FOLLOWING the news of the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Adbulaziz Al Saud, US Secretary of State, John Jerry took to twitter with the message, “King Abdullah was a man of wisdom and vision.
“US has lost a friend and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Middle-East and the world has lost a revered leader.”
British Prime Minister also joined into the ruckus praising King Abdullah for his ‘commitment to peace’ and requested that the nation’s flags on public buildings be flown at half mast.
John McCain lauded King Abdullah saying he was a ‘vocal advocate for peace’ despite a Wikileaks report exposing his desire for America to launch attacks on Iran.
Saudi Arabia stones, flogs and beheads its citizens with impunity.
The State persecutes Christians, Shia Muslims and discriminates against women.
The world watched with wonder and contempt as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to France, Mohammed Ismail Al-Sheikh, proclaimed ‘Je suis Charlie’ just days after a Saudi blogger, Raif Badawi, was flogged in a public square for ‘insulting Islam’.
The same offense committed by the murdered French cartoonists with whom he was expressing solidarity.
Badawi received 50 lashes that week and these are the first in a batch of 1 000 he is to be inflicted over a period of 20 weeks.
This little interesting piece of new, of course did not get any prominence from the major news networks because it would ruffle the feathers of the Saudis and Western leaders know who butters their bread.
When Barack Obama said that Syrian President Assad should step down and “allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately,” the comment brought near unanimous international approval.
It seems hypocritical that would he not say the same to Saudi Arabia, a country that prohibits freedom of expression, protests and democracy.
This type of double standards clearly pertains to the ‘closeness and strength’ of the oil and arms that are imported and exported between the West and Saudi Arabia, as well as the counter terrorism unit they share.
The fact that Western powers are able to blur their morality in order to supplement commerce and business, should they have the right to preach on the nature of other authoritarian states if they reap no benefits from them?
America and Britain have a tendency to proclaim their affinity to ethical humanitarianism, condemning autocratic states for their lack of civil rights and use of capital punishment, at every global platform.
Yet Cameron and Obama were on the first plane to Riyadh to partake in the mourning of a nation that beheads roughly two people a week.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where beheadings are a legal form of punishment.
Lest we forget, women are prohibited at law from driving in Saudi Arabia, the only country to have such a ridiculous law.
In 1990, a total of 47 Saudi women drove cars through the streets of Riyadh in protest. All the women drivers and their husbands were barred from foreign travel for a year.
Those women who had government jobs were fired and were denounced as ‘immoral women’.
Even Saddam Hussein was not that crazy, and yet he was labelled a threat to global peace and security.
In February this year, British defence firm, BAE agreed a deal to supply the Saudis with 72 Typhoon fighter jets, worth £4,4 billion (just over US$7 billion).
The deal was agreed around the same time as Prince Charles paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia, where he is a frequent visitor.
When asked, the prince’s office denied any connection between the BAE deal and his visit to the country.
Saudi Arabia has been a very lucrative market for British arms firms over the years.
British author Nicholas Gilby, in his book Deception In High Places, traces the covert deals and ‘commissions’ which have punctuated the murky relationship between the Saudi government and British arms firms and their representatives, among them members of the British government and royal family.
Gilby claims that various Saudi princes received tens of millions of pounds in these so-called ‘commissions’ as a reward for granting arms contracts to British firms.
Between 1989 and 2002 the Saudis received over £60 million in gifts and cash from BAE, the writer reveals.
This is corruption on a grand scale.
The very fact that Britain, the US, and every other Western government cosies up to the Saudis in the full knowledge of the living hell in which many of its citizens are forced to endure, is nothing short of scandalous.
That they do so while lecturing the rest of the world about democracy and human rights merely adds an extra layer of hypocrisy to the equation.
Women in Saudi Arabia, along with minorities regardless of gender, are regarded as chattel, with little if any rights that most would consider compatible with a civilised society.
It is a medieval system.
This is best exemplified by the treatment the Saudi’s gave Michelle Obama, when she accompanied her husband to Riyadh.
Wearing pants and her head uncovered, Mrs Obama stood dutifully beside her husband as he shook hands with the Saudi delegation on the airport tarmac this morning and again at Erga Palace on the outskirts of Riyadh.
At times she reached out to shake an occasional hand, but mostly she stood back and offered just a smile.
According to reporters travelling with the president, the first lady purposely stood slightly behind her husband and waited for a gesture to be made to her by the men in the receiving line.
If one of the men initiated a handshake she returned, if not then she simply smiled or nodded politely.
For a woman who epitomises being a partner to her husband, Michelle got a taste of what it feels like to be a woman in Saudi Arabia, seen, but not heard from and at the mercy of men.
In 2004, the United Nations Committee Against Torture criticised Saudi Arabia over amputation and floggings it carries under Sharia.
Amputations of hands and feet are for robbery and flogging for lesser crimes such as ‘sexual deviance’ and drunkenness.
Women are sentenced to lashes for ‘adultery’ when they are actually victims of rape.
The number of lashes is not prescribed by law and is according to the discretion of judges.
So much for Saudi Arabia being a progressive country.