Saudi Arabia's still a man's world
■ Some women accept Islamic laws pro
hibiting them from driving or going out
side without a male relative;others don't
like laws but are scared to talk about them.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Five Saudi
women sat in a coffee shop chatting animat
edly about their lives over cafe lattes and
sandwiches. Suddenly, they heard a commo
tion outside.
Fearing the Mutawas, religious police,
had come to throw them in jail for being in
public without a male relative, they hastily
grabbed their long black scarves and cov
ered their hair and faces as they cast wary
looks around them. The Mutawas did hot
show up, but the women decided to leave.
Their outing had been spoiled.
Ten years after a group of women defied
a ban on female driving and drove around
the capital for 15 minutes, women in Saudi
Arabia are still bound by tradition, their lives
subject to the interpretations of male reli
gious scholars of the sharia^ or Islamic law.
Some Saudi women are happy with the
status quo and denounce human rights
groups that call for improvement of their sit
uation. Others insist their lives should
change.
xixcac uauiuuiio aiiu cuoiuuio, uicuiy ui
which go back to before the advent of Islam,
target women and aim at marginalizing their
role,” said Hatoun al-Fassi, a historian who
has published such opinions in local and
Arab newspapers.
“Meri behave as if they were the only
ones in charge of building society and con
sider women as intruders whose sole mis
sion is to procreate and be part of the decor,”
she added.
Saudi Arabian v^omen lead among the
strictest lives in the world. In public, they
can only expose their hands and sometimes
kohl-rimmed eyes and hennaed feet.
They cannot travel or get an education or
a job without the written approval of a male
guardian, and the government does not
issue them ID cards.
Mutawas are agents of the Committee to
Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue, which is
funded by the government and headed by a
Cabinet minister. Mutawas reportedly get
about $300 for every Saudi they arrest and
$150 for every foreigner.
The Mutawas patrol shopping centeis,
restaurants and other public areas to ensure
that men and women are behaving.
They even go into sports stores or make
up shops with felt pens to black out promo
tional pictures of women on boxes and
posters.
Princess Basma bint Majid bin Abdul
Aziz, a niece of King Fahd, said foreign
activists have no right “to tell a people who
have existed for thousands of years, even
before America existed, to change their
ways.”
“The problem with Americans is that
they have a certain way of life and they think
if you don’t live like them, there’s something
wrong with you,” said Princess Basma, head
of the culture and heritage committee at Al
Nahda Women’s Charitable Society.
“Why should I, a Saudi, dress the way an
American woman does?” added the 40-year
old princess, who, like all Saudi women,
wears a long, black abaya and scarf in public.
Princess Basma said she’s not inconve
nienced by laws that stop her from driving.
“If I can have someone drive me around
why should I say no?” she said. “In Paris, you
have to be a princess to afford a driver. Here,
every woman is a princess because she has
one.”
Not every family can afford to pay about
$300-400 a month for a driver, so many
women are at the mercy of male family
members if they want to go out.
For most, especially for the 6 million for
eigners who live here, life in Saudi Arabia can
be a bit confusing because there are no writ
ten rules for behavior. What is condoned
today may not be condoned tomorrow.
A foreign woman wearing a navy blue
scarf was stopped by a Mutawa because her
head cover was not black. His colleague told
him navy blue was OK, and the two men
launched into a theological debate over scarf
color before the woman was let go.
An unmarried, non-Saudi couple who
were seen kissing goodnight on the cheek in
a parking lot were thrown in jail for a few
weeks.
The role of women in Saudi society came
under the spotlight during the buildup of
500,000Western troops prior to the 1991 Gulf
War that liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupa
tion. The troops included American women
who drove trucks and had leadership roles,
and this was said to have inspired the Nov. 6,
“Men behave as if they were
the only ones in charge of
building society and consider
women as intruders whose sole
mission is to procreate and be
part of the decor."
Hatoun alFassi
historian
1990, “drive-in” in Riyadh.
Today, the 47 women who led the drive
in stay out of the limelight.
Their punishment 10 years ago was
harsh: They lost their jobs and passports for
two years, and they were denounced in flyers
written by religious groups as “fallen women
calling for vice.” Those who returned to work
have been denied promotions.
Saudi women who work — about 5 per
cent of them do — are encouraged to enter
fields such as nursing and teaching, where
they do not mix with males. In college they
cannot major in engineering, economics or
law.
Very few women are seen in public or at
government ministries. And many avoid
being close to men. They do not get on eleva
tors with them.
Outside most restaurants, signs
announce that “single ladies are not allowed
without mahram,” or male guardian.
Inside restaurants, family sections with
frosted windows are set aside for women and
their male escorts. They are seated in cubi
cles with curtains, screens and sometimes
even doors to shield them from other diners.
If a Mutawa discovers that the couple sitting
behind one of the screens are not married,
the two will be hauled to jail.
Banks have special "ladies'” branches.
Because they have no identity cards, women
use “family IDs” without photos that list
them as dependent of fathers or husbands—
a practice that sometimes leads to fraud.
Some men even forbid their wives from
getting passports because they cannot stand
the thought of their being photographed.
“It will take a revolution to change our
situation,” said Sara, a working woman, who
did not want to be further identified because
"there’s no one to protect you if you speak
out.”
Microsoft: Judge compromised objectivity
■The company, working to
avoid a splitjed legal briefs
with an appeals court criticizing
the original judge.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Seeking to
keep its business intact,
Microsoft filed legal briefs
Monday alleging the federal
judge who ordered its breakup
compromised the “appearance
of impartiality.'’
In its first filing with the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia, which now has
custody of the landmark case,
Microsoft lambasted U.S.
District Judge Thomas Penfield
Jackson as a biased judge who
thrust himself into the dispute
rather than resolving it impar
tially.
“By repeatedly commenting
on the merits of the case in the
press," the company’s brief
argued, “the district judge has
cast himself in the public’s eye
as a participant in the contro
versy, thereby compromising
the appearance of impartiality,
if not demonstrating actual bias
against Microsoft.”
A spokeswoman for Jackson
said the judge had no comment
on Microsoft’s statements.
“Believe me, I have no
grudge against Microsoft,”
Jackson said in ah interview
with The Washington Post just
days after his June ruling. But in
the interview, rare for a federal
judge, he said he had little
choice but to accept the govern
ment’s breakup proposal.
And in a speech to an
antitrust conference in New
York in late September, Jackson
said his order was a last resort
forced by the company’s unwill
ingness to make changes volun
tarily.
Microsoft on Monday asked
the appellate court to overturn
Jackson’s order in June that the
company be broken into two
parts. If the higher court calls for
a new trial, Microsoft wants
someone other than Jackson to
preside.
Mondays Dnei was tne latest
volley in a long-running battle
that could result in the largest
government ordered restructur
ing since the 1984 breakup of
AT&T.
Microsoft’s brief asked the
federal appeals court to find
that Jackson was wrong in con
cluding that the software giant
was an unfair monopoly, and
reverse his breakup order.
“The case went awry from
the outset,” said company
spokesman Vivek Varma, “and
our appeal provides a compre
hensive picture of why
Microsoft should win this case.”
t
Said Justice Department
spokeswoman Gina Talamona:
“The judgment is well support
ed by the evidence offered dur
ing a 78-day trial, including
thousands of pages of
Microsoft’s own documents. We
are confident in our case and
look forward to presenting it to
the Court of Appeals.”
Microsoft said its “competi
tive response” to the takeoff of
widespread Internet use, and
Web browser rival Netscape,
“produced enormous consumer
benefits” and did not illegally
conquer its market, as the gov
ernment charged.
“The District Court branded
Microsoft’s conduct anticom
petitive even though it recog
nized that Microsoft did not
foreclose Netscape from the
marketplace,” it said.
Netscape Corp.’s Navigator
software was the standard
Internet browser until
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer
took over. The government has
maintained that when
Microsoft integrated its
Windows operating system with
Internet Explorer, it pushed
competitors like Netscape out of
the market.
On Jan. 12, the government
is due to file its brief with the
appeals court. Microsoft will
have a chance to reply by the
end of January, and oral argu
ments in the landmark antitrust
case are set for late February.
Jackson’s ruling came in early
June.
The Justice Department,
suing Microsoft along with sev
eral state attorneys general, had
wanted the case passed directly
to the Supreme Court, citing a
long-standing law that allows
such high-profile cases special
consideration, but the high
court refused.
Meanwhile, the Association
for Competitive Technology
filed a “friend of the court” brief
for Microsoft. ACT, founded in
1998 at the time the federal gov
ernment’s effort against
Microsoft was escalating, has
frequently defended the
Redmond, Wash.-based firm.
ACT argued that Microsoft
improved its products by fusing
them together, rather than
bundling its operating system
and Internet browser together
to shut out competitors, as the
court concluded.
The group also said that
splitting the company in two -
one part managing with the
Windows operating system and
another comprising everything
else the company controls -
would hurt the market by erod
ing the industry standard.
Windows runs on more than 90
percent of the world’s personal
computers.
General Electric
appoints new CEO
■The 44-year-old follows in
the footsteps of one of the
world's mostfamous CEOs.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARTFORD, Conn. - In a
move as carefully orchestrated as
it was closely watched, General
Electric Co. anointed 44-year-old
company man Jeffrey Immelt on
Monday as successor to one of
the business world’s most fabled
CEOs, Jack Welch.
The selection was six years in
the planning and allows Welch,
65, a year to train Immelt, who
was head of GE’s medical systems
division and now carries the title
of president and chairman-elect
Welch is to step down by the
end of 2001, ending a 20-year
reign that saw GE’s transforma
tion from a company best known
for light bulbs and appliances
into an empire that makes aircraft
engines, provides financial serv
ices and includes the television
network NBC
GE’s board quietly approved
the choice during a special meet
ing over the Thanksgiving week
end, when Welch felt the compa
ny could avoid the intense media
attention that the succession
question has drawn.
“It’s all going to unfold very
nicely,'’ Welch said. “You won’t see
a bump.”
Welch and Immelt appeared
Monday at a news conference in
' New York, appearing at ease in
each other’s company and wear
ing similar open-collar blue shirts
and blazers.
remaking GE into the world’s
most valuable company, worth
about $490 billion based on
Monday’s closing stock price.
He shook up the company's
management structure and sold
major divisions including house
wares, air conditioning and semi
conductor businesses.
In his two decades as chair
man, profits have risen from $1.6
billion to $10.7 billion in 1999.
Several best-selling books
have been written about Welch
and this year Time Warner Trade
Publishing paid Welch a $7.1 mil
lion advance for his own book
about management techniques.
It was believed to be the largest -
ever advance paid for a nonfic
tion title.
Immelt made it clear that
more growth is planned at GE.
“We just don't believe in any
of the rules of size,” he declared -
and predicted that the Internet
“will change every job in the com
pany.”
Analysts praised the selec
tion.
“He is an extremely capable
executive leader,” said analyst
Martin Sankey, vice president of
Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New
York. “He compiled a strong
record of generating growth and
moving into new markets.”
“He was the successor I
expected; he was the successor I
wanted,” said Michael Linsky of
McDonald Investments Inc. “I
think he will do a superb job.”
Immelt, who grew up in a
Cincinnati suburb and attended
Dartmouth and Harvard, joined
GE in 1982.
The two men share an
emphasis on company loyalty -
Welch has worked for GE since
1960, Immelt since 1982. Immelt’s
father worked for GE for 38 years.
A Wall Street favorite because
of his penchant for careful plan
ning and surprise-free manage
ment, Welch has been grooming
potential successors for years
while laying a foundation with
analysts for a hassle-free transi
tion.
There were two other finalists
for the top job: Robert L Nardelli,
president and CEO of GE Power
Systems, and W. James McNemey,
head of GE Aircraft Engines.
Like military leaders passed
over for promotion, their days
with GE appeared numbered.
Their successors, as well as
Immelt’s, already have been des
ignated.
“You can be sure they’re being
pursued very aggressively on the
outside and are... evaluating their
options very aggressively,” Welch
said. Immelt said he was honored
to be head what Fortune maga
zine called “the most admired
company in the world.”
“I have a tremendous passion
for the company,” Immelt said.
“We simply have the best team in
the world.”
Welch is widely credited with
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A&M bonfire victims honored
■A scholarship was set up at
the University of Texas to say
thanks for putting the UT-A&M
rivalry on hold in 1999.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN - Just over a year
ago, University of Texas at
Austin students put their foot
ball rivalry with Texas A&M
University on hold to honor vic
tims of the bonfire collapse.
On Monday, Texas A&M
rewarded that act of reconcilia
tion in the form of a $50,000
endowment for scholarships at
UT.
The “1999 Bonfire Unity
Endowed Presidential
Scholarship” will be available to
UT students with passing grades
who are sophomores or over
and display “a clear commit
ment to the ideals displayed”
during the tragedy said UT offi
cial Jim Kunetka.
“We’re old and bitter rivals,
and that will probably remain,”
Kunetka said. “But at least when
it comes to humanity, we’re all
the same.”
TWelve students were killed
Nov. 18,1999 when the bonfire
they were building collapsed,
sparking an outpouring of sup
port from the University of
Texas. Students gave blood, col
lected money and traveled to
the rival campus to provide
comfort.
“Last year’s tragedy at Texas
A&M has been shared by all
Texans,” said UT Austin presi
dent Larry Faulkner. “It is our
deepest hope that the memory
of those who lost their lives in
1999 will live forever.”
Texas’ two largest public
universities both have leg
endary traditions concerning
the annual day-after
Thanksgiving game that gives
the winner state bragging rights.
UT’s event last year was sup
posed to be a “hex" rally to put a
good-natured curse on the
Aggies before the game. It
became an emotional candle
light rally in which thousands of
students from both universities
gathered to honor the dead.
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