UAE: Profile of Sheikha Bint Khalid Al Qasimi

The Face of Power in the UAE is a Woman and Her Name is Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi



In celebration of International Women's Month I want to be selfish and talk about women who redefine what it is to be a woman in charge and in control. These women are murdering stereotypes leading on their own terms for the greater good of society. These women are bold. They have brass ovaries. They are brainy, beautiful and possess a bandwidth of power that demands attention. The first woman I am going to profile is Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade for the United Arab Emirates.

I first heard about Sheikha Lubna during the Dubai Ports Crisis in February of 2006.

The issue was over the sale of port management businesses in six major U.S. seaports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There was concern of whether this sale would compromise port security. I remember how American citizens became very vocal raising serious concerns about how and why the United States would do such a thing since Americans were still suffering from the sting and psychological impact of 9/11 and were also very confused and frankly racist about Arab people.

While then President George W. Bush fought hard to keep the sale alive, he did not have the political capital to stop Congress from ultimately delaying the sale.

During the crisis in came IT specialist Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, then Minister of Economy. One of Forbes' 100 most powerful women, she was the first woman to be appointed cabinet Minister for the UAE in 2004, this petite woman with expressive eyes and proudly wearing her signature designer silk scarves, intimidated CNN's Wolf Blitzer during his visit to Dubai to see what he could sniff out about this controversy. Blitzer under estimated her, and he immediately discovered that the Sheikha was nothing to shake -- with quick responses, wit and perfect elocution she was a force to be reckoned with.

Wolf Blitzer: What do you know that you can share with American public that will reassure the US public, 60% plus who oppose.

Sheikha Lubna: This is a business deal. There is an impact on employment that will be positive. This is not the first port that DPW will manage. It is a world class port operator.

Wolf Blitzer: UAE recognized the Taliban. Two 9/11 hijackers came from here. Nuclear materials from AQ Khan's network were shipped through here. Money laundering for terrorists before and after 9/11 has been traced here. How do you reply to these objections?

Sheikha Lubna: We, the UAE, did not share the Taliban's ideology as evidenced by the fact that I, a woman, am the Economics Minister. We later broke relations with them. Two hijackers did come from here. Terrorists are really multi-national. Two don't make the UAE....

At that time, Sheikha Lubna had the toughest job in the cabinet. She was the face of the entire UAE handling a public relations nightmare. But, as we say in America's hood, "She handled her business." She handled it so well that Sheikha Lubna received a number of key recognitions, awards and received a major bump up being named Minister of Foreign Trade in early 2008. Her appointments paved the way for three other women cabinet Ministers as well as a growing host of young highly talented woman Ambassadors with considerable clout and power in their own right. She is the forerunner of the women's empowerment in the UAE; influencing positive change in the entire Muslim and Arab world.

Sheikha Lubna represents the 21st Century woman; not just as an Arab who would be ignorantly deemed by the West as an anomaly. She is cutting through veils of discrimination with serious substance, style and a smile. Recently at a private luncheon in Hartford, Connecticut, she told an intimate room of 40 guests that when she first received the call and offered the job of Minister of Economy, she instinctively replied, "I have to ask my mother first." When she mentions her mother, her face softens. For a split second, she becomes a little girl again, but she snaps right back to Minister in an instant.

While in Hartford, Her Excellency received another first becoming the first woman to become an honorary member of the Syracuse 8 -- "Eight African-American athletes at Syracuse University boycotted the 1970 football season in a collective effort to demand change and promote racial equality within the University football program....." After 36 years of protest, another woman of power Chancellor Nancy Cantor officially apologized for SU's history of racism awarding these men the Chancellor's Medal of Honor.

Sheikha Lubna is a blue blooded Princess -- the Qasimi family heads two Emirates in Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah. She does not do any of dainty stepping however. She is always thinking and busy on her blackberry sending and receiving messages to and from leaders around the globe, she knows in her position she has fully replaced a size 10 man's shoe with a pair of pumps.

During the world's economic turmoil; her job has become even more paramount to the UAE. In Davos in January, she took part in an economic forum and held court in her suite having high level meetings. Literally nearly every week of her life, she has major engagements with world leaders such as Medvedev and Putin of Russia as well as her counterparts such as Lord Digby Jones, the UK Government's Minister of State for Trade. Having studied in the United States during her undergraduate years, she has a special love for the United States. She has been a great Diplomatic bridge between the two nations.

Because she wears a Hijab and is from an Islamic Federation with hereditary male rulers; a lot of us in the West actually search for where her power might be limited, but we are limited. The fact is this woman knows her own power and flies with the flag of the United Arab Emirates as her cape.

-- Huffington Post Blog

Saudi Arabia: Women savour glimmer of freedoms

RIYADH - It is not exactly Riyadh Spring, but Saudi Arabia's first female minister and the free mixing of the sexes at a recent conference are giving Saudi women hope that some of the world's tightest restrictions on their gender may be easing.

In a sweeping government shakeup last month, King Abdullah named Norah al-Fayez deputy education minister in charge of women's education, the first time a woman has been given a ministerial post in the country.

Also last month, a princess called publicly for women to be able to drive their own cars.

And at a regional conference on child abuse in a Riyadh hotel, with Abdullah's daughter Princess Adela presiding, there was virtually no barrier to prevent the more than 1,000 men and women present from mixing.

"That was a very very big step for the leaders," said Fouziyah al-Ayoumi, who campaigns against violence against women in the eastern city of Dharan.

In other countries such moves would be minor, but in Saudi Arabia, where arch-conservative clerics set the tone of law and policy -- especially regarding women -- they are being hailed as revolutionary.

Saudi women activists speak hopefully and see King Abdullah's hand opening the door for them while simultaneously holding back the clerics.

"I have the feeling that King Abdullah wants this change," said Ayoumi.

But success is not a given, activists say. In his shakeup, the king targeted the clerics' power base in the justice and education systems.

But some doubt that the new progressive ministers will be able to overcome the entrenched bureaucracy as well as general Saudi male opposition to giving women more freedoms and putting them in positions of power.

According to French researcher Amelie Le Renard, the women's movement in Saudi Arabia has two very divergent tracks.

Some leading activists aim to break down barriers between the sexes.

But Le Renard said that others, including many young educated women, prefer the expanding equal-but-separate structure, where women have their own parallel structures to men -- a distinctly "Islamic women's rights" view.

This includes women-only bank branches, hotels and shopping centres, and strict women's sections taking care of women's affairs in government departments and corporate offices.

"In general young women in Riyadh really want to work," she said. "Segregation is not their main problem... Some of them are really for segregation," said Le Renard, a PhD candidate at Sciences Po in Paris.

In addition, for some women's rights supporters, the king's changes did not go far enough and leave the effort for more women's freedoms vulnerable.

Abdulaziz al-Sowayegh, a former member of the consultative Majlis al-Shura council, pointed out that in his shakeup, the king did not name any women to the 150-member council. Instead, six women have observer and consultant status.

"It's like avoiding putting women in the majlis. They are not full members, they don't have a vote. They will only be consulted on women's issues like feeding babies," he said.

- Middle East Online

Saudi Arabia: Analysis: Female minister just one of Saudi king's steps forward

By Nic Robertson
CNN senior international correspondent

(CNN) -- What could be bigger than the appointment of the first female minister in Saudi Arabia?

Possibly the appointment of a new minister of justice who may actually help her get equal rights with her male counterpart.

Right now, Norah al-Faiz, the new deputy minister for women's education, is bound by the same laws as every other woman in the land. She can do only what her closest male relative permits. For many women of her status and education, that law is interpreted liberally, but for the vast majority, it is not.

Over the weekend, at a single stroke, King Abdullah set Saudi Arabia on what appears to be an irreversible new course, one of modernization.

He replaced the conservative ministers of justice and the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice with people closer to his way of thinking. The king also appointed a new head of the central bank, SAMA -- widely seen by financial experts as a wise move -- and brought in young blood and fresh ideas to the Majlis al Shura, the closest thing the country has to a parliament.

That these changes happened should not be a surprise. Since he took over as king in August 2005, when his ailing half-brother Fahd died, King Abdullah has been working quietly to bring about change. Indeed, al-Faiz used to lead the king's Center for National Dialogue, a sort of talking shop that allowed issues such as women's rights to be debated. The hope was that as discussions about change bubbled up in national and regional arenas, they would also filter out to newspapers and onto television.

It's exactly what's been happening. The king is well into his 80s and inherited many ministers and other top officials almost as old as him. Many had been in their posts for decades, and many, unlike the king, held their conservative upbringings more than half a century ago to be models for the country's future.

So when a judge recently upheld the marriage of a 47-year-old man to an 8-year old-girl, there was a public backlash. Why? Because debate about this issue had percolated into the public arena. And suddenly the judge looked out of step with society.

It's not what made the king decide to replace the minister of justice; it just highlights how his steady behind-the-scenes work has helped him outflank the sizeable conservative segment of Saudi society.

What the king and many of his fellow royals have realized for a long time is that no country is an island, least of all one as rich and prosperous as Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's large and rapidly growing young population watches satellite TV, surfs the Internet and chats on Blackberries with friends in Europe, and it expects a different future than the one currently on offer.

The sweeping changes remove some of the ministers most likely to hold back the next generation. The old Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice commission head, who runs the religious police, is an example. He has been replaced with someone closer to the king's thinking, according to a deputy minister I talked with.

The religious police patrol shopping malls and streets, enforcing religious laws such as ones requiring women to keep their heads covered and refrain from talking to men who aren't their relatives. They rile the youngsters who strain for more freedom. But no one is expecting revolutionary change overnight. Saudi Arabia is not about to become a "permissive society."

Religious law, long-held customs and deep religious principles are not up for negotiation. After all, the Saudi king derives respect and authority from his role as "guardian" of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. To be less than thoroughly religious would not wash, even with Saudi's moderates.

King Abdullah is calculating that he is making change at a pace people can cope with. On a recent visit to a shopping mall where religious police had taken a back seat for the past year, it seemed to me the octogenarian king is just about keeping up. The religious police were in the background, and among young girls in particular, headscarves were gone and lipstick was in bright abundance.

Saudi Arabia: Appoints first female minister

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, Monday 16 February 2009

An expert on girls' education became Saudi Arabia's first woman minister on Saturday as part of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle by King Abdullah that swept aside several bastions of ultra-conservatism.

Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, a US-educated former teacher, was made deputy education minister in charge of a new department for female students, a significant breakthrough in a country where women are not allowed to drive.

"This is an honour not only for me but for all Saudi women. In the presence of a comprehensive operational team, I believe I'll be able to face challenges and create positive change," she told Arab News. Fayez said she would study the state of girls' education in Saudi Arabia before commenting on the task before her.

In his first reshuffle since assuming the throne in 2005, King Abdullah also replaced two powerful enemies of reform, the chief of the Saudi religious police, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, and the country's most senior judge, Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan. Ghaith, who runs the commission for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, known as the mutawa, which enforces bans on alcohol and drugs, has gained a reputation for brutality. Luhaydan ruled last year that it was permissible to kill owners of satellite television channels broadcasting "immoral" programmes. Several other hardline judges were sacked as part of a challenge against the kingdom's hardline religious establishment.

The grand Ulema commission, an influential grouping of religious scholars, will be reconfigured and opened to moderate clerics, breaking the grip of the ultra-conservatives.

King Abdullah also appointed a new head of a 150-seat consultative body, the Shura council, and replaced his ministers of education, health, justice and information.

Abdul Aziz al-Khoja, the new information minister, said: "The most important thing is that the kingdom's voice should reach the entire world, convey the message of peace and stability and portray the kingdom's stance of moderation, tolerance and flexibility."

He told the Saudi Gazette he was open to debate with the country's journalists and intellectuals, adding: "I welcome their opinions and suggestions because they constitute the pillar of the Saudi media and represent the shining face of the country within and outside the kingdom."

The reshuffle was broadly welcomed in the Saudi press, with the Saudi Gazette calling it a "boost for reform" and al-Hayat describing the changes as "bold reform".

Saudi schools have long been criticised as breeding grounds for extremism, and the monarchy's western allies are likely to claim the reshuffle as a sign that the kingdom has the capacity to reform itself.

"This is the true start of the promises of reform," said Jamal Khashoggi, editor of al-Watan newspaper. "They bring not only new blood, but also new ideas."