Danes are treated in Saudi Arabia better than the Saudi’s are. They get higher salaries than Saudi’s do, most foreigners live in lovely compounds fitted with the best facilities where they make their own little social community,they are isolated from the rest of the saudi society to feel comfortable.
I have seen foreigners hating to leave Saudi Arabia (can you imagine?) because they are totally isolated from what goes on in Saudi society.

There are so many layers that you have to address here, it is not that simple.
For example,
The government has given all mosques certain topics they can preach on and an emphasis on what is taboo, politics is taboo.
This country manipulates religion to defend its social structure, it takes the extreme side and forgets that Islam is here to make our lives easier… that’s what I think.
I can see my generation is suffering from the shaky grounds we stand on, we have defects in the family structure, in a woman’s identity, the fall backs of segregation between man and woman, the educational sytem, the sharp differences in socioeconomical status, the poor get poorer and the rich stay rich! the corruption, the lack of motivation… etc ( why did you get me started? I do get depressed when I think of all aspects!)
I hope that answers few of your questions.

Its own citizens don’t have rights. You expect others to?!

Your example doesn’t prove anything but Saudi’s corruption as a state. Nothing else.

They dont have the right to keep their lifestyle if they emigrate to a country that is liberal and equal.

They have all the right to keep their traditions if it doesn’t go against the laws of the nation they immigrate to.

Why go to Denmark if you disagree with their culture?I dont understand.

They can disagree with their culture, but if they don’t preach hate or break any laws, no one should do anything to them. It’s their rights under the laws of the nation to respect their views if it is peacefull. And Denmark and the Western nations call themselves liberal and tolerant, if you say either it’s my way or no way then you are not liberal and tolerant. You are the same as the radical Muslims.

So many women in Saudi are educated, they go to schools some go through university or college. But that is not exactly what I mean here.. women should have more knowledge about their rights as human beings, as half of society. Without knowing these rights they will not be able to fight for them.. got it?

Women here, even educated ones are relying on men in most issues because this is how it is here.. Women do not know much about legal matters to fight for their own rights.. and so on
This is the kind of education I was thinking of.

Another comment,
Why is it that people look at others through black or white lenses? As I mentioned before, we have to accept our differences and get along, life is not black or white, there are multiple rays and colors between these two shades that make life so versatile..

Obviously, you and I were writing our comments at the very same time, for that I apologize for not mentioning in the thank you part. so I thank you for your comment.

I have been to England myself and absolutely loved, I’ve always been fond of England as I studied at an English school and did my GCSE and GCE.

Whenever I hear of Pakistanis in England, I can’t help but remember a line from a film for Robin Williams called (Mrs.Doubtfire) , where Robin Williams was doing a voice over for puppet in one scene and asked the puppet :” What language do they speak there in England?” , the puppet replied : Pakistani, which is funny because there is no such thing as a Pakistani language, coz they speak Ordu in Pakistan.

Anyways, the problem regarding the integration of Muslim immigrants into western societies is quite difficult, I was in Denmark last September at conference dedicated to discussing ways of integrating Muslim immigrants into the Danish-very liberal-society.

We spent 2 weeks , and couldn’t come up with concrete results, it’s difficult because , western societies have the right to preserve their culture and lifestyle, and the immigrants have no right to change those, as immigrants they should adapt to them, however, the immigrants are cultured , they have heritage and life style, that they should be entitled of keeping.

So , as you see here, bothsides have rights , and those rights should maintained and respected, which creates a dilemma, because the rights are in conflict!

I hope I didn’t confuse you with my reply, and thank you again for sharing your comment.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me on my post, I really appreciate it, especially after I had written a long post on the 10 billion$ fund launched at the World Economic Forum to enhance education and human development in the Arab world, and hoped that I would receive feedback from MEY readers and members on such an important topic, which unfortunately didn’t happen…

Well, to respond to what you guys have said in your comments, I’m really glad first that you liked my post and the conversation between me and Franzi.

Allow me to disagree with you Rasha, that women in the east are not ready to decide for themselves, they are, and they should.

70% of students at the University of Jordan are women that indicates , how educated women are in our society, they can certainly take decisions, plan their future and be successful.

If we keep thinking that women in our Arab eastern societies are not ready to depend on themselves and take actions, if you we don’t believe in them , they’ll never be ready.

They may make mistakes , when they are granted the right to choose and decide, but they will learn from those mistakes.

But I agree with you that we shouldn’t wait westerners to tell us how to live our lives and how improve civil rights in our societies, we should take the initiative and find our own way of improving them.

I also the loved the part in your comment where you said :” I don’t agree that a person should follow the culture he/she lives in…” , and I can’t agree with you more on this.

And Esra’a, I would really love to introduce you and Franzi to each other oneday

Blue! says:
as much as I support women to have the right not to wear hijab, I do support their right to wear it if they want to, what I support is absolute freedom of choice

Franzi says:
ok i totally agree and to conclude… to have the absolute freedom of choice you need to know how to choose

It is hard for women here in the east, especially in countries like mine (Saudi Arabia) to choose what is right for them since they have been spoon fed and brain washed all their lives into believing certain customs, and on the other hand, as Esra’a mentioned I don’t want to have a westerner telling me how I should live my life ( no offence ) simply because we are different and many would consider hijab as being oppressed as u have mentioned which is not true. although, the west has many influences on us already..

Opening and broadening our education is the key for freedom, rights and making the choice that suits each individual.

I don’t agree that a person should follow the culture he/she lives in.. there are certain traditions that I would like to keep and carry on to my children BUT there are so many so called traditions that do not make any sense to me and I would want stopped.

We are all different, and that is the beauty of mankind, can you imagine how life would be if we were all alike? We should learn from the differences in all of us and take what we think is right.. Life is a never ending learning experience.. that’s how I look at it.

I didnt have the chance to complete it all

but what is right for me doesn’t have to be right for everybody else…

Some call this “cultural relativism,” which many people are against… a lot of western feminists claim that Muslim women in strict societies are ignorant of their own oppression, and that they are so ignorant to the point of “happiness” of their own unfortunate state.

In turn, certain Muslim feminists oppose this way of thinking, claiming that the Western feminists are actually insulting them because they think that the hijab is oppression. To some Muslim women they would describe their hijab as liberation. On the Al Arabiya channel some time ago it was a really interesting debates amongst multicultural feminists on this topic… and that is how they got to the topic of “universal human rights.”

Some said it’s impossible because we all have different values, traditions, and cultures, some said like Blue here that there should be some values that stays truly universal and must be enforced within each society, something I strongly agree with too. Basically that the women maintain the right to choose and to have her opinion and to live freely no matter what the traditions and cultures or religion is. And freedom of speech is another thing that should always be maintained no matter what our cultures are too.

In fact many Muslims in the Arab world will tell you that they are not in support of total freedom of speech… when Kareem got arrested, many bloggers (even the most open minded ones!) refused to sign his petition simply because of what he said about Islam. They said this type of thing should be outlawed. Now, this is not something that can ever gain from… this is a sad mentality to have… it’s not in favor of progress or education at all!

Franzi’s point can both be constructive and destructive depending on how it is applied… if I see Afghan girls being forced into marriage at 10, I will fight against it. But maybe some other Afghan woman will tell me, “this is our society and in our society you should accept that this is our way of life.” That is an example of destructiveness… personally I can’t approve of people to commit these nasty practices simply because I wish to respect their “values.” I can respect reasonable decisions but not if it violates human rights.

But on the other hand…

If an American lady comes here and says, “you are wearing a hijab and thus you are very oppressed, men probably lead you in your life and you’re not independent or intelligent at all” of course this is a bad judgment because she doesn’t understand my personal decision, my religion, and my traditional and societal values. And if I tell her … “you need to respect this decision because I am responsible for it,” and if she actually learns how to respect women who wear a hijab and sees them as strong and independent rather than oppressed, that is an example of constructiveness. (But only of course if the hijab was a personal decision, I don’t agree that it should ever be enforced, this should also be fought against in our societies.)

In any case I enjoyed this conversation, and am really glad you posted it… it really mentions a lot of important things, debates that we all should be having.

Thanks for sharing!