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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 7004
[Religious]
Date Posted:
5/13/2003
9:02:36 am EDT
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Views: 7,184
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Comments: 11
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Saudi Religious Police Launch Website
Author: The Middle East Media Research Institute Source: The Middle East Media Research Institute
Title: SAUDI RELIGIOUS POLICE LAUNCH WEBSITE
The Al-Madina regional branch of the Saudi religious and morality police, formally known as "The Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices," recently launched its new website. The site posts news items, citizens' violations, and includes a section that allows citizens to inform anonymously on persons they suspect of violating religious and moral laws. The following is a summary of the website's recent content:
Confiscating CDs, Burning Shoes, Making Arrests on Charges of Witchcraft
Among other news items posted on the Authority website were articles detailing the confiscation of CDs containing "permissive materials," the arrest of an Asian man belonging to the Sufi sect of Islam who "engaged in witchcraft," a study on the role of the Authority in the struggle against "ideological invasion," a report on the flogging of four people accused of harassing girls as they were leaving school, and a report on the burning of 250,000 forbidden articles such as "texts contradicting the faith, shoes with the name of Allah written on them, [and] items for the Holiday of Love [i.e. Valentine's Day]."
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Community Thoughts: There are 11 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| The Days Of The House Of Saud Are Numbered | May 14th. at 1:31:30 pm EDT |
by Fred Lawrence (Kansas, a State of Mind) - wc_xemail
The current Atlantic Monthly has a cover story on "The Fall of the House of Saud." It gives a detailed and convincing argument that the House of Saud will be out of power within a few years. I recommend you read it for some good information on Saudi Arabia. What is worrisome is that the government that follows the House of Saud is likely to be even worse.
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| As I Have Said Before | May 14th. at 1:51:22 am EDT |
by Denise (Bremerton, Wa) - wc_xemail
The fanatics of all religions are interchangable.
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| They're At It Again | May 13th. at 9:00:16 pm EDT |
by Aurora (Shreveport, LA) - wc_xemail
I remember these guys, they are really creepy. They throw a fit if they see a whisp of hair coming out from under your veil, and they can spot an American from a mile away from the way that we walk. (non-submisive) It's hard for us to imagine having to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis.
Any woman suspected of adultery or a relationship out of marriage are subject to stoning by the government, including foreign women. This is why the military sends any woman home that is discovered to be pregnant. She is away from her husband, so she must have had an affair.
Our government does not have a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) with Saudi Arabia, which means that everyone over there is subject to Saudi laws. The bases over there are owned by the Saudi government, so there is no American/British soil to run to.
It is illegal in Saudi Arabia for a woman to have any real contact with any man that is not her husband, to drive a vehicle, to ride in the front seat of a vehicle, and to work. All of these acts carry harsh punishment, some of them will result in death.
I urge everyone to write to the Saudi government and tell them that this horrid treatment of women has got to stop. For more information on some of the horrors that women in Saudi Arabia face, and the addresses to write to, visit Amnesty International at: http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/briefing/4.html
The following site (also AI) contains more addresses to write to, as well as a specific case: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engMDE230132000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CSAUDI+ARABIA?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CSAUDI+ARABIA
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| Missed My Point, , My Bad... | May 13th. at 7:01:16 pm EDT |
by Rhymer (Ann Arbor, MI) - wc_xemail
Folks, that was not a theory, it was facetiousness...if you've seen my posts, you know I don't do theories in one sentence.
"It's so simple, it's difficult" Sorry if I bemused folks. My flippant point was really about disentangling ourselves from the Middle East. Didn't say anything about successful revolutionary ingrediants, so much as a lovely set of circumstances. Live in your own hell, I always say, until you're sick enough of the heat to risk getting burned :-)
No question strident, driving leadership is required for success in revolution -certainly in political/military revolutions...social revolutions may often be a confluentilal matter, but that's another essay. Circumstances, and a keen eye for them, are a critical component. I was suggesting circumstances.
Some other points from history. Mao's revolution involved one hell of a PR effort (the long march) , and our own revolution was as much a reaction to very bad/very blundering British policy (the Continental Congress was stalemated internally for far too long, until moronboy Thomas Gage gave them a locus of fear) as it was attributable to leadership. As for Lenin, remember there were two revolutions in Russia, Menshevik and Bolshevik, the Menshevik breaking down shortly (in this case due to a lack of leadership) and the Bolshevik succeeding due to excellent organization (the small "s" soviets) The so-called "Combined and unequal revolution" never did succeed (Russian agricultural and industrial classes were considered to require separate revolutionary progressions) until Stalin forced agricultural collectivisation in a manner as vile as Adolf Hitler accomplished shortly thereafter in the "Final Solution" I am reluctant to call murderous behaviour and fearmongering "leadership." (Such as also evidenced by Saddam Hussein, etc)
On the other, Winston Churchill flopped around like a flounder, until Neville C. handed him the reins and he rose to the occassion as Hitler then contemplated "Operation SeeLowe" His magnificent leadership still required the unequalled valor of the RAF to accomplish victory in the Battle of Britain.
Leadership and a critical eye for circumstances are both required, in sum, for a revolution to succeed. It's often one of the distinctions between a revolution and a civil war.
As for the Saudis, the Royal (Saud) Family's grip on its people is tenous. More likely than a revolution would be a civil war. However, you can depose a monarch without strongman-type leadership (ask the Romanov family)
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| I Wonder | May 13th. at 4:27:22 pm EDT |
by Bill S. (Raleigh, NC) - wc_xemail
I wonder when Shrubya will get around to creating a cabinet level position just like this. Once he gets done with the small steps, I guess.
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| Whoa. | May 13th. at 2:45:58 pm EDT |
by Cian (Planet Earth, I once thought...) - wc_xemail
Just when you thought that humans are the most intelligent species to ever have walked the Earth of the Goddess, along comes this little tidbit of information regarding the "Saudi Morals Police".
It is painfully obvious that one will never be able to "reason" with these fundamentalists.
The Gods must just be shaking their heads in absolute disbelief that humans are so stupid while given the gift of pure thought.
I wonder when the Gods will just pull the plug on us all and claim that the experiment had gone terribly wrong and that they were going to go back to the drawing board.
) O (
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| Rhymer, There's A Problem... | May 13th. at 1:42:28 pm EDT |
by Stormsinger (Milwaukee, WI) - wc_xemail
with your theory. The "poor masses" don't simply decide to rise up and overthrown brutal dictators of their own accord. Every single successful revolution from the signing of the Magna Carta on down has had one key element in common: an intelligencia that can focus and direct the masses. Without visionary leaders to drive them, the masses can only riot. Riots are quelled, blood is spilled, people go back to muttering in their beer and remembering "the good old days." A mob without a focus is only a mob. A mob with a focus -- and the leaders to hold them to it -- becomes an army. That's what happened here in 1776 and in Paris only a few years later. But we would still be Englishmen if it weren't for people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry and their compatriots. Less than twenty people made all the difference between "Crown Colony" and "Independent Nation."
Good leaders don't even NEED the masses. Look what Lenin did. Look what Mao did. Look what Saddam Hussain did. They may have been bad MEN, but they were gifted leaders. They inspired SOMEONE to face potential death for the goals they articulated, and they succeeded.
The best way to kill a revolution before it ever gets formed is to silence the thinkers in your society. Frighten them, exile them, kill them, but do not let them speak. If nobody ever hears about another way, if the population has no leaders to point them to another way, they will not simply rise up en masse one day and throw off their shackles. They don't know how -- any more than I know how to drive an Abrams tank.
The Fundamentalist Islamic nations understand this. Look at the pressure they bring to bear on the newspapers, on any influx of external ideas. I'll bet a moderate professor of any subject has a real hard time getting a job at any Saudi or Iranian university -- and they all know that their continued employment and existence depends on their silence on certain subjects.
Until that changes, there will be no revolutions. Not in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia, not in China or Korea or any other repressive regime you might think of. There will be no change until there is some person or persons who can ARTICULATE change, convince people that the pain involved in changing is less than the pain of continuing as they are, and lead them to that change. They're going to have to be smarter than they were in the old days... because the people they are going up against are smarter, too.
Until then...
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| Make Them Not Matter | May 13th. at 12:32:29 pm EDT |
by Rhymer (Ann Arbor, MI) - wc_xemail
Hey, stop buying Middle Eastern Oil, they become poor, the masses rise up, you know the rest.
It's so simple, it becomes difficult!
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| And Your Pop Quiz Question Of The Day Is... | May 13th. at 12:23:10 pm EDT |
by Yak of Darkness (Kansas) - wc_xemail
What country did most of the September 11 hijackers come from?
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| How About We Really Wake Up... | May 13th. at 11:03:18 am EDT |
by Darke (BC Canada) - wc_xemail
and find eco-friendly alternatives to all that oil countries like Saudi Arabia count on selling? Stop funding them, stop being dependent on them.
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| And These Are Our "allies"? | May 13th. at 10:44:20 am EDT |
by Cynthia Harris (NC) - wc_xemail
As I've said ever since the shrub left off the "weapons of mass destruction" argument for the invasion of Iraq and began shedding his crocadile tears for "the oppressed people of Iraq suffering under an evil regime": What a bunch of BS! Saudi Arabia is every bit as repressive and cruel as Sadam ever dreamed of being. Or the Taliban, for that matter. But, because they remain willing to kiss the shrub's ass, they are "our allies". Give me a break! Sadam is cruel because he has a man's tongue cut out and the guy bleeds to death. But Saudi firemen can show up at a fire in a girls' school and drive the girls back into the building to burn to death because they are not wearing their veils! But that's OK, because they are our allies!
And does any of this religious repression sound awfully familiar to anyone else? It's what the religious right would do in this country, and what they WILL do, unless we all wake up and throw their GOP puppets out of office.
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