Captive in Saudi Arabia
No doubt about it, the case of the woman from Quebec, Nathalie Morin, 27 years of age, stranded in Saudi Arabia, kept there by law, as a virtual prisoner, and anxious to leave with her three small children, to return to Canada, represents a personal nightmare. She claims that she is being held against her will, that she is kept from moving about freely, has been deprived of food, and has been beaten.
She is a Canadian citizen. She married a Saudi Arabian national, and moved with him to his country of birth. These are personal decisions of an intimate nature. We are all born with free will and a certain measure of intelligence. We are all capable of acquiring knowledge and acting on that knowledge to our own best defense.
Was she so besotted with this man whose culture, religion, traditions and place of residence were all so different from her own experiences that she would overlook how she was challenging fortune? Perhaps so. And perhaps her early experience with him did not sufficiently reveal the depth of the adjustment she would have to undergo as his wife and mother of his children.
Young people have such confidence in themselves, in their choices, in their ability to transcend the uncomfortable. They feel themselves capable of meeting any adverse conditions and maintaining their integrity and independence because it is a human right. Not, however, when one undertakes to travel for residence to a country where universal human rights are not enshrined in law.
And where women's rights are subservient to those of men, whose rights are paramount in a religiously patriarchal society. Her unhappiness and unwillingness now to remain where she is, as a virtual prisoner, as an appendage of her husband whose value to him is that of a fecund breeder whose purpose is to ensure his genetic material survives, is evident.
And evidently how she feels about her fate is of little concern to her husband for whom a woman's place is to please the man in her life, to do his bidding without question, and to obey whatever he demands of her despite any misgivings on her part. And having made her bed, she is unwilling to lie in it without protest, as is her right.
But it represents a situation into which she willingly placed herself. And she lives now in a country where the law is such that she has few rights. And although she is a citizen of Canada, having ushered herself into another country where she is a dependent of a citizen of that other country, it is moot how effective Canadian diplomacy can be in helping her to extract herself and her children.
In that country, as in most Muslim countries under Sharia law, children, like their mothers, are considered to be the personal property of their fathers. A miracle may ensue, where Saudi judges may have compassion for her, but this seems unlikely considering the law and the dictates of Islamic cultural practise.
She is a Canadian citizen. She married a Saudi Arabian national, and moved with him to his country of birth. These are personal decisions of an intimate nature. We are all born with free will and a certain measure of intelligence. We are all capable of acquiring knowledge and acting on that knowledge to our own best defense.
Was she so besotted with this man whose culture, religion, traditions and place of residence were all so different from her own experiences that she would overlook how she was challenging fortune? Perhaps so. And perhaps her early experience with him did not sufficiently reveal the depth of the adjustment she would have to undergo as his wife and mother of his children.
Young people have such confidence in themselves, in their choices, in their ability to transcend the uncomfortable. They feel themselves capable of meeting any adverse conditions and maintaining their integrity and independence because it is a human right. Not, however, when one undertakes to travel for residence to a country where universal human rights are not enshrined in law.
And where women's rights are subservient to those of men, whose rights are paramount in a religiously patriarchal society. Her unhappiness and unwillingness now to remain where she is, as a virtual prisoner, as an appendage of her husband whose value to him is that of a fecund breeder whose purpose is to ensure his genetic material survives, is evident.
And evidently how she feels about her fate is of little concern to her husband for whom a woman's place is to please the man in her life, to do his bidding without question, and to obey whatever he demands of her despite any misgivings on her part. And having made her bed, she is unwilling to lie in it without protest, as is her right.
But it represents a situation into which she willingly placed herself. And she lives now in a country where the law is such that she has few rights. And although she is a citizen of Canada, having ushered herself into another country where she is a dependent of a citizen of that other country, it is moot how effective Canadian diplomacy can be in helping her to extract herself and her children.
In that country, as in most Muslim countries under Sharia law, children, like their mothers, are considered to be the personal property of their fathers. A miracle may ensue, where Saudi judges may have compassion for her, but this seems unlikely considering the law and the dictates of Islamic cultural practise.
Labels: Canada, Middle East, Sexism, Society
posted by Pieface | 8:08 PM
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