Saudi Women Respond to Exclusion from Voting: Baladi Campaign [My Country Campaign]

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May 16, 2011 Saudi Arabia
[\"Equality.\" Image taken from www.alwatan.com.sa] [\"Equality.\" Image taken from www.alwatan.com.sa]

Saudi Women Respond to Exclusion from Voting: Baladi Campaign [My Country Campaign]

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The Baladi Campaign was launched by a group of women activists from across Saudi Arabia after the Saudi government announced in March that it would deny women their right to political participation in the upcoming September 2011 elections. The government justified its ban on female voters on the same premise used to prevent them from voting in the 2005 elections: lack of institutional preparedness. Several Saudi women have recently challenged this ban by showing up at voter registration offices in different Saudi cities demanding voter identification cards. To my knowledge, only two women were able to register their names, both in Khobar in the Eastern Province.  All others were denied. To date, two women have successfully filed claims to the Board of Grievances in an attempt to fight the ban on women participating in and running for elections. The following campaign statement originally appeared in Arabic on the group’s Facebook page, and the below English translation is provided by Khuloud.  You can access the group’s website here.]

We are a patriotic group organized by independent feminists who represent all parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our goal is to achieve effective and full participation of Saudi women in municipal councils through reintegration and raising awareness. We believe in every woman’s right to participation and the importance of her role in improving marginalized municipal services and social issues, for women are often more in touch with the needs of the family and society. We also believe in the importance of supporting men and women in the upcoming elections.

Our goals parallel the orientations that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques has adopted vis-à-vis supporting Saudi women’s participation in public affairs as well as those of senior government officials towards empowering women in society. This initiative to support women’s participation in the upcoming municipal elections comes as a culmination of these trends and initiatives, in addition to all the major successes achieved by Saudi women over the past few years in various fields.

Our goals are based on many dimensions, the most prominent ones being:

  • Social Premise: The contemporary role of women has surpassed traditional limits. The women’s movement in our Saudi society began to lead change and assume unprecedented roles due to great social transformations.  As a result of all the successes that women have achieved, they need to gain legal protection.
  • Legal Premise: Equality between women and men should guarantee women access to equal rights and the exercise of such rights without any discrimination, including participation in the elections, a legitimate right for women not only according to international charters that Saudi Arabia has ratified but also according to religious legislation and texts.
  • Political Premise: Full participation in general elections contributes to raising political awareness among all citizens, which would in turn give them a greater sense of responsibility and bring them closer to decision-making processes and public affairs.
  • Cultural Premise: Women in Saudi Arabia have a negative stereotypical image as being oppressed, completely marginalized, and incapable of being productive members of society. It is important to change this negative image in order to show that Saudi women are like all other women in the world, with their own concerns, hopes, capabilities and potentials and can express themselves in their own ways.

 

Values:

Professionalism: Exceptional professionalism in job performance

Teamwork Spirit: Providing a friendly, cooperative and understanding atmosphere and ensuring the wellbeing of the majority

Transparency: Administrative practices characterized by honesty, clarity and openness

Accountability: Common moral and professional regulations that secure commitment to principles and standards

Giving and Devotion: Willingness to sacrifice and work hard

Strategic Goals:

1-    Raising awareness on the individual and institutional levels of the importance of full participation in municipal elections.

2-    Working towards securing the right of women to vote and run for elections in the 2011 municipal elections.

3-    Preparing and training elections employees as well as voters and those running for municipal election.

 

 

 نحن مجموعة وطنية وبمبادرة نسائية مستقلة وبتمثيل وطني شامل لجميع مناطق المملكة العربية السعوديةنسعى لتحقيق المشاركة الفعالة والكاملة للمرأة السعودية في المجالس البلدية من خلال التوعية والتأهيل لإيماننا بحق المرأة في المشاركة وأهمية دورها في تطوير الخدمات البلدية والقضايا الاجتماعية غير المفعلة لأنها أكثر ملامسة لاحتياجات الأسرة والمجتمع وبدعم الرجل والمرأة في هذه الانتخابات

وذلك تماشيا مع التوجهات الرائدة التي يقودها خادم الحرمين الشريفين لدعم مشاركة المرأة في الشأن العام، واستنادا على ما حققته المرأة السعودية من انجازات كبيرة خلال السنوات الماضية في مختلف المجالات، وبناء على توجهات كبار المسئولين في الدولة حول إعطاء المرأة دورها الطبيعي في المجتمع، تأتي مبادرة مشاركة المرأة في الانتخابات البلدية المقبلة تتويجا لجميع هذه التوجهات والمبادرات والانجازات

ننطلق من إبعاد أبرزها ما يلي:
*المنطلق الاجتماعي: إن دور المرأة في هذه المرحلة تجاوز الحدود التقليدية، وبدأت حركة المرأة في مجتمعنا السعودي تقود التغيير وتمارس أدوارا غير مسبوقة بسبب التحولات الاجتماعية المتواصلة، وبسبب ما حققته المرأة من انجازات ومكتسبات مهمة هي بحاجة إلى أن تحمى بصورة قانونية


* المنطلق الحقوقي: لكون المرأة لها نفس الحق المعطى للرجل بحيث تتمكن من الحصول على حقوقها وممارستها بصورة متساوية دون أي تمييز بينهما، مما يعني إن حق المشاركة في الانتخابات حق مشروع للمرأة أيضا حسب نصوص المواثيق الدولية التي وقعت عليها المملكة، و النصوص والتشريعات الدينية أيضا

* المنطلق السياسي: إن اتساع المشاركة في الانتخابات العامة، تساهم في خلق وعي سياسي أفضل لدى المواطنين مما يشعرهم بالمسئولية ويجعلهم أكثر قربا من آلية صناعة القرار والاهتمام بالشأن العام

* المنطلق الثقافي: ان الصورة النمطية المأخوذة عن المرأة في المجتمع السعودي كونها مهمشة وغير قادرة على التفاعل مع المحيط وأجواء العمل وانها عرضة للاضطهاد ، وانها سلبية تجاه مختلف القضايا ومن المهم المساهمة في تغيير هذه الصورة للمرأة وبيان أنها مثل بقية نساء العالم ،لها هموم وتطلعات ولديها قدرات وامكانيات ويمكن لها ان تعبر عن ذاتها بصور مختلفة


القيم: Values

الاحتراف: أداء العمل بمهنية متقنة ومتميزة
روح الفريق: سيادة جو التآلف والتعاون والتفاهم وتغليب مصلحة المجموع
الشفافية: ممارسة إدارية متسمة بالصراحة والوضوح والانفتاح
المساءلة: ضوابط أخلاقية ومهنية مشتركة تضمن الالتزام بالمبادئ والمعايير
البذل والعطاء: استعداد مستمر للتضحية بكافة الإمكانات المتاحة


الأهدافنا الاستراتيجية

رفـــع مستــوى وعــي أفراد الـمجتمـع ومؤسساته بأهميـة المشــاركة في انتخابات المجالس البلدي
المشــاركة في انتخابات المجالس البلدي

السعي في حصول المرأة على حقها في الانتخاب والترشح في الانتخابات البلدية لعام 1432هـ / 2011م

تأهيل وتدريب فرق العمل والمرشحين والمرشحات للانتخابات البلدية
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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412