Burq’a Defied: What is in a Face. War: Are We There Yet?
“Saudi writer Haleema Mudhaffar: 'my family understands my decision to expose my face'….She talked about the fire at the Aljouf Literary Club….saying that she was not threatened personally, but that she got emails full of filthy and ugly claims…..”
Which revived an ols curiosity of mine. I went through several major Saudi daily newspapers: Okaz, al-Riyadh, al-Watan, al-Jazirah). I wanted to see women, preferably but not necessarily of the Saudi denomination.
Of the four major ones, only two had pictures of a woman, any woman. One had pictures of a woman wearing a burq’a, so it could have been a guy. Another had not a single picture of any woman. It probably did have some females: there was a photo of a herd of cattle on a field, and I assumed most were cows. Not sure though. Another one had one picture of a woman with an uncovered face; she was a Uighur (Uyghur Chinese Muslim) activist.
Oddly I could not see a single photo of the most famous woman in the world, Hillary Clinton! Not in the most recent issues.
In comparison, the two Saudi dailies that are published from London (Asharq alawsat and al-Hayat) have plenty of women in them. So do the web sites of Saudi television networks that broadcast from outside the country. In fairness they also rarely carry photos of Hillary; they mostly go for fetchingly-clad Lebanese starlets, and some stars. (There may be other types of Lebanese starlets, the non-fetchingly-dressed, but I haven’t met any.)
It is not the chosen policy of these newspapers not to publish photos of women; they are following some unspoken edict or rule.
“Has the time come for an Israeli attack?....” Some of the natives are getting restless for an Israeli attack against the ruling mullahs and the people of Iran. Where is John Bolton when he is needed?Cheers
mhg
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