SAUD SUPPORTS WOMEN DRIVING




The Gazette


JEDDAH

FOREIGN Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that he supports women driving in the Kingdom due to purely practical reasons.

His statement came amid a frenzied media debate after a Shoura Council member recently sought a discussion on the issue during a wider deliberation on new traffic regulations.

Prince Saud also told Der Spiegel that women should be able to obtain other e important rights like the right to vote or the right to choose their profession.

Following are excerpts from the interview.


Q: Since September 11 the Kingdom has been striving to carry out reforms that are urgently needed. Why then this slowness? Is it so difficult to carry out these reforms?

A: The Kingdom is changing at a great pace but we cannot allow ourselves to conduct any experiments. The higher goal of the government is to safeguard the internal cohesion for our country and consolidate it. The Western democracies also did not develop within a few years but they took centuries before women could get the right to vote, in Britain, for example.

Q: The founder of the Kingdom King Abdul Aziz and your father King Faisal resisted the hard-liners opposition to girls schools, the telephone and the television and today the government stops when it has to do with allowing women to drive cars.

A: It was easier to introduce the telephone or the television during the Fifties or Sixties than it is now to approve women s right to drive cars because the matter is related to a cultural and social issue. We are facing strong opposition, which must be overcome.

Q: Do you support giving women the right to drive cars?

A: Yes, I am for giving them this right not for philosophical or political reasons but for purely practical reasons. It is not a religious issue, and we must enable women to obtain other e important rights like voting or the right to choose the profession they want.

Q: There is a big number of s who are fighting in Iraq today with the hard-liners. Does this cause you concern?

A: This causes us a lot of concern. We exert our utmost efforts to put a curb on recruitment of the youths and dry up the income resources of these people. We are watching our borders with Iraq closely. The Iraqi government agreed recently to provide us with the list of names of s in Iraq. This is very good because it enables us to know what to do with our citizens, and the [preventive] assistance that must be provided.

Q: What is the reason behind these big numbers of s leaving their nation and participating in a holy war (jihad) abroad?

A: The matter is related to the pictures that they see daily on Iraq and Palestine. They consider what they see as an unjust war against the Muslims. This principle related to justice is highly significant in this part of the world. When a citizen feels he is receiving just treatment like other people he will always accept that. But when others are unjust to him he feels he wants to fight them to death. Nobody can fight terrorism these days by military force alone. The problems in Iraq and Palestine have taken their toll on us. Political solutions must be found for them.

Q: Twenty-three years ago King Fahd offered a peace plan to settle the Palestinian issue and nothing has resulted till today.

A: Peace cannot be established if the two parties do not try to achieve rapprochement between them. The situation we are in today is the result of Israeli policy.

Q: Israel intends to withdraw from the Gaza Strip soon.

A: This can form a good first step if it is followed by other steps. Withdrawal alone will not be enough if they do not reach solutions for other issues especially the issue of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.




فشرها كويش ياسديم ولين ماتفشرها كويش راح ابدى رايي فوالله الذى لااله اله الاهو لااخاف فى الله لومة لائم