Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Real Crazy Reason Saudi Arabia Has Decided to Allow Women to Drive


It's because of a crazy Trumpian-type economic nationalism being pursued by the King's son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Financial Times columnist Roula Khalaf writes in an essay titled, Saudi reverse on women drivers propelled by economics:
King Salman issued a royal decree announcing that women could drive as of June 2018...

King Salman and his ambitious 32-year-old son and crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), are on a path of adjustment. Since [the Crown Prince] taking over two years ago, the king has been seeking to recalibrate the relationship with the clerics and to promote Saudi nationalism as an alternative source of legitimacy...

[A]llowing women to drive is the result of both political calculation and economic necessity. As the king paves the way for his son to take over, what was long considered impossible in Saudi Arabia has become possible....

The transformation[the Crown Prince] envisions requires a greater role for women in the economy and a smaller one for foreign workers. And this makes the granting of certain freedoms, including the ability to drive oneself to work, more pressing.
 -RW

2 comments:

  1. The one policy they had that made sense...

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  2. What's even crazier is that the country would keep a large percentage of its own people out of the workforce.

    ReplyDelete