These guardians control when and how women travel, work, and receive health care and education. King Abdullah slowly expand ed women's rights. Saudi Arabia is becoming a modern, industrialize d nation and about 18 percent of Saudi women work outside the home, mostly in urban areas. Norah al-Faiz, Saudi Arabia's first female member of the Council of Minister s, represents the interests of women's education.
In , King Abdullah made the monumental decree that women would be allowed to vote and run for office in the next election s, scheduled for It began in August with a sympathetic ear to liberal demands for an acceleration of political reforms. After the pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world in , however, he abruptly changed course to stifle all debate and dissent within the kingdom. At the time of his death, university-educated Saudi women were still forbidden to drive cars.
Elections for a consultative Shura Council, common in other Arab Gulf monarchies, had yet even to be mooted. At the same time, his government was carrying out a major crackdown to silence political and human rights advocates demanding these and other reforms. Another paradox was his promotion of inter-faith dialogue.
Abdullah at once detested the Arab Spring and used its uprisings to get even with his enemies. The king then rallied the Arab League to launch a campaign to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, calling openly for arming the Free Syrian Army to achieve this goal. Despite these paradoxes, history may well assess Abdullah to have been the most popular and politically astute of the five sons of King Abdulaziz to have ruled the kingdom since his death in He was also an acknowledged major international figure.
Click here to read the full article. Yet they have diverse goals and different constituencies. Sometimes they are even rivals. And he told me in words that were crystal clear that he eventually planned to change the order of royal succession and restore his eldest son to the role of future king.
I was numb. My heart raced. When Hussein ultimately changed the line of royal succession just two weeks before his death, there were those in Amman who claimed this was a mercurial decision influenced by the heavy dose of medication he was taking for the pain of his advanced cancer.
From my own conversation with Hussein nearly three years before his death, I knew these rumors were wrong—they were wrong when Hussein died in and they remained wrong two decades later.
The first to know should be Abdullah himself, so I looked for an opportunity to tell the king what his father had told me. My chance came last November. Just before escorting Abdullah into a New York ballroom, I was fortunate to have nearly thirty minutes alone in a small hotel sitting room with him, his wife Queen Rania, and their eldest son, Crown Prince Hussein.
With no courtiers or photographers present, it was just the four of us, on modest wooden chairs, sitting close to each other, our knees almost touching. Indeed, never once in our conversations did Hussein utter a critical word about Hassan; to the contrary, any reference to Hassan was animated with big brotherly affection.
It is a story of kings and commoners alike; it is a story as old as time itself. It is the story of a father and his son. Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute. This article was originally published on the American Interest website.
Apr 18, Also available in Arabic. About the Authors. Robert Satloff. American Interest. To top.
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