Våra Vänner Saudierna

Våra Vänner Saudierna [Our Friends the Saudis]
“IKEA removed images of women from the Saudi Arabia version of its catalog,” the Los Angeles Times reports:

Swedish publication Metro posted a comparison of the Saudi Arabian mailer and the Swedish version, showing that women present in the latter were missing from the former. . . 

The image of a pajama-clad woman–shown standing at a bathroom sink along with a young boy, a man and another young child nearby–is erased in the catalog distributed in the Arab state. Some tableaux feature a co-ed mix of models for the Swedish catalog but no models for the Saudi Arabian copy.

One wonders where the Saudi customers are supposed to think the children in the photo came from. The company put out a sort-of apology: “We should have reacted to the exclusion of women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog since it does not align with the IKEA Group values.”

When you realize only after the fact that something you’ve done “does not align” with your values, can you really say those are your values? The IKEA statement sounds like an unfunny version of the Groucho Marx line: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them–well, I have others.”