Via the NYT: Saudi Shiites Look to Iraq and Assert Rights
The Shiite Muslim minority in this kingdom once marked their Ashura holy day furtively in darkened, illegal community centers out of fear of stirring the powerful wrath of the religious establishment.But this year Ashura fell on the eve of the 10-day campaign for municipal council elections, to be held here on Thursday, and a bolder mood was readily apparent. Thousands thronged sprawling, sandy lots for hours to watch warriors on horseback re-enact the battlefield decapitation of Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, in 680.
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But the fact that Shiites, at least in this city, their main center, no longer feel the need to hide reflects a combination of important changes here and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The most important include the emergence of an elected Shiite majority government next door in Iraq, the campaign for municipal elections here in the country’s first nationwide polls and a relaxation in some of the discrimination that Shiites have long faced in the kingdom.
The limited municipal council elections scheduled throughout eastern Saudi Arabia are expected to earn Shiite candidates all five seats up for grabs in Qatif, an urban area of 900,000 on the Persian Gulf.
In a sight startling for Saudi Arabia, Sheik Hassan al-Saffar, a dissident Shiite cleric who has been jailed and spent the 15 years before 1995 in exile, spoke for an hour in one candidate’s campaign tent on the first big night of electioneering. Even limited elections are important, he said, “because they ignited in people’s minds the spark of thinking about their interests and aspirations.”
Sheik Saffar also drew parallels to Iraq, saying voting was the least Saudis could do, considering the risks their brethren had taken next door to exercise this new freedom. He took great pains to say it was a question for all Saudis, not Shiites alone.
Intriguing, to be sure.
The situation in the entire region seems to be confirming the idea that when oppressed persons see other oppressed persons gaining freedoms, that it excites a desire for freedom for themselves.
And yes, I am wholly aware that SA is a looong way from liberalization, but sometimes the first steps have to be baby steps.
