"What! He's building a university that will let women drive?"
Yeah, dude. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is investing $10 billion and two years into a revolutionary, coeducational graduate school built under the massive oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco. He feels that the Arab world is slipping behind the West in terms of intellectual achievements and indirectly attributes the slacking to the fervent religiosity of the region, which tends to prevent collaboration and research into controversial sciences, such as evolution and genetics.
The university is planned to be sectioned off from the nation's police, who enforce Muslim mandates, and it's the only place in the country that will allow women to drive and openly socialize with males. (Israelis, however, are barred entry into Saudi Arabia as a whole and cannot enroll in the school regardless of their sex.)
If the political turmoil that King Abdullah predicts unfolds and threatens the university, I think America should get involved. If our goal for the millenium's early years is to democratize and liberate, this is a prime opportunity. The "king has conceived of the new university as a liberalizing counterweight" to the medieval social mores of the region, and its success may determine the immediate success of Arab women's gradual advancements.
I'm gonna summarize my article with a poem.
Oh King Abdullah, King Abdullah,
Build your school upon the sand
You've invested so much moolah
To construct intelligence within your land
So wall it off, wall it off,
Barricade it from vehement cops
Who look at evolution and Muslimly scoff
Because we're wrong, and Allah's tops
Let women drive, women drive,
And maybe the rest of Arabia will follow suit
Sink or support, the King made the dive
And we don't want reversion to roots
Help them move on, them move on,
Maybe democracy's going strong
So send in the aid with a marching band
To assist the school upon the sand!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/middleeast/26saudi.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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3 comments:
You should become a political poet!
Well, I'm always in favor of progressive education, and I guess it issss his country so he can do what he wants. At least someone is getting educated and I don't live there so I can't really complain. Hopefully this shows that American Democracy is having a positive effect on the world around us :)
I disagree with your comment that the United States should get involved in the the protection and flourish of the university of turmoil begins to break out. How much are we going to continue babying other countries? They need to start to learn how to reasonably slove problems on their own or else they will never survive. We do not need to waste more of our valuable time, money and effort on another country's corrupted moral society.
Hope I contributed as good commentary as you nicely did on my blog.
your poem reminded me of your raps last year in APBIO!
anyway i didn't know that women couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia, thats crazy. I think its really good that Saudi Arabia wants to open educational opportunites to more women. This is much deserved. However, I don't think that the US should intervene in the case of any political turmoil. The US definately needs to focus on problems AT HOME we already have enough trouble from intervening in Iraq. Lets not make it worse.
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