Saudi Liberals Get the Lash

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Day 1: A Ranoosh fast-food restaurant in Seihat, Saudi Arabia, hires two women to take phone orders. Day two: Bearded, shoeless Wahhabist religious police arrest the owner and shutter the business for “promoting lewdness” – in other words, for employing women.


Fast-forward a year and half to March: The proprietor, Nabil Ramadan, is sentenced by a religious court to 90 whiplashes on his back and buttocks, to be administered publicly, as are beheadings. The court specifies that the 90 lashes will be delivered in sets of 30 over a maximum of four hours.


Mr. Ramadan did not wait for the beatings to begin. He fled the country and became the subject of jokes, complaints, and gossip, as his actions were debated in Saudi homes and streets.


On Saturday, a Saudi Web-based daily, Elaph, rehashed the matter, bluntly asking why the government and authorities are unable – or unwilling – to rein in a religious court that has run amok.


The ongoing saga encapsulates some of the tremendous contradictions within Saudi society and government, as well as the degree to which militant Islamists and their many supporters control things.


Elaph is not a lightweight publication. Owned by a seasoned and powerful publisher and editor, Othman Al Omair, it is an instrument of beleaguered Saudi liberals, sanctioned by progressives among the immense Saudi royal family (22,000 princes at last count).


While Mr. Omair provokes with royal protection, there is no guarantee the family’s fundamentalist elements will spare him. He lives mostly in London or in Morocco, and Elaph is produced out of London. From these outposts, Mr. Omair and other prominent Saudis are pushing the envelope.


In its report, Elaph asked how the government reconciles its stated desire to employ more Saudis and fewer foreigners with its policy of allowing religious establishments to ban women in the workplace. And how can the Ministry of Labor deny Saudi businessmen the right to secure visas for foreign laborers while expecting investments to stay at home?


Indeed, by publicizing the gruesome details of Mr. Ramadan’s would-be punishment, Elaph questioned how a civilized government could condone the barbaric humiliation of a man who simply wanted to conduct good business.


“The case has caused profound embarrassment to the authorities, especially the Ministry of Labor, as it represents the first of its kind,” Elaph said. “There is no clear item of law banning the employment of properly covered women who follow [Islamic] Shariah laws, nor any designated authority to deal with such a case.”


To put things in perspective, in Saudi Arabia male doctors must “interview” women patients without seeing them because of religious prohibitions on the mixing of sexes.


Such crippling practices have made for mediocre educational institutions and a shackled economy. Of an estimated 26 million inhabitants of Saudi Arabia, about 8 million are foreign – imported guest workers performing jobs that most Saudis cannot or will not take. Nearly 50% of the native population of 18 million is unemployed.


The majority of Saudi university graduates either are unqualified to handle demanding careers in the oil or banking industries or are unwilling to perform the required tasks of the jobs, preferring to live off the bloated welfare state. Meanwhile, women, with very few exceptions, are simply prohibited from working.


In a perverse way, the religious edict against Mr. Ramadan makes sense.


In such a skewed environment, rife with frustrations and fears, where men and women are segregated rigorously from the tenderest of ages, a woman’s voice on the phone in a professional context might as well be the devil’s. Frustrated Saudi males may indeed have fantasies about a female taking their falafel order.


The New York Sun

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