Best Discussions
Dean
My little sojourn away from the blog produced some most excellent blog postings, but I'd be especially remiss if I didn't note the discussion between Mary of Exit Zero and Hatcher of Crossroads Arabia. It was such a good discussion I put it in our Best Discussions archive.
It was unfortunately a terribly angry discussion they had, but both were so filled with references and well-stated positions it qualified as must-reading. If you read that entire discussion you'll come away knowing more about both Saudia Arabia and the varying perceptions of it here in America than you will from any other source I've ever seen.
I just wish Hatcher and Mary could have found a way to be nicer about it. But in this case, much light was produced along with the heat. The entire discussion is here, and I frankly recommend setting aside a chunk of time and just reading the whole thing.
As I say: A lot of heat, but much light produced along with it.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Best Discussions
- Hate is a WMD (exit zero)
And yes, following your advice, I’m trying to work on my anger management skills. When, on Crossroads Arabia, Hatcher (John?) said:
Here’re some pointers: If you want to read stuff that is consistently negative on Saudi Arabia, there are many places to find it. Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Stephen Green, all Likud Party members, the religious right in Israel, the religious right in the United States, AIPAC, Taranto’s “Best of the Web” blog.
I didn’t fly off the handle. While I doubt that Pipes, Horowitz or Stephen Green (VodkaPundit?) are Likud Party members, I did try to use humor, not anger.
Must take deep, cleansing breaths…
Anyway Hatcher provides a wealth of knowledge both of State and the Saudi's and I appreciated him taking the time to formulate long and detailed answers. Based on emails, he seems to be a good guy too.
I agree with Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Stephen Green, Charles Johnson, and Leonard Peikoff. I believe that they have the right approach. If I lived in Israel, I would certainly vote for the (much hated by the Left) Likud Party.
I won't argue if you say that much of the federal bureaucracy is dominated by liberals, though. I had plenty of fights to ensure that voices other than the liberal mainstream got heard within the Dept.
I'm not exactly sure of the grammatical term, but my sentence Mary quotes was not intended to say that Pipes, et al. were Likud members. The sentence was intended to be a list of separate entities. I would have used parentheses or dashes to separate the Likud phrase had I intended it to apply to the precedents. Maybe the sentence was badly constructed, but Mary misread my intent.
I do and have apologized for intemperate language. Perhaps 25 years of limitations on what one can freely say have caused a slight rebound now that the shackles are loosened. State discipline--correctly--limits public statements of private opinion. Too many people can't differentiate between private and official statements. One tries not to suddenly create policy through the expression of private opinion. Since most State officers work through several Aministrations, of different parties and with different policies, it makes sense to keep them separate.
I don't question for a second the rights of the Likud Party to make, state, enforce it's opinions and policies. But I can also uphold my right to criticize many of those policies. I mostly agree with their self-protection policies. I strongly disagree with their collective punishment policies.
Accidental deaths as a result of combat are an awful, but understandable fact of war. I do have problems, though, when the civilian casualties outnumber those of the combatants. I'm not saying the IDF is gunning down kids for kicks. I do think they're a little too careless in their rules of engagement, that they go in for literal overkill. I think this is counterproductive in both the short and long term.
I do not equate their actions with those of Palestinian terrorists, be they from Hamas, Hizbullah, the PLO, or any of the numerous groups that bomb buses, restaurants, streets. Almost never is there an IDF action that directly targets non-combatants.
I think that the Israeli-Palestinian issue is so difficult because both sides actually have righteous arguments.
I couldn't understand why you would criticize VodkaPundit. Fortunately, that wasn't what you meant.
I'm not really sure why we shouldn't trust a Sufi scholar, though. I believe Schwartz's opinions are consistent with the opinions of most Sufi Muslims.
There are several reasons I criticize Schwartz.
First is my constant refrain: if you haven't been there, how much can you actually know about a place?
Second, Schwartz is a recent convert to Sufism. I'm sure you know the adage about the fervor with which converts defend their newly acquired faith.
Third, Sufism is an outlier of "Islam" in just the manner that Kabbalism is an outlier of Judaism. That's not to say there's anything wrong with either of them. It's more to point out that using Sufism as the base from which to measure Islam is rather odd.
It's like saying that John Kerry is a "right-wing conservative" by using by using the (unstated/unrecognized) standards of Maoists. It's a true statement, but doesn't actually shed much light on the subject.
By Sufi standards, Wahhabism is utterly intolerant. By Wahhabi standards, Sufism is utterly heretical. By "orthodox" Islamic standards (and I certainly recognize that there's a lot of room to disagree on a definition of orthodoxy), both are peculiar and not "normal".
Schwartz, in his book "Two Faces of Islam," is either unaware of the actual range of religious expression within Islam (the generous interpretation) or, disingenuously, is aware of it but realizes he can make a quick buck if he glosses over the gray areas and turns it into a black/white issue (the harsh intepretation).
I will accept arguments for an excluded middle here, but I'd like to see them. But because Schwartz's general discussion of the history of Islam is pretty good, I find it hard to believe that he's not aware of the marginal nature of Sufism.
I, like most Americans, want to know what different groups of Muslims say about each other. There's no reason to censor or ignore what any group has to say.
It seems that our government doesn't share your opinion about Stephen Schwartz. They recently asked him to testify at the "Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information" on 26 June 2003, called:
"Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States"
There, Mr. Schwartz and other respected authorities said many of the things I said during our discussion - that Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of terrorism, that the Saudi government lies often, that Wahhabism is a danger to most of the world, including to moderate Islam.
He says:
"The Saudi authorities tell us all these great things they're doing, but then when you talk to Saudi subjects, as I do every day, you find that people who are living in the kingdom realize that what's being told to the United States and what's actually happening in the kingdom are two very different universes."
It seems that Mr. Schwartz talks to a lot of people in the Kingdom. And he's also willing to admit that the princes are faking it when they say they're "reforming". Which isn't surprising, given the very traditional nature of their culture..
I'm glad that you mentioned Mr. Schwartz - I had read some of his stuff, but I wasn't aware that he was this knowledgable.
About the Sufis - on the
Winds of Change blog, Joe Katzman discusses Sufi wisdom every Saturday. He'd be disappointed to discover that these millions of non-Wahhabis are 'marginal' .
But they are not the universal manifistation of Islam. There are certainly pockets of Sufism spread around the world. There are at least two schools of Sufism in Turkey--where I first ran across them--but they represent less than 5% of the population.
Similarly, there are nearly no Sufis in N. Africa. The Sunnis in Syria pretty much quashed the Sufis in the early 20th C. (Note, the Syrians are not Wahhabis.) Most Sunnis (the majority sect of Islam) consider Sufis to be some form of Shi'ism (incorrectly). The Shi'a aren't all that keen on Sufism, either, though, primarily because of the way it confronts monotheism--which is also the Sunni major problem with them.
The mystical goal of Sufis is oneness with God. "If everyone is God, then who is God?" they ask.
So, while there are indeed Sufis in many places, they are nowhere the majority except perhaps in some West African countries, where they meld in with regional "Marabout-ism".
"Some members of the US gov't" you cite are the friends of Israel in Congress. Again, I'm not slamming them for whom they support. I do criticize them because when they hold their hearings those hearings are to make Israel look good and Arabs/Muslms look bad. If their purpose (which they purport it to be) is to find out all the facts, they fail because they listen to only one side of the story. There is no counter-argument, there is no rebuttal.
You yourself may go to the Cong. Rec. yourself to see if they have (m)any witnesses who say anything other than that Islam is bad. If they have other witnesses, those witnesses are scheduled for the next session, the next day, the next week. They are not scheduled so that counter arguments appear on the same pages of the Cong. Rec. Please, don't take my word for it. Check it for yourself.
Mr. Schwartz does not speak to many people in the kingdom. He speaks to people who are exiled--either by the government or by themselves--and now living in the US or Europe. Again, I note, Mr. Schwartz has never, ever, been to Saudi Arabia.
Exiles exist for many reasons, but mostly because the government is not pleased with them. That displeasure can certainly come from people who dislike the ruling family for numerous reasons. There are members of the Hashemite and Al-Rasheed clans who never forgave the Al-Saud for throwing them out when the country was first consolidated in the 1920/30s. There are liberal reformers who want representative government. There are native Saudi communists. And there are also reformers who want the country to be even more conservative than it actually is. Not all Saudi reformers are modernizers.
There are also exiles who cannot go home because they will be put in jail for criminal offenses, not political ones.
You have to figure out who these people are and why they are there before you can assess how valuable their opinions are. Or at least how to weight them in an argument.
I'd be very surprised if Mr. Katzman did not know that Sufis are not considered orthodox Muslims, in fact. They are not as far out of the mainstream as "Snake Handlers" or "Holy Rollers" are in Christianity. But the analogy with Kabbalists within Judaism isn't too far off. Both look for mystical meanings within the religion. Both have some sects that go in for numerology, deep text analyses and the like.
But again, I mean this as no criticism of Sufis or Sufism. They are certainly among those sects of Islam that show great tolerance for difference, usually.
You sound liberal in the sense that Dean Esmay is liberal.
They aren't that hard to understand.
I happen to think Western culture, with its focus on the individual and his rights and responsibilities, is better than others. Surely part of that is because it's my culture. But part of it, too, is that it's the most successful culture available in terms of political liberty, economic liberty, and psychological liberty.
Western values, though, are not the only ones on the field. Not to make light of it, but if one views life as a game, there are different strategies on how to play it and how to win. There are different definitions of what "win" means.
The majority of the world—though not the developed world—does not share our focus on the individual. For most of the people in the world, the family, clan, tribe are the most important elements. The indivdual must sublimate individual gain for the sake of the collective. Even in some of the developed world—particularly Japan—the group comes before the individual.
Most of the world plays the game of life with a rulebook called "power politics". It matters who has the power and who doesn't. And it's usually a zero-sum game because there are few cultures of transparent laws and independent judiciaries. Most constitutions are statements of ideals rather than tools. And many of those constitutions are mere devices to convince others (particularly more developed countries able to provide power-enhancing aid) that there are shared political values.
The Middle East (although it is certainly not the only place) is a prime example of this.
Right now, I propose, Middle Eastern countries are going through major paradigm shifts in how they play the game of life. Since the Middle East first really came into contact with a grossly more successful culture (Europe) in the 18th C (arguably Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Algeria), the West and the Middle East have been talking at cross purposes. Each played the game according to its own rules, but were, in fact, playing two different games.
The Middle East game (as that of many other Asian, African and Latin cultures. I'll also cite Sicily, historic Provence, and Iberia, as well as Greece and the Balkans) is based on the concepts of Honor and Shame. To live successfully, to ensure the well being of your decendents, you must accrue honor and avoid shame.
Honor is something that can be gained by being strong (or being seen as strong), by having others indebted to you, by having the biggest and fiercest armies, by having lots of sons to support you and succeed you, by being able to get what you want. You can enhance honor by being bigger and stronger than your enemies and crushing them when they get in the way. The history of any honor-based society is replete with coups, assassinations, massacres. Any detailed history of any Middle Eastern/North African country will show how individuals and their families worked exclusively for their gain. So will histories of 19th C Japan, Russia, pre-Raj India, Afghanistan, Nepal, most of 19th-20th C. Africa, Latin America up until the 1990s. It's the way most of the world worked until very recently and, in some places, still does.
Honor is something that can be lost, leading to shame and weakness. Losing land to anyone creates shame. Losing to an outsider brings more shame. Losing to a despised outsider brings almost unbearable shame. Being not able to reverse, or at least retaliate for a shame-inducing act brings shame. Not having your own family's support in all things brings shame. How your women (one of the deepest sources of retaining a family's honor) behaved brought you honor or shame.
["Honor killings", now mostly restricted to the Islamic world, are precisely about the honor of the patriarch and the family. They have a long history throughout the Mediterranean basin and I again cite Sicily, Sardinia, Greece, and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as historically recent Latin America. Does the term "machismo" ring a bell?]
These are not cultures that operate on the basis of legal contracts, with reciprocal rights and responsibilities spelled out and enforceable through a court.
If you have an agreement with someone, but see an opportunity that will greatly enhance your honor—without creating serious shame—then you take that chance. If you win, you get more honor; the other guy gets the shame.
This isn't dishonest dealing or cheating as we would understand it because it's perfectly within the rules of the game. And the other guy is playing with exactly the same rule book. Were he to see the advantage, he'd do exactly the same. There is no sense of the "greater good" that extends much beyond the family, clan, or tribe. It's all short term: "How can I get on top, now."
If you weren't on top, you tried to find a way to get there. If you couldn't, then you were, by defnition, a loser and therefore inconsequential. Your happiness, your life, mattered nothing to the guy with the power.
This is the way Europe used to work, before the Renaissance and "Age of Englightenment". Read any history book and you'll see that, no matter what refinement (Feudalism, Despotism, Absolute Monarchy) happened to be in style.
After the Renaissance and Age of Englightenment, a very different ethic took over in Europe. It was focused on long term goals and goods. "The Common Weal" enters our vocabulary. Hobbes described the conflict that was being replaced by more enlightened concepts like "The Rights of Man" or even simple utilitarianism.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment never hit most of the world. It completely missed what was then the Ottoman Empire, which then ruled (with varying degrees of political control) from Central Asia to Morocco, from the Balkans to Aden. Again, I refer you to any history of the Ottomans; Bernard Lewis is at the top of his game on the subject.
When the Ottomans started losing battles (and land) to Europe, they realized that something had to change within their own system. Mostly, they just tried importing the materials aspects of modernity, particularly weapons and military systems. Slowly, as the 19th C. passed, they started to import political ideas and longer-term thinking.
The Ottomans Turks were also losing authority (and honor) in Arab lands. The further away those places were, the less authority they could impose. Morocco broke off early, as the Ottoman hold was tenuous at best. Algeria, Tunisia, Libya quickly left the fold.
Egypt was a special case. Ottoman special forces (the Mamaluks) overthrew the Ottoman regent. They were deposed—bloodily—by one of their own who set up an entirely different power structure, the Alawi dynasty, still using the same rule book, but with non-Ottoman players.
Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Iraq were different, too. They were on the borders of the core Ottoman state. It was pretty easy for the Turks to control what was going on there, but not absolutely. The jousting for power among local and distant bosses is well recorded.
Arabia, then a collection of warring tribes, had its own distinguishing features. Ottomans exerted control over the coasts of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, but rarely ventured into the interior. The only control they had in the interior, in fact, was when they went in to put down or support various tribal groupings—by force. The Turks had honor while everyone behaved and paid taxes. They lost honor when people rebelled, cut the Ottoman income, or simply ignored the Ottoman's local rulers.
One political action the Ottomans took as part of their reform or Tanzimat movement (started under Sultan Abdul Macid in 1839) was to abolish the concept of "dhimmitude" and the millet system. No longer would non-Muslims be treated as a separate class.
[Mahmoud II, Abdul Macid's predecessor incidently, repressed the Sufi Bektash Dervishes as a political/religious threat following his destruction of the Janissaries. He did permit the less political Bektashi Dervishes to continue. Abdul Macid is noted also for issuing a firman or decree saying that the Blood Libel layed on the Jews was nonsense and deplorable.]
This was all well and good for they guys in Constantinople. It avoided Western criticism. It looked modern. But it wreaked havoc on local power players. It knocked them down a few notches, it took away a source of revenue, it weakened them and thus caused them shame. It opened the door for new players to insert themselves, as they did.
World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire turned the Middle East upside down. In the absence of any overall authority, individuals found the opportunity for power grabbing across the region. This was compounded by wrestling among the British and French for their own power interests, and is the ultimate reason for the chaos that ruled throughout the region until recently.
Individual power grabbing was manifest in the peculiar Lebanese constitution that put minority Maronite Christians on the top of the political heap,in the "granted" thrones in Iraq and Jordan,, and in the wranging for power in Saudi Arabia among the Hashemites, Al-Saud, and Al-Rasheed that ultimately ended with the Al-Saud on top.
World War II made things even more complicated. For a variety of reasons, France, Britain, Germany, Italy (and Russia when it came to Iran), were all playing power games. They enlisted support from some—thereby enhancing their honor—at the expense of others—thereby increasing their shame. By this time, too, notions of "nationalism", "socialism", and "communism" were making their ways to the Middle East. The notions, not the institutions. The name of the game was still power politics based on honor and shame.
Post-war, the Arabs were quick enough to realize that two entirely new patrons were available and nearly every Middle Eastern country plaid the US and the USSR off each other. "The US won't fund the Aswan Dam? Ok, let's ask the Russians." "That godless entity wants to take over the oil fields? Ok, let's ask the Americans for protection."
Even a cursory glance at this history of the Middle East will show that most countries played their game very well. The US and USSR did, too, but they were playing a different game.
Some countries, notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia, were constant in their alliances with the US. This wasn't for any grand global scheme. It was because it kept the dynasties in power: their patrons protected them from external threats as well as internal ones. The US was always pretty good at providing arms and money to keep the Reds at bay.
Please note, I am not being cynical or negative here about how the Cold War played out. It was certainly in the US interest. It was also in the interest of the local governments, but for their own reasons.
The end of the Cold War has again thrown things into the air. Suddenly, a major patron had disappeared. The countries that relied upon the USSR now had to sort things out again. We saw how Saddam Hussein tried to do that through invading Kuwait. Libya tried playing its own hand through terror toward the West (notably PA-103 and UTA 772), land-grabbing in the Sahel, and attempts to overthrow Egyptian and Saudi governments.
While all this was going on, there was also something more subtle happening. Young Arabs, educated in the West, were returning home with new ideas and at least the understanding that a different rule book existed.
King Hussein of Jordan and Bourgiba of Tunisia were probably among the earliest to catch on to the different rule book. They both made concerted efforts to not only talk the talk, but to set up institutions that could provide for representational government. It wasn't until those two died, however, that the game really started to change.
Other countries took longer; some aren't there yet. The Kuwaitis have made significant moves. The successor Emirs in Bahrain and Qatar have democratized quickly since they came into power, as has Morocco.
I will argue that in the case of Saudi Arabia, there is a shift underway. Those who still see profit in maintaining the "honor &shame" rules are fighting to keep them. They continue to see a zero-sum game. Others, including most members of the ruling family, and particularly the "young princes", joined by a significant middle class, see that their future depends on a more representational form of government. And they're working toward it.
I'm dead certain that their first attempts are not going to look like the US Congress or the British Parliament. But they're going to be part way there. In April of this year, for instance, the Inter-Parliamentary Union accepted the Saudi Shoura Council as a full member. Before that (and continuing in the US Congress), there were/are doubts about the independence of that body. Based on my knowledge of certain Shoura Council members and the steps the Shoura Council has taken toward political and economic reform, I believe it to be a legitimate step on the right road.
Saudi Arabia is holding its first nation-wide elections to Municipal Councils in the near future. The election will only elect half of the councils, women aren't (apparently) going to be permitted to vote this time, and with exceptionally limited history in elections, it's going to be very messy. But it is an important first step. Saudi women have raised so much hell about what they see to be their political roles that they will be included next year. They have strong male support as well, but not enough yet to overcome traditionalists. There are also some administrative problems that have gotten in their way this time around.
Saudi media, while not as free as American media, is significantly freer that it was even three years ago. It openly criticizes policy, the religious establishment, government ineptitude. It still has a long way to go, but it's at least going.
Saudis have reformed their educational system and curriculum. Text books have been rewritten. They have asked for international help (from the US, UK, Australia, Japan) in recreating their curricula from grade school through universities. They have realized that rather than an "'Islamic plumber,' what they need is a technically qualified plumber", to use the words of one Saudi I know.
I do believe that reform is taking place. I'm not sure that it's taking place fast enough to outrun the Islamists like Osama bin Laden or the reactionary ulema. I certainly hope so.
I don't hold the Saudis above criticism, not at all. I do point out, though, that there's a difference between constructive and destructive criticism, and that it actually does help the reformers when their good deeds are noted and publicly aknowledged. It hurts them when their are ignored and when people and media bash them for the sake of bashing.
There are reformers in Saudi Society, and from what I've read, they are a very small percentage of the population. Whenever I find a needle in that haystack, I do try to point them out.
However, there have been no reforms of pre-medieval Saudi Shariah laws, which are basically institutionalized crimes against humanity. (As discussed here)
Saudi slavery and Saudi support of jihad have not been reformed, nor are there any coherent plans to do so. They have enough money to continue their jihad for a very long time.
I do believe that reform is taking place. I'm not sure that it's taking place fast enough to outrun the Islamists like Osama bin Laden or the reactionary ulema. I certainly hope so.
How many Americans, Iraqis, Moroccans, Australians, (oh, let’s just cut this list short and ask who haven’t Saudi paramilitaries killed..? ) have to die before that happens?
You and I differ in our assessment of how deeply the reform movement has spread in Saudi Arabia. You think it's razor thin. I think it's maybe half of the population. I think my assessment is supported by the public criticism of the status quo that now fills Saudi newspapers. It also echoes in radio talk shows and satellite TV call-ins. (I note that Saudi TV and radio are government entities and that call-ins do not happen on the gov't channels. I note, further, that the Saudi gov't has decided to privatize the currently gov't owned broadcast media and wire service.)
Calls for jihad--in the militant sense you mean--do not appear in Saudi media. That may mean control of the message by the editors, but if they're keeping the bad stuff out, I don't see a problem. In fact, I see a strong positive.
Saudis are calling for reform not only because the ultra-conservative religious zealots create moral problems, but because they have hampered efforts to move into the 21st C. Historically, college curricula were very heavy on the theology and too light on the subject matter of the course. There were too many theology courses required as well.
That's changed. It's changed because not only were students being indoctrinated, but because the school were turning out graduates with no fuctional skills useful in the 21st C. Both students and parents were concerned enough about this to demand change.
They were able to create a critical mass of demand for change that is now taking place. A razor-thin sector can't be a critical mass. There had to have been popular support.
I think there may be some misunderstanding of how the Saudi gov't works.
The head of state (formerly "King," now "Custodian of the Two Holy Places") is, in a sense, an absolute monarch. But he does not have the authority to act on his personal whim, no matter how good or bad that whim might be. This, I think, distinguishes Saudi leadership from the thug-ocrocies that have dominated Syria, Iraq and Egypt.
The last king who tried to impose his whims was King Saud, the successor to Abdel Aziz.
Saud wasn't actually a bad guy. He started the first real infrastructure development. He formed the first Ministry of Education, started building roads, hospitals and schools. But he also got outside the system in his decision-making. He was extremely profligate in his spending and essentially lost control over the country's economy nearly bankrupt. He was, though, popular with the people... to a point.
In the end, he got into a power struggle with Faisal, his younger brother and Crown Prince. Faisal wanted a coherent government and checks on spending.
Saud ended up being forced to abdicate. He spent his last days in Greece--excluding a brief sojourn in Cairo, where he helped Nasser in Saudi-bashing while trying to recover his throne.
The Saudi king or whatever is limited in his freedom to act. He must consult with numerous groups and get their approval before he can issue a decree. Among the power holders are the ulema, but they are not the only ones nor the most powerful. It certainly helps to have them on your side, but when necessary, they can be sidelined.
Unlike the Saudi participants in 9/11, and those now takin part in the Iraq insurgency, the Al-Saud do not have a collective death wish. They are intent on surviving. They are not prepared to have one group among many lead them off the cliff. That has never been their practice, nor is it likely to become so.
You--and the Indonesian PM--are playing around with the word "slavery". Or at least you're not using it in the same way that is generally understood.
"Slavery" generally means the buying and selling of individuals who have no recourse to the exchange and whose ultimate freedom is not in the hands of those individuals.
In that sense, what you criticize is not, in fact, slavery.
What is going on is abuse of power.
Saudis do not grab people off the streets and enslave them. They do not go to war and make their captives slaves. They do not go to slave markets and buy people. They do not breed slaves.
What is going on in Saudi Arabia--as is happening globally--is abuse of power.
Individuals in the developing world are offered jobs. When some of them get to the job, they find that it's not as advertised, that the conditions of work are not as promised, that living conditions are not humane.
This is called "trafficking in humans".
You may consider it merely a bandying of words. International and American laws, however, do distinguish them.
I do not make light of the problem of trafficking, nor of the human and moral toll it takes. I note that this is not a problem exclusive to the Saudis, to Muslims, or a consequene of Shari'a law. It is a global problem that has many reasons and manifestations.
When young Polish, Ukrainian, Belarussian women are offered jobs in Europe that turn out to be prostitution, we don't use the word "slavery" to describe it. Nor do we apply it when we speak of Nepalese girls who, offered jobs in Bombay or Calcutta, find themselves trapped in brothels. We don't even use it when Latinas (or others) get jobs in American households and are then underpaid, overworked, physically and sexually abused.
Yes, it's a serious, global problem. But it's not slavery.
You ask for "reforming Shariah laws." How do you propose that happen? It so happens that the basis of Shariah law is the Quran which, dictated by God (in the Muslim view) is not very open to change. Again, not being snarky (well, maybe a little), there have not been many calls for revising the Bible, particularly the Gospels.
The other elements of Sharia law, though, might be open to interpretation. It's unfortunate that the so-called "door of interpretation" was slammed shut in the Middle Ages, but it was.
There needs to be found a way to re-open it. That door, however, isn't going to be kicked open by outsiders. Attempts to do so will be seen--pretty correctly--as a defamation of Islam and a direct challenge to the moral laws by which 1.3 billion people live their daily lives.
As an analogy only, how do Americans react when Europeans tell them that the Constitution is obviously flawed, that that 2nd Amendment is clearly stupid and has to go? Or any other Amendment you choose?
Reform can happen but it has to be done from the inside, by Muslims.
I noted in my very first post on this topic that the history of Christianity is full of violent wars over definitions of what was and what was not orthodox. People were willing to kill and be killed over matters of religious principle that seem miniscule to us today, but were literally larger than life at the time.
Murder and slaughter in the name of religion continue to this day, around the world. The killers of abortion-performing doctors. Mormons who question the validity of certain texts. Hindus that kill Christian missionaries because of the perceived threat they represent to Hinduism. Ultra-rightist Jews who think a Prime Minister is getting to soft on Palestinians. Weird cults like Jim Jones, David Koreish, the Aum cult.
Yes, this is going on in Muslim countries. Terrorists are even doing it within Muslim countries. They are doing it, at least in part, in the belief that their religion tells them it is correct. You think they're right in that belief. I think they're wrong.
Your creation of the term "Saudi paramilitaries" obviously fits your world view. I think it's a phrase that has no referent in the real world as it implies that Saudi Arabia is a state sponsor of terror. I--and the majority of both Houses of Congress and the entirety of the Executive Branch--do not define Saudi Arabia as a state sponsor of terror.
Conveniently, the USG publishes a list of state sponsors of terror. Saudi Arabia is not and has never been on that list. Rather than suspicious about hidden motivations about why this is, I tend to conclude that the USG might actually know what it's talking about in this case. Their view, coupled with what I personally know of the country and its people, makes a lot of sense to me. It also satisfies the Occam's Razor test in being the briefest explaination.
You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions and analysis of the situation. You have demonstrated that not everyone agrees with my analysis. I have demonstrated, I believe, that the preponderance of evidence and the preponderance of professional opinion does not support yours.