Gamal Nkrumah muses on how the leaders of Libya, Syria and Yemen will go down fighting, taking thousands of compatriots with them The wonders worked by womanhood and femininity were the focus of the Saudi daily Okaz. Other Arab papers were obsessed instead with the fate of Libya, Syria and Yemen. Conventional wisdom, the pundits concurred, says that the three troubled sister states will go the way of Tunisia and Egypt. This would be a serious mistaken assumption. The despots of the region have no option but to cling to power. Theirs is a tale of tittle-tattle and the busting of taboos. The beleaguered autocrats soon realised that the Arab public has curiously metamorphosed into the grand inquisitor of public morality. The leaders of Libya, Syria and Yemen are not going to give up the prerogatives of office without fighting to the bitter end. And, especially so after these tyrants witnessed what happened to their counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt in the aftermath of their political demise which also meant economic ruin, exile or a most humiliating litigation or public prosecution. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And now the Arab strongmen are accused of crossing a red line. Now back to the vexed question of womanhood in the contemporary Arab world. A most intriguing article in Okaz by Aziza Al-Manei tackled the prickly question of Saudi women marrying foreign men. The writer was forthright and she didn't mince words. "As far as I can recall, Al-Riyadh newspaper last Friday published some important statistics indicating that last year 6,000 permits were issued for Saudi nationals to marry foreigners. 90 per cent of the permits were given to men and the women's share was a mere 10 per cent. Does this imply that foreign women are more desirable than local Saudi women? Are Saudi women then destined to spinsterhood?" Another article in Okaz tackled the tragic, albeit preposterous question of the so-called honour killings in contemporary Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. It recounted the gruesome story of a man who shot dead his sister-in-law, a promising student at Taif University in Saudi Arabia. The dead student was only 19 and her murderer was 25. How could such horrors be justified on religious grounds in this day and age? Undersecretary of state in Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Culture Nasser Al-Jilani, also writing in Okaz, proclaimed that women in the Kingdom are now called upon to head literary saloons and cultural clubs. And on another upbeat note, Okaz noted the release from detention of a woman driver in Khobar and the writer of the article marvelled that she was not denied bail. Women in Saudi Arabia are not permitted to drive vehicles. And, of course, no Saudi or expatriate is allowed to sell alcohol. So again it was intriguing to read the case of "Sally" the liquor seller who apparently "met a swift end" at the hands of the disciplinary "moral police force". It is preferred not to go into the gory details of this particular case suffice to say that yet another article in Okaz questioned the predicament of a woman who tried to commit suicide in hospital because she was raped. Such series of articles in Okaz spotlight the trials and tribulations of contemporary Saudi women. But then even in the pan-Arab London-based daily Al-Hayat, the question of womanhood took on an unconventional lustre with a gratifying piece by Ibrahim Al-Ariss entitled 'Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary: The world's first realistic woman'. "Flaubert predicted the birth of a new woman in the course of society... she was an entirely new creation. She was a woman of substance, who is not just a dramatic character... she was exemplary practical." The writer followed up his article by another that dwelt on the same theme. "Madame Bovary was a woman who held her destiny in her own hands. She was not a tragic character like Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina who succumbed to the vagaries of elusive romance. Bovary is a character that Arab women must mimic and emulate if they are to be truly emancipated. What is curious about all these articles is the emphasis on womanhood and femininity in the contemporary Arab context. It is fun to read how in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative societies on Earth, the subject of women is now gaining the upper hand. It is a sign of change." Meanwhile, the subject of Libya, Syria and Yemen took precedence. 'Gaddafi closed the door to the option of exile' trumpeted a headline on the front page of Al-Hayat. The paper also revealed that Qatar was supplying anti-Gaddafi forces with arms and ammunition, including C-17 warplanes. Also in Al-Hayat was ' An o pen l etter to Obama from a Palestinian w ithout a h omeland ' by the Palestinian writer Maged Kayali. "Your Excellency the President, Netanyahu does not want peace, he only wants to impose his own dictates on us. He is presumptuous. For what peace is founded on the gobbling up of the land of others? What peace ignores the rights of refugees?" We personally do not have a problem with Kayali's preposition. However, we do believe that the Palestinian writer unwittingly forgot that European settler colonialists founded the United States itself on the greedy land grab of the indigenous First Nations of North America. Zionists are, after all, primarily European settler colonialists and Palestinians cannot expect much sympathy for their cause from Washington whose broncobusters brutishly finished off the indigenous Braves. "We must re-evaluate the essence of Arab revolutions," wrote Egyptian political commentator Khalil Al-Anani. "The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia did not metamorphose from a simple coup to topple the ruling elite to one of deep social change that does away with everything associated with the old order." The pan-Arab daily based in London Asharq Al-Awsat 's front page banner focussed on Yemen. 'Massacre in Taiz, and the burning of the protesters' tents' read the headline. "Developments in Yemen took a most dangerous turn," the paper concluded. "The massacre in Taiz had tremendous international implications. The world condemned the heavy- handed tactics of Yemeni President Abdullah Saleh. He must be brought to book for the crimes against humanity he committed." Asharq Al-Awsat also featured Syria on the front page. "In Syria the authorities attempted in vain to quell the popular uprising against Al-Assad's regime by scrapping the country's loathed emergency laws," the paper noted.
