Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon dominate the bad news headlines from the Middle East region, but a new Middle East is quietly taking shape in the Gulf, in places like Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi (UAE).
In the last 3 months of 2007, I spent some time with two extraordinary women whose work and views exemplify important, positive changes that are taking place. One of them is Sheika Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, wife of the Emir of Qatar, and chairperson of the private Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The other is Yasemin Saib, a 34-year-old Saudi woman, who runs her own film production company in Dubai.
"The gender gap is not due to Islam. In the golden age of Islam, women were participating in every aspect of their societies. Look at the men. They are also oppressed. This is the problem: politics, the political agendas that some people are using to suppress their citizens, and traditions that existed even before Islam. Those traditions can play to the interests of some politicians." --Sheika Mozah
"I love fasting during Ramadan, I love praying in the mosque, I love being part of a Muslim community. In Dubai, I can be an Arab and a Muslim. And I can also have all the Western amenities, all the freedoms I need to be an independent, self-sufficient woman." --Yasemin Saib
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