IOC cowers to Saudi's ban on women

The scene initially was niggling, troubling, then so much worse than that. Frankly, it was outrageous, with minimal cover provided by the flags and the uniforms and the procession of beaming, glistening faces.

All those nations.

All those men.

"If you watched the countries marching in during Opening Ceremonies, you had to say, 'Wait a minute,'" said Adriana Surfas, an aide to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. "You expect everyone to have women in their delegation. But when they don't, we barely pause. It's so ingrained. It's almost like that's the way it is supposed to be."

The perpetual gender imbalance in the Olympic delegations this time is most evident in the contingents from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, countries that prohibit women from competing in the Games. While several other Arab countries limit participation to events in which women can wear traditional clothing ---shooting, sailing and taekwondo -- sometimes, even in Iran, the girls can go out and play. The delegations from the United Arab Emirates and Oman, for instance, include women for the first time.

So there has been progress of note. Except, it appears, in Saudi Arabia, where our allies remain brazenly resistant to change and seemingly oblivious to an Olympic charter that prohibits "any form of discrimination" among competing nations. While a more appropriate reaction might be to send the Saudis home to bake cookies and serve tea, International Olympic Committee officials respond not merely with temperance, but with unconscionable timidity. They continue to tolerate policies (and countries) that either exclude half the population from the Games, or, to varying degrees, severely discourage the possibility of women excelling and enjoying athletics.

"While I was working on a report about human rights and child marriages, it struck me: We are the only country in the world that does not allow women to play any sport," said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi scholar and founder of the Gulf Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that studies issues in the Middle East. "Even Iran, for example, has thriving female sports organizations and leagues. Qatar is starting female sports teams. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq offer something. But not my country, and this disgusts me. More disgusting is the silence of the West, to be honest."

After Al-Ahmed approached several politicians with his findings, DeLauro introduced a resolution Aug. 1 urging her colleagues to pressure the IOC, at the very least, to forcefully advocate for female athletes before the 2012 London Games.

Al-Ahmed, 40, was hoping for more. More drastic action. More biting verbiage. Much harsher penalties. Countries that prohibit females or fail to provide an adequate infrastructure for elite sports programs, he suggests, should be barred from the next Summer Olympics, much as South Africa was banned from 1964-92 because of apartheid.

Nonetheless, the Saudi scholar and author acknowledges that his campaign is in its infancy. During the next four years, he plans to badger politicians, contact officials with Billie Jean King's Women's Sports Foundation and other women's groups, publish additional articles and pursue additional television consulting work.

Asked the source of his motivations, this improbable pairing of a crusading Muslim from Saudi Arabia and female athletes worldwide, Al-Ahmed laughs ruefully. He has five sisters, none of whom is interested in sports. His parents, who are visiting from his hometown of Safwa, can't understand his excitement about the Olympics.

"I asked my mother, 'What if you had a daughter who wanted to be a gymnast?'" said Al-Ahmed. "She said, 'They are not wearing clothes.' I don't think she had a problem with the women competing. But the way I feel, why I do this, is that I have always been an activist on human rights, and I believe that if you allow women to play sports, women's rights everywhere will be much improved."

(Contact Ailene Voisin at avoisin@sacbee.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)