Hubby always gets the best tips. So in another e-mail forwarded to me by him, there was a little article from the Arab News about how the vice cops in Saudi “saved” a woman from a guy who was blackmailing her by threatening to lie about an “illicit affair”. While it’s nice to nab a blackmailer, the article didn’t quite sit right with me. Why was this particular case so noteworthy? Surely, the blackmailer in question isn’t the only one running around in the KSA and I imagine there must be more than a few blackmail victims, male and female in Saudi. The article almost seemed like a promo for the vice police, the same vice police who wouldn’t let female students leave a burning building because they weren’t properly covered. It’s kinda like a covert apology for them: “See, what would those damsels in distress do without the vice cops? They would taken advantage of by those bad men. So the vice police are actually good for women!” Right. The Mutaween couldn’t ask for better press.
Vice cops save woman from blackmailer
June 25, 2008 · Filed under Islamic feminism, media portrayals, social issues
Grégoire said,
June 29, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
Thanks for exposing this strange double-standard in journalism. A “free press” ought to spend more time reporting on important issues, and less time serving as the unofficial mouthpiece of the establishment.
Your article and analysis is especially appropriate, in that once we can see a clear pattern of conformism in a culture like that of Saudi Arabia, we can turn around and see the western press employing similar tactics in their dealings with our governments here.
Faith said,
July 3, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Thanks Gregoire!
You’re right, the media has an obligation to question the establishment not be its mouthpiece. I like the Arab News for the most part. I think it’s pretty balanced. However, we always have to call the media out when it’s not.
Amy said,
July 3, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Don’t you think that being able to show that there are good and bad sides to the Muttawa is better and more fair than only showing that bad side–which is what only seems to be showing these days?
Faith said,
July 3, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
Amy, I don’t think this is about good or bad sides. I think any rational thinking adult would know that there are good and bad people in every organization. I think the media has an obligation to show abuses in any organization which wields considerable power but also has the obligation to protect because that organization is assumed to be good. For instance, when the police in my hometown of Philly beat the crap out of robbery suspects I expect the news to cover that because the police need to be held accountable for their actions. They abused their power. I don’t expect the news to cover the police saving a cat in a tree or stopping a man from stealing a woman’s purse because that’s what they’re suppose to do. Getting back to the Muttawa, I don’t think capturing a blackmailer is newsworthy. It’s expected. They’re the police, that’s what they’re suppose to do.