Tracking Saudi Women

When I saw the news about how Saudi Arabia now sends text messages to the “male guardians” of women when they cross the border, I was very sure that Slashdot would have a fun trail on it…I could almost imagine the comments below it. And sure enough, there was. Now since the countries who pretend to care about human rights, the feminists who should care (by definition), and the secular folks whose tongues get tied when any evil is driven by religious edicts will, as expect, respond to such news with a deafening silence, we might as well laugh at it. After all, isn’t humour supposed the best medicine?

The ball was set rolling with this comment/comparison:

“When South Africa did this (to black people, rather than women), under Apartheid, the civilised world rightly condemned it, and imposed trade sanctions.”

Which prompted the Steven Weinberg’ian response (he was the guy who said, “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”):

“Won't happen, and remember this is in accordance with sharia law too. Which is supposed to elevate women above western standards, or so flappy headed groups keep telling us.”

Of course, the biggest reason for the pin drop silence is the “o” word:

“It's about oil, "stability in the middle east" (ie oil), an "ally to the west" (ie oil).”

Someone pointed out there is also the political correctness angle here:

“See Apartheid was done by white people against black people. Political Correctness says it's okay to be against that. Matter of fact it's mandatory. But sharia law is implemented by "brown people" against other "brown people" and comes from a non-Western mostly non-white religion. So Political Correctness says that anyone opposing it must be a racist. Political Correctness does not allow for a principled stand against anything. It is strictly based on group identity.”

One guy chose to take a philosophical, karma-will-get-you stance:

“As long as you treat half of your society like cattle, you are never going to have a happy, prosperous, or just culture. Yes, I know: "honor," "dignity." Well why don't you let your women take care of that for themselves on their own. The Chinese, the Indians, the Americans, the Europeans, they will advance. And you will fester. Because of your poor choices.”

To me, however, this was the comment that best summed it up:

“Too bad hell is a fictitious place, these people really deserve it.”