Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Rape victim is sentenced to 200 lashes

In Saudi Arabia, a 19-year-old woman who was the victim of gang rape has been sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was in the company of a man who was not her relative when the attack happened.

Two hundred lashes. Can you survive it? Imagine being lashed even once. That would quite possibly be enough to break open your skin and cause a long, bleeding wound. Now imagine being lashed again, on top of that open wound. And then being lashed again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and... and... and...

Honestly, could you survive it?

Maybe they'll give the woman time to heal between each lash. Maybe she'll be given a week between each lash? Two weeks? How would it feel to be lashed on a tender, aching, barely-healed scar?

And anyway, if they are going to lash her once every week until they've given her two hundred lashes, then they will have to keep at it for two hundred weeks. Remember that there are fifty-two weeks in a year. If they are going to lash her every week two hundred weeks in a row, then that means that she will be lashed every week for almost four years!

Honestly, could you survive it?

And if you can survive it, what would your back be like afterwards? Could you move around? Do any work? Have a moment of your life without horrible, constant pain?

And the young woman got this punishment because she was gang-raped. No, correction, she got this punishment because she was in a car with an unrelated male.

This is what can happen to a woman in Saudi Arabia if she is caught with an unrelated male. She risks two hundred lashes. Because the Saudi Arabic law demands extremely strict segregation of the sexes.

Some of you on these boards may remember apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a system that demanded strict separation of black and white people. Black people had to carry passports to be able to move around in their own country and their own cities. They couldn't live in the same neighbourhooods as whites, couldn't sit on the same park benches, couldn't ride on the same buses etcetera.

Well, there was an international outcry against apartheid. It was considered inhuman to treat black people the way they were treated under apartheid. Because of loud international protests and economic sanctions, the system of apartheid was eventually abolished.

To the best of my knowledge, however, black people in South Africa under apartheid were not sentenced to two hundred lashes if they were caught in a car with a white person they were not legally working for.

Isn't the apartheid of the sexes in Saudi Arabia much worse than the apartheid of the "races" were in South Africa? And yet, where are the international protests?

Saudi Arabia is the world's leading exporter of oil, and its leaders are very loyal to the United States. That's enough, isn't it? Who cares about women when you can have oil and support for the West if you turn a blind eye to what happens to women in Saudi Arabia?

Let's bomb Iran. Their leaders are recalcitrant. Let's talk about how women are badly treated in Iran. And make no mistake, women most definitely are very badly treated in Iran. Iranian women are never allowed to show themselves in public without covering their heads under a veil, for example. And if an Iranian woman has been caught being unfaithful, she most definitely risks being executed, maybe even stoned to death.

The average Iranian woman, however, is so much freer and has so many more opportunities than women in Saudi Arabia. There is no strict segregation of the sexes in Iran. Recently there was an article in my own local paper about drug abuse in Iran, and about the Iranian society's efforts to help the addicts. The article was illustrated with a photo of a confident-looking, veiled, but bare-faced woman counselling a male drug addict. It was okay for this woman to counsel male addicts! She was hired by the Iranian authorities to do it!

Also, I am an astronomy fan as many of you know, and when I attended an astronomy forum a few weeks ago one of the lecturers was a leading Iranian astronomy populariser who talked about amateur astronomy in Iran. He showed us pictures of astronomy clubs in Iran whose members were teenaged boys and girls, smiling for the camera together.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive a car, and they are barely allowed outside at all if they are not accompanied by a male relative. Many of them cover not only their heads, but their faces as well. About two years ago I read a review of a book written by a woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia and who had to some extent shared the reality of Saudi women. I remember that she called the Saudi women human pets, because they were given no more freedom than we give our dogs in the west.

But in the west we don't even give our dogs two hundred lashes.

The next time someone tells you that Iran is a supremely dangerous country that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb, ask yourself why Saudi Arabia is never officially described as a supremely dangerous nation that treats its women awfully and that we ought to bomb. Is it because Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous? Because it isn't trying to make any nuclear weapons for itself?

If you think that Saudi Arabia isn't truly dangerous, then remember that Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia. And not only he himself, but the entire philosphy of extreme Islam and the idea of righteous jihad and attacks on the west are originally Saudi ideas. Most of the deepest roots of international Muslim terrorism originate in the barren, but oil-rich, Saudi soil. The same philosophy which says that a woman should be punished with two hundred lashes if she has been gang-raped after being in a car with an unrelated male also says that Western civilisation and all its people are legitimate targets for suicide bombers.

Saudis defend punishment for rape victim

Ann

I don't even want to think about that. Ugh.

What's really heartbreaking to me is that none of this is even in accordance with the spirit of the sharia. Islamic law IS strict, but sexual segregation is encouraged by Islamic law to PROTECT women, and not demean them. The rest of the world holds up countries like Saudi Arabia as poster-children for the consequences of Islamic rule, but the truth is that it's all because the people in those countries have warped Islamic dogma to accord with practices and attitudes that were already inherent in their pre-Islamic cultures.

This sort of misogyny has little to do with Islam and more to do with the fact that for some reason, these Middle Eastern countries never progressed beyond the mind-set of the Middle Ages. The West should thank any Gods that be for the Renaissance . Otherwise, you might well witness this sort of extremism today in Europe and the US, under the banner of a warped form of Christianity.

As for the veil-wearing, I am perfectly fine with it as long as it is done by choice. I have many Muslim friends who choose to wear the hijab, and they do so through their own choice and not through peer pressure, social laws or their parents wishes.

This is absolutely horrible. I really don't know another word that I can write in this forum. But reading stories like this makes me wish the same fate for the judges as well as the perpetrators - and everyone else who is able to but refuses to help.

I know this is kind of barbaric, too, but isn't it also ultimate justice?

Terrible yes and believe me I'm quite passionate about women's rights and consequently can again be very confrontational about it (like with many topics I'm passionate about).

Having done a little study into Islam in high school (which by conincidence I happen to be doing when 9/11 occurred) I know that it's not everyone way of thinking. Yes Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, but it is wrong to assume that every person in Saudi Arabia is a terrorist as in another person's eyes it can be construed as prejudice. I know many Muslims who are perfectly nice and do not condone the behaviour of this select group of people.

What we must remember is that as much as we believe that this is really wrong (and it is no person male or female should be punished for sitations beyon their control), this has been going on for centuries and aside from this behaviour they also perfrom so-called 'honour killings' where women are killed for disgracing their families well at least in their eyes anyway.

Like with the imprisonment of this particular woman and the fact that she'll receive 200 lashes should a woman be killed simply because she wants a divorce or commits adultery? Yes adultery is wrong and for those who are devout believers in their relgions, divorce is wrong too and what that comes down to is the interpretation of religious texts. So really this is what people shoule realise that as with all religions, it all comes down to how one interprets what they are reading.

While I'm outraged that this kind of activity still exists in the world and believe me it wouldn't just be in Saudi Arabia alone because the mistreatment of women occurs everywhere around the world, so long as they control much of the world's export of oil no government in the world is going to speak out about it no matter how against it they are. As sad as it is due to economical and political agendas governments around the world will virtually turn a blind eye to what occurs.

Aside from this like I said before, not every Muslim approves of this behaviour. I remember reading an interview with Queen Rania of Jordan who does not approve of any of these activities she is of course a Muslim. However, like I said before until governments speak out against it this activity will continue to occur.

I am in complete agreement with Crazy_Babe's post.
I hope nobody actually does think that ALL Muslims condone this kind of punishment, or that they are all misogynistic! I have Muslim friends from countries like Oman and the Maldives as well Sri Lanka who are feminists and are equally adored and indulged, be they male or female.

This is not about people being Islamic, it's about a social structure being allowed to become isolationist and reign unchallenged and unevaluated by outside influences. Like any system closed off from interacting with its environs, the societal practices of these cultures become warped and toxic to the very society it tries to preserve.

The first time I read this, I wondered what this girl's family must be feeling. Does her father feel that his daughter brought shame and dishonour upon the family, but still want to spare her the punishment? Or does his love for his little girl prevail over the judgement of his society? Does she have an elder brother who feels like he let his little sister down? Or does she have a small brother who doesn't understand why they are taking away his big sister? Do the dictums of society prevail over human attachment, or is human attachment dictated by the edicts of society?

In some parts of rural India, the birth of a girl is considered such a misfortune that they decorate the home in funeral colors and some fathers drown their little daughters at birth. In the infamous case of the Sathi Pooja, the widow must either hurl herself on her husband's funeral pyre willingly or be killed by her relatives for the shame of outliving her husband. I know that there are families in the East, educated and Westernized, who will not hesitate to disown and drive out a daughter who bears a child out of wedlock. The concept of family honour is the currency of security in these societies, where no man will marry the sister of a woman considered tainted, illegitimate children carry the stigma of their mothers' perceived promiscuity and scandal is the deadliest social sin known to man.

In short, what you're witnessing here are the evils of EXTREME collectivism. All major religions have always been born in and tailor-made for collectivist social structures - without the tampering influence of cultural revolutions brought on by contesting philosophies and movements, we end up with a tyrannical self-operating social system that takes into account the 'good of the many' and the happiness of none.

PS: Queen Rania of Jordan has been one of my feminist role models ever since I was fifteen. *is proud*

Actually she was sentenced to 90 lashes for this 'charge'. This was later increased to 200 by a court of appeal. Why? Because some appeal judges were ticked that she and her lawyer 'were using the media to support her claims that the first sentence was unjust'.



What I love about this kind of story is the twisted logic of the misogynists who make up these laws to protect their own control over the women in their societies. The rules against riding in a car with a man not their relative is to 'protect' women from just this kind of rape attack, they say. It's similar to an argument I once heard from a Saudi prince interviewed on TV in explaining why women in his country were not allowed to go out to work. Because if they worked in an office, say, then they might inflame their male colleagues who might rape them. So...safer all round to just make sure they stayed in their homes, yes? Nice and safe and...protected.

Of course, it would never occur to these men that the problem there - in both instances - are the men not the women. Why should the freedoms of the women be curtailed simply because some men can't control their libidos? If the men can't behave in a civilised manner in public when they encounter a woman - lock the men up. That seems a much more logical and just solution to their problem. It would only be logical to keep the women off the streets if it was them going around raping men.

But then expecting logic from misogyny - just as from any other form of irrational bias - is a bit of a non-starter really.

LabRat

I absolutely agree with you, Hasini. Personally I know the Bible relatively well, and I know its views on women very well, because I read it from cover to cover specifically to find out what it says about women. I can assure you that I didn't miss much.

And this much is certain - if we hadn't had the Renaissance, we might still be burning witches at the stake here in the West. Did you know that the Bible commands us(?) to kill witches? This is what Exodus says:

22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Also, according to Deuteronomy 22, a just-married young woman who is found not to have been a virgin on her wedding night shall be stoned to death:

20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.

Why don't we do these things to women in the West, even though we can read in the Bible that we are obliged to kill witches and young women who were not virgins when they were married? There are many reasons, but the main one is that in the West, the Bible is not the law. Renaissance demoted the Bible from being the law (explained by the Pope) into being something that was up for debate.

This, however, is an argument I can never buy:

I'm certainly not saying that sharia isn't trying to protect women. But I am saying that if it is trying to protect women by creating a system of apartheid of the sexes - which, by the way, will always mean that it is the women who get their freedom severely circumscribed - then we are not talking about protection, but about a system of more or less severe imprisonment of women. For their own good.

But I absolutely agree with you that Saudi Arabia is not a "typical" Muslim country at all. There are few Muslim countries that treat their women as badly as Saudi Arabia does - in fact I'm not sure that there is even one more Muslim country whose laws against women are as terrifying as the laws they have in Saudi Arabia. And of course, not every Saudi man or woman agrees with the laws of their country - but considering the kind of punishment you risk if you don't toe the line, it's no wonder that few or no people dare to protest.

Ann

I think this Iranian girl would disagree with you.



Edit:
some more about this case here

Oh, I know. I'm not saying that I myself didn't have a big problem with how the sharia went about doing it. But then, I am a liberalist and an individualist who subscribes to the Western cultural mind-set. For me, what's most important is a person's own freedom and happiness. But in half the cultures of the world, those things barely take priority. The objective of most collectivist cultures is the collective social security.

We can't judge whether their priorities are right or wrong from our own culturally-specified standpoint. We just can't. I think it's impossible for somebody from the West to imagine anyone whose primary objective isn't personal happiness. Yet, if you asked a Chinese or an average Indian "are you happy?", they wouldn't be quite sure what you meant. Happiness has always come such an unimportant second to social security and stability that personal gratification is equated with a destructive selfishness in these countries.

Is that wrong? How are we to tell? Collectivism is the glue that holds together societies who are either too poor to afford to subscribe to individualism, or are simply not conditioned for it. To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at my own home turf, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan society has always maintained a culture full of collectivist values and ethics. I should know. When I was growing up, I was never told, "Follow your dreams", "Stand up for your rights" or "Speak your mind". It was implied that wanting something for yourself at the expense of tradition was a sin that would bring ruin on my extended family. I was told how to be a good daughter, (take care of your parents, uphold the honour of the family, never let your parents do the housework if you can help it) a good wife, (always uphold your husband's honour, take care of his parents as though they were your own, never eat or sleep before your husband, be a good mother to his children) a good mother (raise your children to be a credit to their family, and so they may contribute to the good of society). The whole time we were in school, we never questioned the future that was laid out for us.

I honestly don't know how it happened (my mother says it was through watching too much American TV and hanging on the internet too long ) but one day, when my mother was going on one of her usual spiels ("If you stay so bone-lazy all the time your in-laws will get up and drive you out of the house one fine day. And how do you expect to live with a man if with that kind of temper?") I told her that if my husband found me too hot to handle, I'd just divorce him. My mother acted like I'd said something profane. She completely flipped out, saying that, dear gods, she'd raised a girl who'd become a forty-year-old divorcee with no prospects, who'd raise dogs instead of children. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have asked her what was wrong with that. (Actually, what I meant was what was wrong with raising dogs, but that didn't stop her from grounding me.)

I know that you, like me back then, would say that my mother was being stupid, and she should care more about my happiness and not what society wanted of me. But she really wasn't. In Sri Lanka, it's very difficult to make a distinction between conforming to what society expects of you and personal satisfaction. It's not only expected that one will follow the other; it's also true that they do. I am very lucky. I have a father who will accompany me all over the country on whatever job I choose to do, who would shell out the cash to send me to an overseas university if I didn't wanted a profession other than what I was offered here, who would help me migrate if I decided that I couldn't live in this kind of social clime. I am able practise my individualistic ideals because my parents will shell out the cash for me to do so. If I had been of a poorer family, or even had a more conservative father, my unconventional ideals could have ruined me and my family. I would have become a socially-stigmatized, divorced or unmarried woman (don't ask me about the dogs) growing old in her parents house (because it's simply not safe for a woman to live alone in SL) with an expensive, useless degree and a low-paying job, who would be unable to take care of her parents in their old age. And my family would have had to bear my existence as a burden on them, because the extended family is obligated to take care of ALL their members.

So you see, we honestly can't be smug about being liberal and individualist. We are only allowed to put personal happiness first because we are more privileged than we know.

I haven't read the article or the thread that carefully, but I did want to say, brilliant point, Hasini.

I'm always wary of the facile critique of different cultures precisely because of

Because it's so easy as someone within a Western thought system to live life taking Western principles as rigidly universalist--everyone should be "free" to pursue their own "happiness" yada yada yada, not noticing that "freedom" and "happiness" are not defined similarly in other cultures. This can all too easily become it's own brand of cultural chauvenism and lead to a simplistic view of societies different from our own.

Now I'm not saying that some deplorable behaviors should be condoned (as the argument against relativism goes), but that we should always be aware of the position where we speak from and understand how little we really know about systems outside of ours before we pass judgement on those that live under them.

If anyone cares, there is a ridiculously brilliant book about the relationship between women and Islam in a particular Islamic grassroots movement in Egypt. It's called, "Politics of Piety:
The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject" and it's by Saba Mahmood. One of the most wonderful parts of the book is a discussion of the liberal "repugnance" that blocks attempts to understand "socially conservative" movements by reducing them to just being backward and barbaric.

It's really hard to kick off that repugance Mahmood talks about, but it seems to me that the knee-jerk finger pointing in the media gets us nowhere. More harmfully, it adds more fuel to the fire of misunderstanding that runs rampagnt in Western views of non Western societies--especially with regards to the hot topic of "freedom."

alcyone

But then that earlier story was old, here\'s a more recent incident.

Sometimes "collectivism" can be used as a euphemism for sexism, I think. Since I'm fifty-two years old myself, I'm old enough to be able to see that Sweden has changed enormously since I was born in 1955. In the fifties and the early sixties, Sweden was very, very collectivist, too. But not in the same way as many other collectivist societies.

In the fifties and sixties - and also in the forties and much of the thirties - Swedes in general were loyal to the idea of Sweden as a collective home for the Swedish people. I can really say that the collective loyalty was a loyalty to the idea of doing your part to make Sweden an ideal home for its people. Therefore people's loyalty was not primarily to their family, or at the very least, not to their extended family. One's loyalty was to the larger society, and you proved that loyalty by doing your best to be a good member of this society. That entailed many responsibilities. For example, you should provide for yourself and not expect others to do it for you. On the other hand, you should be neighbourly and generally willing to help those less fortunate than yourself. And you should, of course, do so with a smile on your face.

Let me show you a few examples of what I mean:



This is a picture of Barbro Alving, one of Sweden's most beloved and respected reporters during the twentieth century. Born in 1909, she became a houshold name in 1936, when she reported from the civil war in Spain and from the Olympic Games in Nazi Germany.

Barbro Alving was a lesbian - not openly, of course! - who was deeply shocked to discover that Hitler and Nazi Germany wanted to kill all homosexuals. So in 1937, she tried to live like a heterosexual woman. She became pregnant. Although she really and truly liked the father of her child, and he liked her, too, marriage was out of the question. He was already married. So what should Barbro Alving do?

At first, she considered an abortion. That wouldn't have been easy to come by, but it would have been possible. But, faced with the stark choice, she couldn't face the idea of killing the life that was growing inside her. She also didn't want to keep herself hidden while she waited for the birth of her child, and then let somebody else adopt it.

There was only one thing to do. In 1938, Barbro Alving became Sweden's first officially unmarried mother. She was a sufficiently successful career woman that she could provide for herself and her child. She was able to buy a small but nice apartment for herself, her baby and a nanny. Then she kept working, writing many more articles, and, with the help of the nanny, raising her daughter at the same time.

This created a minor stir in Sweden in 1938, but there was never a scandal. Why? Because Barbro Alving's pregnancy and single motherhood didn't hurt anybody else. She was not being disloyal to the idea of Sweden as an ideal home for its people. Certainly children must be allowed to be born in such a country even if their parents aren't married? But certainly they must be raised well even if they don't officially have both a mother and a father? Barbro Alving made sure that her daughter was well provided for, and thereby she took care of her own mess, as it were. Why should anyone condemn her?

I want to say something more about the collectivism in Sweden. In the 1950s, this man was enormously influential in Sweden (unfortunately the picture is from 1970):



His name was Lennart Hyland. In the 1950s he was a radio host in Sweden, and I'm probably not exaggerating if I say that 70% of all Swedes listened every time he was on the air. Every Sunday he gave his listeners a task or a mission they had to perform. Once he told all men in Sweden to go to the nearest square or public meeting-place in their town and city and bring one of their favorite ties. When they came to the meeting-place, they had to give away their tie to another man who was waiting there. In return, they had to accept a tie from this other man. That Sunday 70% of all men in Sweden came home with a new, but used, tie.

(And of course... the man who had given away his tie to a man he met down at the square might not at all be able to get his own tie back if he managed to track the man he had given it to. Because that man might have given it away to yet another man, who in turn might have given it away to yet another one... Actually almost any man in Sweden might now be the owner of the first man's tie! I guess you could say that this "tie game" was almost a ritual of "tieing" all the men in Sweden together.)

On another occasion Lennart Hyland declared that all men in Sweden had to give their wives a day off. All married men were supposed to cook dinner for their wives and families. They had to go to the grocery store and buy the necessary ingredients, and then they had to come home and fix the food. It was going to be meat loaf. Lennart Hyland explained carefully how meat loaf was made, step by step. Of course the men also had to peel and boil the potatoes and cook the sauce. The men had to lay the table, serve the dinner, and finally wash up. And probably at least 50% of all men in Sweden did so on this special day.

Collectivism doesn't have to be about sexism, but often it is. This is Fadime Sahindal, a young Kurdish woman who had come to Sweden with her family:



In Sweden she fell in love with a Swedish man, who her parents couldn't accept. They threatened to kill her because she had shamed her family by seeing a man that they had not accepted. Fadime asked for and got some protection from Swedish police, but eventually she longed so much for her mother that she risked visiting her parents' home in Uppsala, Sweden. When she got there, her father killed her to avenge the shame that his daughter had brought upon his family's name.

Honour killings almost always happen because male members of a family feel dishonoured because they have not been able to fully control the sexuality of a female member of the same family: a daughter, a sister, a female cousin. This is what it is always about: Men's right to control the sexuality of any female who belongs to their family. It is an incredibly, incredibly sexist system.

The idea that men have the right to control women is found in almost every society all over the world. In some cases this right is so absolute that men are considered obliged to kill, rape or torture women who won't let themselves be controlled. In other societies men are officially forbidden to use force or violence to punish or control women, but the supremacy of the men is there anyway.

Where does this universal sexism come from? In my opinion, it stems from the fact that men are physically stronger than women. Imagine that you were to line up all the men of a society on one side, and all the women of the same society on the other side. Now ask the two sides to fight. Who will win? The way I see it, the men will always win, because they can physically dominate the women.

The fact that men really can control women if they co-operate is important. It means that men have something to gain if they stick together: they gain supremacy over their own women. In a sexist society, a woman will not only be punished by her own husband if she disobeys him. She will be punished by the rest of society too, by all the other men in this society. Because all these men stand to lose something if they allow even one woman to get away with being disobedient. Who knows if their own wives will obey these men if they allow just one recalcitrant woman in this society to get away with being disobedient and disrespectful?

No, Hasini. I would never say that a mother who teaches her children to obey and respect the rules and mores of a society is being stupid. Sometimes, indeed, the price of not obeying is too awful to consider. What mother wants her child to be ostracized? Or, in extreme cases, jailed, executed, honour-killed or given two hundred lashes?

Trying to teach your children the kind of behavior that gives them the best chances to succeed in a society is not stupid. But that doesn't mean we all have to like the rules that shape the lives of people in that society.

Ann

And TEEEEEJ, I've certainly never said that you don't run the risk of being horribly punished if you are a woman in Iran. My point was just that women in general are given much more respect in Iran than in Saudi Arabia. About ten years ago Swedish television showed some Iranian films. I saw only one of them, which was about an Iranian family in an Iranian town. I was astounded to see how prominently the women figured in the film. They were shown in the film as if they were interesting and as if their lives mattered - one of them was a doctor, for example. I can't imagine a Saudi film treating Saudi women with that much interest and respect.

My general impression is that, despite the fact that their lives are certainly circumscribed and that they do risk horrible punishment if they break the sharia law of Iran, women in Iran are nevertheless treated as people, as human beings. I'm not too sure that that is very often the case in Saudi Arabia. After all, that woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia and had written a book about it described Saudi women as human pets.

Ann

LOL! You're joking right? Hanging...jail time...for speaking their minds??? No really, I believe that 16 year old didn't get any human respect at all. Did you read the article? She was lifted off the ground by a crane. Not even the mercy of a quick broken neck. Just having her windpipe squeezed until her eyeballs hemoraged and her bowels released. Yeah, she was treated humanely.... :rolleyes:

I'd bet she'd much rather be living in the United States where some others just take their hard won freedom for granted and are so willing to dump on the nation that gives them that right...but then she doesn't have a choice since she's dead from a slow strangling torture.

Ann, regarding your post about the nature of collectivism in Sweden: it occurs to me that what you're describing is not exactly collectivism. Yes, the core concepts are collectivist, but their practice seems to have been carried out in a very open-minded fashion.

This was what really gave it away:
If the people of Sweden actually thought this way, then the society you describe is more liberal than you give it credit for. There is no such thing as "none of our business" in the machinations of a collectivist system.

Collectivism is all about making each member of society conform rigidly to a set pattern of thought and behaviour. It's not just about saying, "these are our mutual goals, we must strive towards them". It's about saying, "these are our goals and this is HOW we must strive towards them, and these are the only ways we must strive towards them and anyone who tries to break these patterns will be seen as immediate or potential threats to the system and shall be eliminated". If Babro Alving had really lived in a collectivist society, her unmarried status would have been said to incite promiscuity in other women and her very success as a single mother would have guaranteed persecution by proponents of the traditional family module.

So no, you can't quite hold up Sweden on the mid-1900s as being representative of pure collectivism. The reason Barbro Alving was able to live her life the way she chose in the midst of a collectivist atmosphere was that her society's ideology was also tempered by a measure of liberalism.

That's the point I was trying to make earlier - that the best social models always lie between liberal individualism and conservative collectivism.

Well done, Sweden!

:rolleyes:

Also one other (related) point to pointlessly ramble about:

Was Sweden ever in a position where it was threatened by imperialism? I'm not a specialist in the history of the Middle East, but I do know that generally the non West's highly sexist nationalism tends to have a lot to do with the threat of Western imperialism (and I don't mean explicit colonization here, but the institution of policies, etc that mark off what is West and non West).

No doubt Saudi Arabia has been in a priviledged position with regards to its financial advantages. I wonder though, if the influx of Western culture that success brought has generated anxiety that expresses itself in a rampagnt sexist nationalism that imagines itself to be "pure" by being cemented in "traditional" religious beliefs. This is just a hazy thought here, but it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.

With this in mind, it seems to me that comparing Swedish society and Saudi Arabian society is a bit like comparing apples and oranges even under the generic banner of collectivism.

And again, I feel the need to disclaim that I'm in no way saying that it's okay for these terrible things to happen to women (or anyone in any minoritarian group). But it's incredibly important (in my opinion anyway) to try to understand _why_ something is happening and we can't escape that there are particular histories and entirely different world views involved.

If we disregard that, we can fall into the trap of repeating paternalistic attitudes that reduce others to children that need to be "saved" and be taken care of.

alcyone

Wel, Alcyone, I do get the impression that these women (or the 16-year-old girl that was hanged) need to be saved and taken care of. But *not* the way the men in their countries are doing it.

Well, of course what they're doing is atrocious, Mellie. And we do need to find a way to help them. But as alcyone says, we can't appoint ourselves judge, jury and executioners of entire cultures and communities. Judging their social mores and customs without fully understanding how and why they came to be, finding them wanting against our own so-called universalist ideology and trying to readjust their way of life to fit ours would negate an entire history's worth of post-colonial moral and socio-economic lessons. We can't allow ourselves to become cultural imperialists, even for a good cause, because that would be a) racist and b) bring us down to the level of those very cultural extremists that we try to protect these people from.

Hasini explained what I meant. One of my favorite thinkers calls it the "white men saving brown women from brown men" syndrome. Like the protests that American women have held against the veil, not knowing the diverse meanings that the veil can have and which can cross into making those women who choose to wear them feel unwelcome.

Clearly this is a different situation, but to me, it boils down to the fact that measures imposed from the outside never work. You can't come to these places as an outsider with a gun and say "You can't do this to your women." That will only make a bad situation worse--especially for these women. You can't stay there and impose this on them forever. What will happen to these women once you leave? My guess is that it will be much worse than this.

alcyone