1) Sultana's Song - Saudi Arabia (From Songs From The Women Of The L.O.M.) (Princess Sultana Speaks With Immanuel Kant) Poem by Otradom Pelogo

Princess Sultana Al Sa'ud
Speaks With
Immanuel Kant
Emmanuel


As I stated earlier, in one of the preceding sections, under Lela's Song, of reading Princess Sultana's book dedicated to lifting oppression and helping attain better, if not equal rights for women in Saudi Arabia. And not contradicting the point of interest, I found equally compelling the chapter on professor Al Massari, a dissident who was later, of course forced to flee his country because of his views and means, be they right or wrong, of acting them out; manifesting his ideas, along with others to try and bring change about from the house of Al Saud (Al Bayt Al Saud) to the masses. And as I read over the section on the professor that I had written several years ago, as part of the book that I was working on; and my character is fictional reality; I mean that it could happen and certainly is happening, if not in my country, in other countries around the globe; I then comparatively thought about the two on a continuous basis.

It is challenging, almost perniciously, so as well as inspiring, for she, Princess Sultana, is within the royal family; and though we know that change comes from within and from above, though usually motivated by the masses, I found it almost amusingly appealing to indulge in her plight as she struggles not only with her own ruling family, but also with her immediate family, and thus I repeat, a possibly pernicious affair that she finds herself in, even at this very moment. And her daughters, like on the issue of women's rights, still taking a dichotomous view also with the professor (one believing in more rights and liberties for the professor and the dissidents, and the other, believing in absolute power coming from the house of Al Sa'ud.)

While searching for some of the answers to her dilemma and that of the house of Al Sa'ud, I remembered searching through a few books on Immanuel Kant that I had read earlier, and in Kant, you can find many things, as in Poe, I found that 'the truth is not at the foot of the mountain where it is found, but at its precipice where it is searched for'.
(excerpt from Princess Sultana's Circle by Jean Sasson, copyright 2000) Princess Sultana

Although I was beginning to have some respect for this Al Massari, even agreeing that some change is in order, I have never wished for my family to lose their power. And, while Mohammed Al Massari might be a man of brilliant thoughts, I suspected that he might find it difficult to hold a country together that had been created decades ago by a warrior genius.
I sniffed. What Amani said was true. Every Saudi Arabian knew that a committee of dissidents, composed of fifty men, including scholars, businessmen, judges, and religious leaders had written a letter to the King.
The letter called for an end to oppression, and asked for participation in the running of the government. Over four hundred prominent Saudi Arabians added their signatures to the dissidents' document. When this letter was presented to the King, it is said he went into shock before consulting the Council of the Senior Scholars. On orders from the king, this council had condemned the committee, saying it should be abolished and members punished. The secret police had arrested the professor and had jailed him at Al Hayir Prison, located a few kilometers outside of Riyadh.

(Perpetual Peace by Immanuel Kant)
Immanuel Kant - Now even if the practical man (Praktiker) (for whom morality is mere theory) admits that we can do what we ought to do, he bases his disconsolate rejection of our fond hope on the following consideration: he asserts that, human nature being what it is, we can predict that man will never want to do what is required to achieve that goal [Zweck] of perpetual peace. Certainly, the will of all individual men (the distributive unity of the wills of all) to live under a lawful constitution that accords with principles of freedom is not sufficient to attain this goal: only the will of all together (the collective unity of combined wills) is. The solution to so difficult a task requires that civil society become a whole. Implementing this state of right (in practice) can begin only with force, and this coercion will subsequently provide a basis for public right, because an additional unifying cause must be superimposed on the differences among each person's particular desires in order to transform them into a common will-and this is something no single person can do. Furthermore, in actual experience we can certainly anticipate great deviations from that (theoretical) idea of right (for we can hardly expect the legislator to have such moral sensibilities that having united the wild mass into a people, he will then allow them to create a legal constitution through their general will)

For this reason it is said that he who once has power in hand will not have laws prescribed to him by the people. And once a nation is no longer subject to external laws it will not allow itself to be subjected to the judgment of other nations regarding the way in which it should seek to uphold its rights against them.