First of all, I’m happy that Saudi
women can finally drive. What makes me unhappy, however, are the circumstances
in which Saudi women were bestowed their freedom of movement.
All too often in the Arab Islamic
world, men highjack women’s most basic rights and freedoms. Arab Muslim men use
religion to manipulate women into believing that a specific right or freedom -
in this Saudi case, the freedom to drive - is not good for women, is not safe, is
against the teaching of Islam, and therefore a Muslim woman who drives is
immodest, and lacking in faith. Saudi men also emphasized all the horrors that
will fall upon Saudi society if women drove, specifically rape. Saudi men reiterated
that women driving cars will cause Saudi men to rape them. Which says a lot
about how modest, and God fearing Saudi men are.
I understand the Saudi Women’s
fight to drive and gain autonomy well, because in Kuwait, women had to fight a
similar fight to gain political rights. Since the early fifties, Kuwaiti women
have been calling for their political rights (the right to vote and run for
parliament). We had to wait until 2005, when American President George W. Bush pressured
the late Kuwaiti Sheikh to give women the vote.
Throughout the years, when Kuwaiti
women marched, protested, wrote, and demanded parliament members to acknowledge
their constitutional right to vote and run for office. Kuwaiti men and
legislators used similar ludicrous religious arguments on how it was immodest
for a Muslim woman to vote, or run for parliament, and how it was against Islam.
There is nothing in the Muslim faith that forbids women from voting or driving. There’s, however, an ingrained obsession in Muslim Arab men to control and oppress
women.
What happened in Saudi infuriates
me, because so many strong, educated Saudi women demonstrated, they took action,
they put their lives in danger, they were incarcerated for driving a car. Only
to have the crown prince casually lift the ban as if it was never really an issue, at the
very convenient time when the Saudi economy is suffering, due to the high cost
of the Yemeni war, oil price drops, and other economic issues. Saudi women were
not given their right to move freely because of the long fight they led, but
due to the whim of a privileged man. Saudi women’s voices were ignored until
the economy decided to reach its greedy hands into Saudi women’s wallets. This
economic agenda is emphasized further as Saudi women were recently allowed to
buy tickets to and attend football matches. Football stadiums being another
space off limits to Saudi women before the deterioration of the Saudi economy.
I was watching a recently made Youtube
documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB0rxjRD0vA&t=1397s, that followed the lives of several Saudi women, after the driving
ban was lifted. The interviewer (a western lady) asked them about how
their lives are going to change now that they can drive. She asked them about
their work, and the relationships they had with the men in their lives.
Needless to say, all Saudi women in the documentary came from privileged wealthy
backgrounds. You watch them test driving expensive German cars, at luxurious,
shiny tiled motor agencies. And say things like “I come from a family of merchants,
and so when I finished university, my father helped me start my own business,
designing colorful “Abayas” and decorated prayer rugs, it’s not hard for a
Saudi woman to run a successful business if her idea is a good one”. Another middle-aged
woman explained how her father forbade her from continuing her higher education
and married her off to her cousin. Her husband then allowed her to go to
university, and in that respect she was lucky, she explained.
I want women to drive and move
freely. I want women to vote and run for parliament, I want them to go to university
if they wish to do so, and build successful businesses. I want women to have full
autonomy over their lives and the choices they make. But I don’t want these
essential basic freedoms to be given to women whenever it is convenient for men
to do so. I don’t want women’s rights to be in the discretion of men, a gift
only a man can give a woman, and then bask in the bright warm glow of the
hero, written down in history as the man who allowed women to drive
or vote, or get an education.
