Osomir
VIP Member
Since no one else seems interested in presenting them (the truth doesn't matter when it comes to covering Saudi Arabia, for some reason), here are some actual facts about this story and what they mean:
In other words, an American first lady went to a Muslim country and followed completely normal protocol by going unveiled. There was very little reaction within that country, and no reaction among her hosts.
Source:
Americans care way more than Saudis about whether Michelle Obama wears a veil - Vox
This is such a silly controversy. I'm embarrassed for our country that it is even considered newsworthy let alone fuss worthy. In general, we tend to relay FAR too heavily on false outrage in order to attempt to score internal political points.
- American officials in Saudi Arabia typically do not wear headscarves, including at formal government functions. Michelle was following normal protocol.
- Former first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton did not wear headscarves on similar official visits to Saudi Arabia. Neither did former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
- Saudi Arabia is officially ultra-conservative, but it is also heavily integrated into the global economy; unveiled Western women are extremely common in elite government circles like this one. Unveiled female Western leaders are common sites on Saudi media.
- I feel very confident that no one at the funeral blinked at seeing Michelle Obama unveiled. Saudi royals are comfortable with the West and with Western customs; many spend long parts of the year in Europe and a number were educated in American boarding schools or colleges. They are accustomed to seeing unveiled women, and to working and interacting with powerful women.
- Despite reports of a Saudi social media backlash against the first lady for going unveiled, tweets complaining about her appearance appear to have been quite limited. As the Wall Street Journal's Ahmed Al Omran put it, "Saudi has millions of Twitter users. When a few hundred of them talk about something, that's not a backlash. It's hardly a flicker."
- It is true that there is a powerful ultra-conservative clerical establishment in Saudi Arabia, and that ultra-conservatism has a real constituency there. But it is easy to overstate the popularity of this movement and its causes. In any case, people are aware that Western women don't wear veils.
- The American media's assumption that Saudis are all cavemen whose faces would melt on seeing an unveiled woman is not just overly simplistic, but is rooted in racist assumptions about Arabs and Muslims as inherently and universally backwards. Unsurprisingly, many in the US have seized on this to perpetuate Islamophobic fearmongering about Muslims, such as when US Senator Ted Cruz tweeted, "Kudos to @FLOTUS for standing up for women & refusing to wear Sharia-mandated head-scarf in Saudi Arabia."
- Further, the glee with which the American media praises any supposed defiance of Arab or Muslim social norms should be unnerving. In this story, as with past stories such as the American praise of Emirati fighter pilot Maryam al-Mansouri, even stories ostensibly about empowering Arab women end up emphasizing the degree to which that empowerment matters because it humiliates Arab men, in this case Saudi monarchs.
- Consider how this story would have gone if Michelle Obama had worn a veil. As Nidal Diaz, an Ottawa-based analyst, pointed out on the Facebook wall of a Middle East-based journalist who had posted about the controversy, the first lady "was in fact standing in front of the world, and any analysis should take this into consideration." Diaz continued:
In other words, an American first lady went to a Muslim country and followed completely normal protocol by going unveiled. There was very little reaction within that country, and no reaction among her hosts.
Source:
Americans care way more than Saudis about whether Michelle Obama wears a veil - Vox
This is such a silly controversy. I'm embarrassed for our country that it is even considered newsworthy let alone fuss worthy. In general, we tend to relay FAR too heavily on false outrage in order to attempt to score internal political points.