Queen Rania rocks!!!

How successful the project is going to be, of course, remains to be seen. The fact that an attempt is being made to bring about change is awsome. I hope that both men and women in Jordan will keep open minds. Utopian, I know, but it never hurts to be optimistic.

Let's hope the attempt is successful, and that. With Islamic law as a major component of their system of law (combined with French codes), hope is about all we have.

I was in Jordan over the summer, and while this program is a good thing, Jordan's not even close to tolerable when it comes to women's rights, or even basic human rights. The sheikhs there preside over many cases as arbiters, and are blatantly corrupt and anti-woman. Add sharia law to the fact, and you've got a huge problem. Remember, Jordan leads the world in execution rates, and while this may be a step forward, they're miles and miles away from becoming tolerable. Just the 87% statistic shows the problem right there: women receive little to no education, and are brought up in a subservient role. It was weird being there as an American and seeing women in burqas in 120 degree heat, and pretty disconcerting.

Jessica, I strongly disagree with darwin66 and DaveNJ17--Islamic/"sharia" law isn't a problem in and of itself.

If it were being interpreted as most literate/semi-educated Muslims think it should be, this campaign would pretty much just have to be a matter of repeating to the public what their own religion actually says about women's rights not to be violently punished by their spouses.

However, Jordan's queen isn't going to partner with religion like that because the same scholars who would LOVE a louder megaphone to tell women about their rights with are the scholars who would also, if given a megaphone, suddenly be audible saying, "Totalitarianism from the king isn't right."

Whoops.

So though the queen's heart is in the right place, I think her strategy of trying to convince women that they have rights in a secular way is:

1) not going to do even 5% of the good that trying to convince them in a religious way would and

2) let even that 5% be canceled out by opposing messages about women's rights come into women's ears from anti-women's-rights clerics/"scholars" who will actually be audible if the sensible clerics & scholars still don't have that "megaphone."

Unless the queen PARTNERS with respected religious scholars, I think her whole effort is at best going to keep Jordanian public opinion where it is (and not-at-best fail to prevent it from sliding even worse).

I think some letters to NGO heads, heads of state, and religious officials encouraging this collaboration, even though all the political scientists in the world will sardonically say it'll never happen (because of the totalitarian king), might help. Ali Eteraz's letter-writing campaigns like that have done a lot of good.