Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir Foreign Minister Compares Saudi Arabia to America
Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir Foreign Minister Compares Saudi Arabia to America - Let's Break This Down
Adel Al-Jubeir, compared Saudi Arabia to America in a statement (transcript below). He said, “It took 100 years before women were given the right to vote. It took another 100 years before a woman was elected Speaker of the House. I’m not saying give us 200 years. I’m just saying be patient.”
First off, the comparison between Saudi Arabia and America is like comparing apples to lemons. The people formed America for the people and by the people. Saudi Arabia was formed by a religious fanatic (Ibn Abdul Wahhab) and a warlord (King Abdulaziz Al-Saud) not for its people but for the wealth, prosperity, and control of one family, not the people considered below them. Your average everyday citizen has no say, no free speech, and no right to a fair trial if they speak against the current regime in power. In America, even the president is not off limits to criticism, which is not the case in Saudi Arabia and will never be the case as long as the Al-Sauds are in power. The American people have the right to remove a president from office if he is not serving the needs of the people. The people of Saudi Arabia have the right to go to prison and be tortured for even thinking of removing the Saudi Regime from power.
Adel Al-Jubeir adds, “I’m not saying give us 200 years. I’m just saying be patient.”
Be patient
is the best lie ever used by the Saudi Regime. It doesn't mean give me time to investigate the matter. It doesn't mean give me time to figure out how to put your request into effect. It means to remain silent until I can send guards to arrest you and all those who are with you quietly so you can be silenced. This is what happened to the more than 14,000 Saudi women who signed a petition advocating for an end to the country's male guardianship laws. They were told to
be patient
and
give us time. Then, suddenly, the ring leaders were locked up, tortured, imprisoned, and silenced.
In the end Male guardianship only got rebranded due to the bad press surrounding the term. Now, it is called the Personal Status Law, making it easier for the Western media to digest and with the added edge that Princess Reema can now go and honestly say “Male Guardianship has ended,” but it was only the wording/the name that ended. The rules that restrict and require every woman to have a male guardian are still very much alive and well. Despicable.
He went on to say “Things take time. Now, you hope that in the modern world, with technology and with communications, this process is accelerated.
But it takes time. And we must acknowledge this and accept this. We can’t expect to
rush things
overnight otherwise, we wouldn’t be who we are.”
Things take time. This is how they delay, but when push came to shove, the women who have been asking and driving out in direct opposition to the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia were almost overnight granted the right to drive while the women who drove out before the law was passed are either still in prison or under a travel ban along with their families. Not because they drove cars but because they dared oppose a regime that feared what would happen if they were not seen to have absolute phenomenal cosmic power.
I understand that Adel Al-Jubeir, like all members of MBS’s court, is only a parrot repeating what he is told to say, but they need a better comparison and a better speech writer.
The time for patience is at an end. The time for giving the regime time is at an end. They should immediately bend to the will of the people and become a democracy, of the people, by the people, and for the people. The people’s welfare should come before all of MBS’s shiny erections in his honor. Before giant stadiums, and tourist resorts. There should be proper infrastructure for the people. There should be an end to arbitrary arrests, arbitrary detention, torture, and displacement of tribes from their land for no reason other than the regime desired that land. Everyone’s rights need to be protected.
This regime has proven, generation after generation, that they are not protecting those rights. Instead they abuse every law available to further their financial gain and prosperity, while their people suffer. Women should be given equal rights, and male guardianship must end today and not tomorrow.
Mohammed bin Salman, your time to prove you are a reformer is at an end. You have shown your colors. You worry that there will come an activist who will incite others to do the same, so you lock us up one by one. I’m here to tell you, for every one of us you lock up, torture, and arbitrary sentence, ten more will take their place.
It’s not coming; it’s already here.
To read the interview transcript in full here is the
PDF
(In case they decide after the publishing of this article to take it off their website or alter it) from the Saudi Embassy Website.
Elise Evans Martin
Proud Dissident of Saudi Arabia | Female Women's Rights Activist | Author | Speaker & Executive Director of HRM (Human Rights Matter)
