Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

I’d agree that the Saudi Arabia does many bad things, but “probably the most unambiguously evil government in the world” is quite a stretch. Russia is currently throwing conscripts into an unprovoked war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has millions of people in ‘re-education’ camps, and supports North Korea, which is itself basically a slave-state. There are also a number of very troubling states throughout central Africa and Asia, such as Afghanistan, which is descending further into government-led disaster.

View on HN

If you think Saudi Arabia doesn't rely on modern slave labor I would urge you to learn more about their treatment of immigrants.

And there is simply no comparing the status of women in China or Russia to Saudi Arabia.

Combine that with Saudi Arabia's barbaric public beheadings and you're talking about a modern dystopia that many in the US would rather ignore out of convenience. Another common response is to distract from their crimes by hyping up other bogeymen in more direct competition with the US.

Qualifying state-level evil at these scales is invitation for bickering and reductionism. Saudi Arabia is indistinguishable enough from the most evil regimes in power today that one can have a reasonable argument about whether it belongs there. That sets it apart in degree from America and, I would argue, China, and in kind from Iceland or Canada.

Public beheadings have to my knowledge stopped ... Should be on the level of USA now, with executions behind doors!

Your comment is a textbook example of the asymmetry of media coverage and framing around Saudi Arabia vs US foes.

See: - saudis treatment of immigrant labor. - saudis treatment of women. - saudis war in Yemen. - extrajudicial killings and imprisonment of journalists. - etc.

For every criticism you cite against a US enemy/competitor, one can find an analogy in Saudi.

You can be a woman and own land, drive vehicles, have a job, etc in those countries. You cannot do this in Saudi Arabia. You are under religious zealots whom will imprison and kill for saying anything against their beliefs/God. While Russia and china are somewhat along these lines, it's not to the same level.

Yes, you can ...

The information regarding laws regarding women is out of date- the driving ban ended in 2018 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44576795) and the government is explicitly trying to increase the female labor force participation rate (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/04/21...). I couldn't quickly find a good source on property ownership, which is obviously still problematic, but Wikipedia indicates that at least some individual ownership is permitted now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Saudi_Arab...).

One of the contradictions of Mohammed Bin Salman (the current Crown Prince of Saudi, known as MBS) is that while he is violent authoritarian that has been cracking down on civil rights/dissent he has been affording women more rights.

Driving ban ending doesn't mean the culture has. Saudis are not progressive, they spend a lot of money ensuring they look progressive. In reality we rarely if ever get to see what it's truly like.

Sure, thats why more than half the cars on the roads there are driven by women now, and CUV sales have skyrocketed.

Visit the saudi reddit and you will see

Russia and China absolutely are not 'somewhat' comparable to Saudi Arabia, which did not even attempt to develop a legal system (almost all crimes were punished arbitrarily) until recently.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com