In Saudi Arabia, women now have a bit of voice
This past weekend, women in Saudi Arabia cast their ballot in a local poll, contested an election, and were elected to public office for the first time in history. For a conservative country, where personal freedoms are heavily regulated by archaic religious laws and women especially are second class citizens, this is a landmark initiative. It indicates that Saudi Arabia may finally be considering joining the rest of us in the 21st century. The question here is: How seriously and how soonIJ It's too early in the larger scheme of things to answer that question.
However, it might help to understand why this initiative is happening at this point in time. like most of its neighbours, Saudi Arabia has a young population, although its demographic bulge hasn't crested yet. About 70 per cent of the Saudi population is now under 30 years of age, and there's a larger number of even younger people coming up from behind. Employment and education are major concerns for both the public and the Government. Up until now, Riyadh has managed these issues by absorbing new graduates into the Government sector. But now, the numbers are becoming too big for the already bloated Government sector. As for the private sector, it is almost entirely staffed by foreign workers — for a reason. As many young Saudis are now realising, their local education hasn't quite prepared them for ‘real jobs' in the private sector.
Sure, the Government is trying to intervene, but it can only do that much to force the private industry to hire Saudi citizens, before the bottomline is affected. Also, several thousands of young Saudis, educated abroad at Riyadh's expense, are now returning to their country with new and potentially disruptive ideas. The young, in general, are also more clued-in to the rest of the world via the Internet (though this doesn’t mean they all espouse democracy and human rights values).
Add to this, the lack of political freedom, the social repression, and it's clear why the threat of thousands of young, unemployed youths is a real one for Riyadh. As the Arab Uprising showed, it is a dangerous concoction that can disturb Saudi Arabia's power equations. This is what the House of Saud fears. It managed to avoid popular unrest during the height of the Arab Uprising by expanding state largesse but, as oil prices continue to dip and the petro-dollars eventually dry up, the Government won't be able to keeping buying off peace and stability for long.
Hence, it is trying to chalk out a new social pact with the public — carrying out minor social reforms, which, when coupled with major economic benefits, should be enough to protect the Saudi monarchy from popular unrest, at least for the time being. What this also means is that unless smaller reforms, like limited women's suffrage, eventually lead to major reforms like universal suffrage and equal rights, steps that look progressive and pro-democracy can actually have the opposite impact.