What's the Point?
What's the point of the Duchess of Cornwall?
Is the question I'm asking myself after reading her comments about the 'remarkable' social changes this royal personage has witnessed - since her last visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabi in 2006.
Now the Duchess - or Camilla Parker Bowles as she is more commonly known - was at the the Bab Rizq Jameel Nafisa Shams Female Academy for Arts and Crafts in Jeddah - and the Duchess and said, quite spontaneously, apparently:
“I’ve noticed that since the last time I was here there’s been a sea of change. Talking to people, they all tell me they think there’s a big difference and they are all so intelligent and sensible. I have had so many more chances to meet women.”
Before adding that the cakes on display were so good - that she would like to take some with her.
Now I'm not naive enough to believe that members of Britain's royal family should be going off abroad fomenting revolution in other countries - fun though that thought might be - but surely this woman could have thought of something slightly more intelligent and worthy to say than these banal comments.
Meanwhile women in Sudia Arabia continue to fight back against one of the most conservative and repressive regimes in the middle east - because Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to forbid its women citizens to drive.
The Saudi ban - which is a religious proclamation- is due to be debated again by the Shura Council - which advises King Abdullah (89) on such sensitive matters - the country being an absolute monarchy of course, as opposed to a democracy.
So the King's word is law - although he is open to argument from time to time, readers will be pleased to hear.
The Shura Council last debated the ban on women drivers in 2006 - and while at that time the King's advisory body rejected any changes out of hand - since then its 150 members include 30 women appointed by King Adbullah in January.
The Shurah Council has agreed to reconsider the issue after receiving a petition of more than 3,500 names - and its deliberation will be televised which is bound to reignite the public argument over women’s equality.
So here's hoping that women drivers in Saudi Arabia become a fact of everyday life soon - the only down side, I suppose, is that they'll have less time to make such famously good cakes.
