Sweden’s feminist foreign minister has dared to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia. What happens now concerns us all

Let's say that Saudi Arabia's monarchy does begin to offer progressive human rights to women, secular rights to minorities to proclaim Islam is a false religion, and gays to marry in mosques finishing with, "I, before Allah in this Holy Place do proclaim, I will fuck this man in the ass."

I will admit that it is not the most mature thing to do, but civil rights that we value and protect also protect people who do that causing offense to others. In Saudi Arabia, that would start a civil war among the various tribes and would most likely bring down the monarchy. If it didn't, it would cause massive death with the military slaughtering rebel citizens by the thousands.

Saudi Arabia is not a progressive place with a progressive people or progressive religion. The King of Saudi Arabia's legitimacy is largely based on tribal and religious authority. This was put on full display as the King of Jordan visited the Pilot's family to personally say he was going to take revenge for their son. The tribes are extremely important and give legitimacy to the monarchy. Without that, he is nothing and parts of the military will not follow his orders.

If you think ISIS is bad, let's see what happens when Saudi Arabia's government collapses interrupting oil supplies then starts to look like Yemen. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and we want to start adding to that..?

On top of that, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation or whatever it is called is getting involved now. This is not just picking a fight with one of them. They were going to go before an Arab body to start projecting a feminist foreign policy to an audience that was never going to listen to a word of it in the first place. They will pay lip service to it. They will cooperate in small ways to allow more women in schools, ease of restrictions on driving, and so on. They aren't prepared to hear what the foreign minister has to say.

tl;dr and as much as I respect her for what she is doing, agree with what she has to say, and think they need to listen. I do not think that it will do any good to say it now. It isn't the right time. There are too many people out of work to pick a fight with 50+ countries. Finally, it is only going to harden attitudes. They're like anti-vaxx believers. You won't get anywhere that way.

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread Parent Link - spectator.co.uk