--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Vanderploeg! Ramos from... Here we are! Guess who's back? ZipRecruiter.com, I'll bet that's who's back. ZipRecruiter.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ah, yes. It's so good to be in this time loop with you. I'm so happy to be here. It's the smartest way to hire, ZipRecruiter.com slash explained. Smartest way to hire. The smartest way to hire.
--:-- Jen Williams: This was a big week for women in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia began issuing driving licenses to women for the first time three weeks before the kingdom plans to lift its ban on female drivers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When we found out about Saudi women driving for the first time, And we thought it'd be a positive story to cover on the show. Saudi officials say 10 women were issued driving licenses on Monday. And another 2,000 will receive theirs next week. Good news.
--:-- Jen Williams: Then we got in touch with Madawi al-Rashid. Superficial journalists in the West are preoccupied with this symbolic driving issue without being able to go beyond it and scrutinize the pressing issues of human rights, equality, transparency, and many other problems in Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: Madawi Al-Rashid is a professor at the London School of Economics, and she grew up in Saudi Arabia. But then I came to study in Britain, and because of my writing, I was warned several times that I should stop doing what I'm doing, which is mainly writing academic books and op-eds in the media, and finally in 2005 the Saudi regime took away my nationality in absentia because I appeared in the media and criticized the Saudi government for not allowing women to vote in the municipal elections in 2005 which were regarded as the great reform at the time.
--:-- Jen Williams: You said it's superficial of Western journalists to get all excited about women getting driver's licenses in Saudi Arabia. But it is a big deal, right? I mean, up until this week, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world that didn't let women drive. It's big and small at the same time.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: Saudi women campaigners have been working and pushing and putting pressure on the government to allow them this basic right, the right to move, to go out of their house in their own cars in a country that doesn't have public transport. So they got this right thanks to the effort of Saudi women campaigners and activists. But at the same time, it's a small, very, very small change that has come very, very late.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So tell me a bit more about what life is like for women in Saudi Arabia then right now. Although there is a lot of hype and propaganda telling us that Saudi women are now free, they can work, they can travel, they can open businesses, it's far from reality.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: Saudi women are still controlled by laws that do not allow them to be a legal person. to explain. There is a guardianship system, which means that a Saudi woman is the responsibility of her male relative. This can be her father, brother, husband, or any male relative in the absence of the close family. And if she wants to leave the country, she still has to have their permission. If she wants to have a new passport issued, she has to get the signature of this guardian.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I've been reading about arrests in Saudi Arabia for women driving, I think, before they officially had licenses. So if what I'm reading is correct, are women being granted this equality at the same time that women are getting in trouble for embracing this equality?
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: It seems to me that the crown prince is giving women some rights with one hand and taking so many other rights in another hand. So only two weeks ago, a group of women activists, almost nine of them, were rounded, detained and accused of communicating with foreign entities, which is a very ambiguous charge that could lead to either beheading or long prison sentences.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And these are the women activists who had been campaigning since the 1990s. In fact, two of those women had participated in a demonstration in 1990. 47 women demonstrators dismissed their private chauffeurs and took to the streets in 15 cars.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: We filmed this unprecedented spectacle without the knowledge of the authorities. One woman who was arrested two weeks ago was in her 70s So just two weeks ago those women activists who are the core of a feminist movement in Saudi Arabia were put in prison And for the first time, they were named in the Saudi press, which is owned by the government. And their photos put on the first page, and they were labeled traitors.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And all these charges are really very, very ambiguous. us. But they are very serious if those women go to court.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: So do all of these advancements, women driving, there's more tourism, there's movie theaters, does it all feel pretty superficial to you?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It does, because domestically, Saudi Arabia and Saudi society hasn't changed a lot in terms of its relation with the government. Women can drive, but they are still marginalized. There is no project of political reform on the horizon.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: So I wonder for the friends and family you still have in Saudi Arabia, does this development where women can get driver's license just feel like another day? Is it even being celebrated over there?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's not celebrated except by those women who the government put forward as women who will be able to drive. Not every woman in Saudi Arabia will drive or choose to drive. I remember when I was writing my book, I interviewed some Saudi women and asked them whether they want to drive. And one of them shocked me when she said, well, the question for me is not whether I can drive. The question is whether I can afford to buy a car.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: And therefore, you know, we can't talk about women as a general category. Women is a fragmented category in Saudi Arabia. Princesses, wealthy women, women who are close to the government. Of course, they're going to enjoy certain privileges. But the ordinary woman is probably worried about whether she's going to get some money from her husband if he abandons her. Custody over children.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When they get divorced, it is the right of the husband to take the children. They want an expansion of the employment opportunities. This will happen only if the government decides to give it to them. And now with the campaigners and dissidents and activists are all in prison, there is a vacuum that nobody is going to fill unless these women are released.
--:-- Madawi al-Rashid: This driving development might not be great news for all Saudi women, but it's still a big deal for the country. And the guy who made the call, he's this new prince who wants to retool Saudi society. Can he pull it off? That's in a minute on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Remember that one time we posted that job on ziprecruiter.com slash explain and got all of these candidates for our summer interns yeah that was so awesome and now we've gotten to know them katherine and brie and they're here have you met them yet
--:-- Jen Williams: Oh yeah every day this week huh and and i suspect that maybe they're the reason that we're here right now in this ziprecruiter.com slash explained ad
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah i think we've sort of established that we're in sort of a time loop very Groundhog Day-esque but it's starting to get fun right because we reach that point in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray knows that he's on a day loop and he can just kind of do whatever and it'll just restore and everything goes back to normal
--:-- Jen Williams: Exactly I feel like the only way to get out of the time loop is to make the perfect ZipRecruiter.com slash explained ad. Is this it? This might be it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Cool well let me just mention then that you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash explained. And it's the highest rated hiring site in America. ZipRecruiter is so effective that 80% of employers who post on the site get a quality candidate within the first day.
--:-- Jen Williams: Wow. Wow.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Jen Williams, host of the Worldly Podcast here at Vox. Who's in charge over in Saudi Arabia? Who's this new reformer?
--:-- Jen Williams: So that would be a man named Mohammed bin Salman. MBS. MBS, yeah. He goes by his initials. That's what everyone kind of calls him because it's a lot easier to say.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So MBS is the son of the king of Saudi Arabia, King Salman. He's the son of Salman's third and most recent wife. So for the longest time, he was basically nobody. Most people outside of Saudi Arabia hadn't heard of him.
--:-- Jen Williams: And then all of a sudden, in January 2015, his dad becomes king because the previous king dies. and basically he decides that he wants to put his favorite son into the slot of crown prince. His MBS. Basically kicking out the previous crown prince.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was kind of a Game of Thrones shuffle, right? So he's like, no, I want my boy to be the crown prince. And he's king. By royal decree, he can do that.
--:-- Jen Williams: Is this crown prince like a big, important position?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It is literally like the successor to the throne Okay And Salman is 82 years old He probably not going to be around super long right And here what crazy So MBS is 32 He super super young So when King Salman passed his royal decree, he bypassed not only his own brothers who could have been named crown prince, he bypassed hundreds of royals in the next generation, including his other older sons.
--:-- Jen Williams: So not only is crown prince, he's given this massive control over all of like the most important institutions in Saudi Arabia. So he becomes basically the top guy making decisions on everything from defense, oil, economic development. He has total control over the royal court, the king's agenda. He's the youngest defense minister in Saudi history. And he didn't really have a ton of experience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There are other more experienced people who easily could have been named crown prince. Yeah. And instead, like this guy has a bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University. He never studied outside of the country. Nobody really knew who this guy was. And all of a sudden he kind of explodes on the scene.
--:-- Jen Williams: And so he's not consolidating the power himself. It's being given to him by his father. Well, a lot of it was given to him by his father, but he proceeded to then consolidate his power big time.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's said that money means power, but despite their riches, several Saudi princes and businessmen were locked up in the capital, Riyadh, for months, albeit in a five-star hotel. They were arrested for alleged corruption and have been released over the past few days after giving in to certain demands.
--:-- Jen Williams: So under the guise of this anti-corruption drive, he arrested several prominent princes, technocrats, business tycoons. He locked them up in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. He also seized a lot of their money. He froze their assets, and these people are super rich. But it was a really good way of taking basically all of the people who could have threatened him or challenged his power and making it really clear, like, you better play along.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he's cleaning up corruption, but he's not necessarily not corrupt. Right. I mean, he's cleaning up corruption, but also buying massive yachts and being hella corrupt himself. So it was more about seizing assets and making a point Of showing the people who could threaten his power, look who's in charge. It's me.
--:-- Jen Williams: So what is life like for the regular Saudis right now under MBS?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he started instituting some kind of modest reforms. You know, the driving ban being lifted, right? Like, that's great. That's progress. He's also done things like restricting the power of the previously really, really influential, powerful Saudi religious police. So he basically said they're no longer allowed to detain people and arrest people themselves. They have to just kind of make a referral to the civil police.
--:-- Jen Williams: These are the religious police used to go around and police like behavior, what women are wearing. If a woman is out by herself, where's your male guardian? They can arrest them and hold them until the male comes to pick her up. And they were everywhere. If men and women were mixing, they would step in and arrest people. and then all of a sudden their power is like dramatically curtailed. So that was a really important reform that a lot of people welcomed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But at the same time, it's all relative, right? So civil rights in Saudi Arabia are still basically non-existent. But here's the thing. MBS has been trying to sell this as I am the reformer, especially selling it not only to his own people, to the Saudis, but to the West.
--:-- Jen Williams: Today, Saudi women still have not received their full rights. There are rights stipulated in Islam that they still don't have. We have come a very long way and have a short way to go. He even hired the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, which is an interesting player in the whole kind of Trump-Russia scandal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure. MBS hired that group to help him craft and sell the entire kind of modernization push. So in Britain, they had massive billboards with like MBS's face like he's coming to town in advance of a meeting that he was coming to meet with the government in Britain.
--:-- Jen Williams: Here we've had headlines, you know. His fans call him a reformer, even a revolutionary. He's young, popular and promising more change than his country's ever seen. He's leading a new vision. His nickname is Mr. Everything. Can he reform the Middle East? Is he like the Middle East savior? Spoiler alert. No, probably not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We don't really have the best track record when it comes to predicting who is going to be like the dazzling moderate reformer in the Middle East or really anywhere else. We did that with Bashar al-Assad in Syria back when he first came to power. Didn't turn out so well in that case.
--:-- Jen Williams: In some ways, it is absolutely fair to say that he has made reforms. But that doesn't mean that he's changing Saudi society and making it liberal and open. He's reforming things while also making sure that he has absolute control over literally every aspect of Saudi society.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that's really, really dangerous and scary. Are those reforms still controversial, though? There, at least?
--:-- Jen Williams: Modern Saudi Arabia is built in this weird kind of partnership between the Saudi royal family, which is massive. There are something like 15 princes and princesses and tens of thousands of other royals And then you have the Wahhabi Muslim religious establishment And the two of them combined are basically the two pillars that support Saudi Arabia Some of those more conservative religious folks aren't really super excited about these massive kind of reforms that are going on, even though, like I said, it's modest by our standards.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But here's what MBS has done. on one hand, he's arresting all of these clerics who don't agree with him. Yeah. And guess what? Those guys do not get sent to the Ritz-Carlton. But at the same time, he's reaching out to other people in the religious establishment and trying to kind of pacify them and bring them on board. So it's kind of this intimidation and accommodation kind of strategy.
--:-- Jen Williams: Since it sounds like this is only like a real half measure, opening up this opportunity for women to drive, and there's so much opposition to it in the country from like the older conservative religious guard. Why make the changes at all?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Saudi Arabia, as most people probably know, sits on a lot of oil. It's how they made their money. It's how they became this rich Gulf kingdom. But that oil is not going to last forever. And they know that. So in 2016, MBS announced this like long-term economic plan called Vision 2030. And the entire point was to remove Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil. And so it was all of these things like tourism and entertainment sector and having concerts and, you know, kind of making Saudi Arabia a place where people might want to visit, making it kind of more diversified economy.
--:-- Jen Williams: And a big part of that is bringing more women into the economy. Here's the big bargain and the bet that he's making. It's really risky. If that doesn't pan out and if the economy doesn't like do really well, all of that kind of goes out the window. All of these reforms, right? then you have a whole generation of young people who have no jobs. You just pissed off the religious establishment. It's a really risky move. And he's betting that it'll work out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But if it doesn't pan out, that's when the shit will hit the fan. The fact that women are allowed to drive now and they're going to the movies and men and women are seen together more in public, is that a step forward while they're two steps back being taken?
--:-- Jen Williams: I don't think it's necessarily one step forward and two steps back. I think it's one step forward and it's a really small step. And there are a lot of other steps they need to keep making. The fact that MBS is consolidating all of this power could potentially be a step back. Part of the reason why these kind of different centers of power, like the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, were kept not by one single person, but divided was because the Saudi royal family has a lot of different lines.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There could be some really contentious infighting. So he could potentially be making the Saudi government less stable. But at the same time, like I said, if the economic benefit pays off, then you have economic growth and money and people have jobs and things like that. It may kind of contribute to more stability. So it kind of all depends on what happens and how this kind of economic and social gamble plays out.
--:-- Jen Williams: Jen Williams runs the Foreign Desk here at Vox. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My name is Jill Gardner, and I live in Boston, Massachusetts. Hands down, my favorite episode of Today Explained is The Gun Problem No One Wants to Talk About, which aired in early March. Thank you for taking the time to talk about it. And to my fellow ardent podcast listeners who are most likely on Twitter too, don't forget to follow at today underscore explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think we just did it. I think we just recorded the perfect ad for ZipRecruiter.com slash explain. I think you're right. I think we are about to exit the time loop. Wait, are you the decider or are the new interns the decider or does ZipRecruiter.com slash explain decide?
--:-- Jen Williams: I don't know. I think it's more the universe that decides. And has it decided? I think it has. what have we done to earn this privilege of leaving the time loop? I think we've just told the world about the smartest way to hire. The smartest way to hire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: One more thing. At the end of the week, you want to make sense of all the political news that's come to pass. Turn to the political gab fest. These guys practically invented the political podcast. The Political Gab Fest dissects everything from the Mueller investigation to all the big decisions coming out of the Supreme Court to the future of public unions and sexual harassment in Congress. The show's three hosts are veteran journalists. You got Emily Bazelon with The New York Times Magazine, David Plotz from Atlas Obscura, and John Dickerson of CBS This Morning, and The Atlantic. Subscribe to the Political Gab Fest wherever you get your podcasts, and you'll automatically get new episodes every Thursday. Check it out.
