Arab women are demanding their rights - at last

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 522.

Their time has come

Express your attitude to the problems described in the artlicle.

Sum up the article making use of the words you have singled out.

Read the following article, single out words which are unfamiliar, try to guess their meaning and translation from the context. After that look the words up to see whether you were right, and compose sentences with them.

EVEN the Saudis - or rather, the small number of men who actually rule their troubled country - are giving ground in the struggle for women's rights. For sure, the recommendations handed this week to Crown Prince Abdullah at the end of an unprecedented round of "national dialogue" concentrating on the role of women were fairly tame. In the re­formers-versus-reactionaries litmus test of whether women should be allowed to drive cars (at present they cannot do so in the kingdom, nor can they travel unaccompanied, by what­ever means of motion), the king was merely asked to "assign a body to study a public-transport system for women to facili­tate mobility". No mention, of course, of the right to vote - but then that has been denied to men too, though local elections, on an apparently universal franchise, are supposed to be held in October. In sum, it is a tortoise's progress. But the very fact of the debate happening at all is remarkable - and hopeful.

It is not just in Saudi Arabia that more rights for women are being demanded but across the whole of the Arab and Mus­lim world. The pushy Americans have made women's rights part of their appeal for greater democracy in what they now officially call the "Broader Middle East", to include non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran, Turkey and even Afghanistan. Many Arabs have cautioned the Americans against seeking to impose their own values on societies with such different tradi­tions and beliefs. Many leading Muslims have accused the cul­turally imperious Americans of seeking to destroy Islam. The appeal for more democracy in the Muslim world issued by leaders of the eight biggest industrial countries was watered down for fear of giving offence. Yet, despite the Arabs' prickli­ness, the Americans have helped pep up a debate that is now bubbling fiercely in the Arab world, even though many Arab leaders, none of whom is directly elected by the people, are understandably wary of reforms that could lead to their own toppling. Never before have women's rights in the Arab world been so vigorously debated. That alone is cause to rejoice.