Question Saudi Arabia, get barred from the National Press Club

[Cain]

Not surprised, but...

http://husseini.posterous.com/journalist-questions-legitimacy-of-saudi-regi

On Monday I went to a news conference at  the National Press Club, where I am a member, titled "His Royal Highness Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia." I asked a tough question at the news conference -- a question that dealt with the very legitimacy of the Saudi regime. Before the end of the day, I'd received a letter informing me that I was suspended from the National Press Club "due to your conduct at a news conference." The letter, signed by the executive director of the Club, William McCarren, accused me of violating rules prohibiting "boisterous and unseemly conduct or language." After several days of efforts, I've been able to obtain video of the news conference. The video shows that I did not engage in any "boisterous and unseemly conduct or language."

Saudi Arabia has basically been a center of counter-revolution in Arab countries. The Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, as did the Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh for a time. The Saudi regime reportedly tried to prevent the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak from stepping down. Saudi Arabia moved into Bahrain to stop a democratic uprising there. And of course it oppresses its own people, maintaining control through a combination of intimidation and in effect buying off much of the population. When major protests were attempted earlier this year, they were quickly put down and garnished little attention from most media. The Saudi regime arguably represents one of the narrowest of elites -- it is not the 1%, it is perhaps the global 0.001% -- and with hardly a pretense of merit. The Saudi regime continues to get weapons from the U.S. -- see: "U.S. announces $60 billion arms sale for Saudi Arabia," further preventing the possibility of peaceful change.

Prior to the event, I skimmed some material from Human Rights Watch on Saudi Arabia: "Saudi Arabia: Stop Arbitrary Arrests of Shia," "Saudi Arabia: Free Islamic Scholar Who Criticized Ministry," "Saudi Arabia: Women to Vote, Join Shura Council -- But Reforms Exclude Other Forms of Discrimination."

Toby Jones (Rutgers University, author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia) recently wrote of Saudi Arabia: "the absence of public protest has little to do with the legitimacy of the ruling family, the uncertain popularity of an aged autocrat or the purported conservative nature of Saudi society. Many Saudis, whether pious or not, harbor deep frustrations with the country's rulers. They share the same grievances about injustice, oppression and stifling corruption that have mobilized protesters elsewhere." See also Madawi Al Rasheed "Yes, It Could Happen Here: Why Saudi Arabia is Ripe for Revolution" and Christopher M. Davidson "Lords of the Realm: The wealthy, unaccountable monarchs of the Persian Gulf have long thought themselves exempt from Middle East turmoil. No longer."

In the course of his over 30 minutes of remarks, Turki took issue with the term the "Arab Spring" -- not because he thought a term like "Arab Uprisings" would be more appropriate, as others I know have argued -- rather, he said, he preferred the term "Arab Troubles." I found it quite distressing that someone would openly say that moves toward democracy were "troubles."

Peter Hickman, the moderator for the event, called on me for the first question. Here is the exchange:

Husseini: There's been a lot of talk about the legitimacy of the Syrian regime, I want to know what legitimacy your regime has, sir. You come before us, representative of one of the most autocratic, misogynistic regimes on the face of the earth. Human Rights Watch and other reports of torture detention of activist, you squelched the democratic uprising in Bahrain, you tried to overturn the democratic uprising in Egypt and indeed you continue to oppress your own people. What legitimacy does you regime have -- other than billions of dollars and weapons?

Hickman: Sam, let him answer.

Unidentified speaker: What was the question?

Turki: [motioning Husseini to the podium] Would you like to come and speak here? Would you like to come and speak here?

Husseini: I'd like you to try to answer that question.

Turki: I will try my best sir. Well sir, I don't know if you've been to the kingdom or not?

Husseini: What legitimacy do you have, sir?

Turki: Have you been to the kingdom?

Husseini: What legitimacy does your regime have, other than oppressing your own people?

William McCarren [Executive director of the National Press Club, who had come up to Husseini and was literally-face-to-face]: Put your question and let him answer, we have a whole room of people.

Husseini [to McCarren]: He [Turki] asked me a question. He asked me and I responded.

Turki: No you did not respond.

[off audio, some back and forth continues between McCarren and Husseini, see below]

Hickman: Go ahead [Turki] --

Turki: Anyway ladies and gentlemen I advise anybody who has these questions to come to the kingdom and see for themselves. I don't need to justify my country's legitimacy. We're participants in all of the international organizations and we contribute to the welfare of people through aid program not just directly from Saudi Arabia but through all the international agencies that are working throughout the world to provide help and support for people. We admit this, as I said that we have many challenges inside our country and those challenges we are hoping to address and be reformed by evolution, as I said, and not by revolution. So that is the way that we are leading, by admitting that we have shortcomings. Not only do we recognize the shortcomings, but hopefully put in place actions and programs that would overcome these shortcomings. I have mentioned the fact that when you call Saudi Arabia a misogynistic country that women in Saudi Arabia can now not only vote, but also participate as candidates in elections and be members of the Shura Council. And I just refer you to your own experience to your women's rights, when did your women get right to vote? After how many years since the establishment of the United States did women get to vote in the United States? Does that mean that before they got the vote that United States was an illegitimate country? According to his definition, obviously. So, until, when was it -- 1910 when women got to vote -- from 1789 to 1910 United States was illegitimate? This is how you should measure things, by how people recognize their faults and try to overcome them.

Husseini: -- So are you saying that Arabs are inherently backward? --

Hickman: Sam, that's enough -- this lady to the right, you're next.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, Jennefir Rubin can approvingly link to an article which states this:

Then round up [Gilad Shalit's] captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women—those who aren't strapping bombs to their own devils' spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others—and their offspring—those who haven't already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god—as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they're traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.

and not even face censure from her own paper, let alone the NPC.

[Salty]

I like how he clings to one thing, misogyny, and uses it to invalidate Husseini's entire question.

Everybody deals with their own torture troubles but at least women can vote now! Do they still prohibit women from driving cars?

[Phox]

Yeah, I agree with Alty. So, women can vote. WEll, Imma found a torturous, murderous autocratic regime in a third world hellhole and allow ONLY women to vote. (well, land-owning women, at any rate. And as it's a Socialist^TM State, and therefore all land is owned by the State, the State (which is me) gets to vote. So only I get to vote. BUT THAT'S TOTALLY FAIR, RIGHT?). LOOK HOW AWESOME AND LEGITIMATE MY REGIME IS! 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

A huge part of what disgusts me about the current anti-Arab regime is that, prior to the Western-backed extremist Muslim factions coming into power, Arabian women were acheiving respect and high levels of education and accomplishment. It was, at one point, built into Islamic religion. Western influence has been a primary detriment for Islamic female advancement.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Every time Western governments find an Islamic country with high expectations of education and accomplishment for their women, we find a scapegoat and bomb them into submission.

[Triple Zero]

Nigel, wow, really? I did not know that ... damn


btw I'm having a bit of trouble with getting this bit:

Husseini: -- So are you saying that Arabs are inherently backward? --

I'm assuming it's a brilliantly clever comeback, but I'm not really seeing how exactly it relates to which part of what Turki just said.

[East Coast Hustle]

Every time Western governments find an Islamic country with high expectations of education and accomplishment for their women, we find a scapegoat and bomb them into submission.

What?

[Elder Iptuous]

although the journalist may be perfectly correct, based on the transcript he seemed to be lecturing under the pretense of asking a question.
he may not have expected to get barred from the NPC, but he surely didn't expect the prince to give serious consideration to his 'question'?