Gender Apartheid and Janadriya

Held earlier this month, Janadriya epitomizes the contradictions of Saudi Arabia – the face it wants others to see, and the faces it –literally – hides.

Called a “jamboree of cultural affirmation”, and a festival “showcasing Saudi Arabia’s culture and traditions and highlighting its solid Islamic principles”, Janadriya is a grand celebration of Bedouin culture that features everything from camel races, musical performances and displays of native crafts to a sword dance featuring King Abdullah.

According to event organizer, Ahman Al Shalan, “The theme and principle is that we all live in one country.”

He goes on to say, “We need to send a message to our new generation to let them know about the heritage and culture of our fathers and grandfathers, to keep in mind that whatever comes from the West we have always to stick with our culture.”

The message is, apparently, that the western ideals of freedom and feminism have no place in Saudi - or Bedouin - culture. Never had. Never will.

You see, Saudi women were prevented from fully participating in or attending much of the Janadriya again this year. Technically they had the chance to visit and participate in the festival during three special women-only days, but in essence, the two-week event was only open to all men, all children and western women.

Yep, western women could attend at any time, but Saudi women – the women who “live in one country” – were once again taken out of the picture.

According to most reports, the event was widely attended, with folks coming in from throughout the Gulf Region as well as America and Europe. Among the visitors were, as Prince Miteb noted “a large number of internationally-known political, cultural and intellectual personalities”.

As a look into what many call a closed Kingdom, Janadriya gave people a chance to see the “real” Saudi of tents and teapots, but also -as Ali al-Ahmad writes in the Guardian - Saudi Arabia's system of gender apartheid, (a term also used by Phyllis Chesler, btw).

“The fracturing of relationships between the sexes in Saudi Arabia is one of the cruelest examples of apartheid since racial discrimination was officially abolished in South Africa,” says Al-Ahmad. “Saudi women have lost the rights guaranteed to them under the religion of Islam and are now being relegated such a small societal and family role that the situation is becoming desperate.”

I’ll be honest, when I first started hearing the term “gender apartheid” in reference to Saudi, I was some put off. I’d only really heard the term used in connection to races, and had images of the night I spent back in Minnesota listening to Desmond Tutu talking about his experiences – and fight – in apartheid South Africa. Sure women in Saudi are isolated, but can it be called apartheid?

The dictionary, of course, doesn’t make the distinction as to who is being isolated, calling apartheid simply, “A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups”, and in that sense, Saudi Arabia surely does practice gender apartheid on the grandest of scales.

And so I think, Al-Ahmad makes a valid point – and one that’s started to take root in my mind – when he wonders why racial apartheid in South Africa was met with outrage while gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia is met with a blank stare.

“American companies and investment banks pulled business and resources out [of South Africa] until the apartheid was officially ended and race discrimination was no longer practiced. Should gender discrimination be considered any less appalling than racial discrimination?

I'm sure there will be some who say that isolating women in Saudi Arabia is not apartheid, but rather a choice, a sacrifice freely made by congnizant individuals wanting nothing more than to follow cultural dogma or religious standards. And, in their minds, that may well be true. But what if it's not? What if the veiled faces of Saudi women is really the face of gender apartheid?

And what if the rest of the world just sits back and lets it happen?