided by others. After all, voting for legal amendments requires that exact kind kind of intelligence that (at worst) might cause the assassination of another king, or a revolution of some sort.

Is a revolution in Saudi possible?

In 1989, half a million Czechs and Slovaks gently asked the government in Prague to switch from being communist to non-communist. And the government bowed to that democracy. And the Velvet Revolution sets a rare example, because in most cases, when the masses are too desperate to think straight, dramatic change comes at a dear and almost random cost of human sacrifice.

Is change necessary?

Do Saudis really need gender equality? Do the women of Saudi really want to “gain custody of children, travel, work, study, drive cars and live on an equal footing with men”?

If yes, then how many of those women are willing to have all of that at the price of their current comforts?

In Saudi, women don’t desperately need to drive. Women don’t desperately need to work outside of home if they don’t want to. They don’t even need to go to school, and if they do, they can go as far and as highly educated as they want.

If the majority of women in Saudi are not starving and homeless and uneducated…I’ll rephrase, if the women in Saudi have their basic and security needs provided for them, doesn’t annul the need for a revolution? Doesn’t that mean that the Saudi economy is stable enough to afford engaging just one half of her working force?

Doesn’t that mean that the Saudi government has been generous and protective with her citizens, both male and female?

Saudis are stupid and that’s okay

Yes, comfort dulls survival instinct and motivation to achieve. No writer or impressive body of art could ever be created from excessive indulgence. As a group, stupidest of my classmates in Jordan were Saudis. (And I wonder how the Saudi students in other countries are academically doing). And that’s okay too; because in Saudi, people are still being fed and clothed and have roofs over their heads whatever their academic results may show.

In fact, it’s okay that Saudis are the stupidest of all the Arabs in the Middle East, because we know that, when the time comes, Saudis can always rely on the amazingly stubborn human ability to adapt in the cruelest desert draught, since the days of Abraham.

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