Saudi Arabian Audacity

One of the more amusing aspects of the escalating Cold War between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that impertinence, sheer audacity, of vulgar Saudi propaganda. The Saudi newspapers propaganda sheets are already egregious in their promotion of Wahhabi fanaticism along with fabrications and glorification of the royals. This is a nation where headlines express the so-called humility of the king by noting his unwillingness to be proclaimed "King of Humanity". Is that not generous of him?

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But now they've decided to package chutzpah. Even before the fall of the Tunisian regime, columnists in Saudi rags were expressing concern that the fear barrier may be starting to break. Lamenting that Arabs may no longer be subdued to their regimes. The earlier rays of the Arab Spring were already something to be feared by the royals. After their hopes of bloody crackdowns were dashed in Egypt and Tunisia, House of Saud scribes resorted to erecting a false barrier between Arab republics and monarchs and positing that only Arabs in republics are oppressed and that those living under kings and emirs are well-served by their leaders so revolt is unwarranted in the kingdom. And just in case the Saudi people did not appreciate their own alleged betterment the Saudi royals sought to impress the point further by threatening the cutting off of fingers of any demonstrators. If that isn't an enlightened rule?!

And that's the rub. It's that Saudi Arabia is not only a dictatorship, but the most oppressive one in the region and perhaps the world. Saudis live suffocating lives between the brutal rule of the royals and the obscurantist fundamentalist diktats of the Wahhabi clerical establishment that leaves little room for any person liberty. The Saudis do not even bother with sham elections and rubber-stamp parliaments, but the royals have monopolized power without ever allowing for the establishment of even theoretical democratic institutions. Ben Ali and Mubarak both established the vestiges of democracy, but the House of Saud did not even allow for an election until 2005, and even though women could neither run nor vote and they were purely municipal elections where half the seats were appointed to council strictly defined as "consultative" and not legislative and lacking any real power at all.

Beyond the fact that Saudis have no institutions to even ponder what democracy would look like, women's rights are severely curtailed to the point of prohibiting women from voting. The kingdom is bereft of cinemas and other "innovations" deemed sinful by the clerical kooks.

In addition, is the extreme intolerance of an ideology whose core is based on antisemitism, anti-Christian and anti-anything non-Sunni Muslim Orthodox (including other Muslims).

So what's the audaciousness, beyond the Medieval horrors? Is that the trash media of Saudi Arabia is now having the nerve to highlight and condemn Iranian human rights violations. Of course, Iran's regime is oppressive and deserves to be condemned, but Saudi Arabia is way worse. Iran does not adhere to strict segregation of sexes and allows women to vote and drive, and does not mandate that women seek husbandry permission before travel unlike Saudi Arabia. Iran, until recently, did practice a form of encumbered democracy with relative free and fair elections and a legislative process. And Iran allows for, albeit second-class, non-Muslim worship where churches and synagogues exist as opposed to Saudi Arabia which expressly prohibits any non-Muslim public displays.

As horrific as the ayatollahs are the Saudis are far, far worse. And the Saudi Arabia feigns liberal outrage at Iran while defending the most cruel nation on earth, the Kingdom of Horrors.

Quelle Chutzpah!