Saudi Shura member argues for women’s right to drive

The Gulf News reports on the impassioned argument by Dr. Latifa Al Shaalan, a female member of the Shura Council in favor of women driving. A link to the story is here, and the text is below. The speaker is an associate professor of Psychology, and addresses the many contradictory and challenging issues surrounding the question of women driving. This blogger believes her voice, being raised in this forum, is significant.

Women members of the Saudi Shura Council

Manama: A female member of the Saudi Shura (Consultative) Council has issued a strong appeal to allow women to drive, saying that it was a right that cannot be denied on religious, social or economic grounds.

Addressing a council session, Dr Latifa Al Shaalan said the claim that “the time is not appropriate yet to allow women to drive as the country is facing internal and external challenges” was not true or valid.

“We have been facing internal and external challenges since the state was founded by King Abdul Aziz, and if we look carefully at our history in the last 50 years, we will say, according to this logic, that no time was ever appropriate to allow women to drive since we are always in the midst of a tumultuous ocean of challenges,” she said, quoted by Saudi daily Okaz on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia is a vast and influential country with great political weight located in a sweltering region, and it is normal that it faces numerous challenges, she added.

“However, these challenges cannot stall reforms and if we embrace their distorted logic, then development, reforms and progress in all areas would have stopped since the existence of challenges makes the time for them inappropriate,” she said.

Al Shaalan, a writer and an associate professor of psychology, also refuted the claim that society was not ready to accept the idea of women driving cars.

“It is incredible how some people demonised Saudi men and considered him a beast always ready to jump on women. This prejudice has been repeated so often that it has become a label characterising Saudi men wherever they go in Saudi Arabia or abroad. It is an unfair characterisation because Saudi men carry in them and with them genuine Islamic morals and Arab values. The young people that we rush to discredit and turn into demons are in fact our sons who grew up in our homes and graduated from our schools. They often competed in serving people honestly and protecting our national borders. There are of course exceptions, but these are deterred by the law,” she said.
The claim that Saudi society is different from other societies is unacceptable and offensive, she added.

“How is the society in Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan safe and allows its women to drive, while our Saudi society with all its great values not safe? The allegation that our society is not ready for women drivers is not supported by the reality on the ground. Our society has accepted the various reforms, such as the membership of women in the Shura Council and the holding of municipal elections. Our society is mature and the political authority is strong, stable and determined to deter those who break the public order,” she said.

The allegation that allowing women to drive was not a priority for the country was a fallacious argument, Al Shaalan said.

“This claim has opened the door for a wide array of erroneous assertion, as if allowing women to drive would prevent addressing other issues such as unemployment and housing. Rights cannot be categorised by priorities because nobody has the right to decide the scale of priorities which differ vastly depending on their conditions. What is a priority for some is not necessarily a priority for others.”

The Shura member said that not allowing women to drive has caused them great harm and stalled their rights and interests.

“This is totally unfair because one of the major aims of Islam is to ensure justice for all. Islam has asserted equality between men and women in the origin of creation, responsibilities and tasks. Islam has asserted equality in human dignity and civil rights, such as choosing the spouse, ownership, and all kinds of selling and purchasing transactions. How is it possible that after all these advantages granted by Islam, women are not allowed to drive?”

Al Shaalan argued that allowing women to drive would be beneficial for the national economy and would empower women economically, especially that unemployment rates among women were high.
“The fact that women cannot move easily is a formidable obstacle to them getting jobs, especially in the private sector,” she said.

The 150-seat Shura Council has 30 women members.

Right to drive is just part of a bigger picture

Saudi journalist and blogger Sabria Jawhar wrote this in the Saudi daily Arab News on June 23, 2014. A link to the story is here, and the text is pasted in below.

There’s been some hoopla recently over a proposal from two Shoura Council members to allow Saudi women to obtain an international driver’s license in the Kingdom that would permit them to drive in foreign countries.

Possessing an international driver’s license at one time was seen as a path toward obtaining a Saudi driver’s license that would allow women to legally drive in Saudi Arabia. Authorities, however, refused to issue international licenses to Saudi women. It’s a good thing that the issue is now before the Shoura Council, but it is by no means the most important thing. In fact, it’s really a minor side issue to a much larger picture: The representation of Saudi women in government.

Both Saudi and western human rights activists have been preoccupied with the women’s driving issue as if it will cure all ills. While it is important that Saudi women have the right to drive a car, it does not solve the perplexing issue that many of us are denied some rights.

Instead, driving right is only a stepping-stone to full equality guaranteed to women in Islam. That is the thinking of Latifa Al-Shaalan and Haya Al-Mani, the two women Shoura Council members who introduced the amendment that would allow women to obtain an international driver’s license. And the fact the amendment is about driver’s licenses is irrelevant.

 It’s more about the power of these two women who drafted the amendment, introduced it to the Shoura Council and having it sent to the proper committee for approval before being put before the Council for a vote.

If there were an argument that it’s better to work within the system than externally, the work of Al-Shaalan and Al-Mani would be the perfect example.

As we have witnessed since 1992, female driving demonstrations have had limited impact on Saudi women’s rights, other than to antagonize certain elements and whip up western activists who project their own feminist ideals on a culture they barely understand. On the other hand, conservatives have cleverly found ways to tamp down on demonstrations by putting pressure on the men in families to curb their daughters and sisters, impounding cars and waging whisper campaigns.

But Al-Shaalan and Al-Mani force the issue of women’s rights to the surface. By introducing the international driver’s license amendment, they force every Shoura Council member to reveal his or her position on the issue. It’s unlikely that the amendment will ever pass, but there will be little doubt exactly where the Shoura Council stands. And if the amendment should pass and become a recommendation of the Council, then the tired argument that “Saudi women will drive when Saudi society is ready” will be put to the test.

But whether the amendment passes or fails is beside the point. The proposal and others like it drafted by female Shoura Council members will result in accountability at the highest levels. Every time a proposal is made to ensure Saudi women their Islamic rights, every man and woman on the council must stand by their vote to deny such rights and answer to Saudi society why they abdicated their public service and religious responsibilities.

This is the power of a consultative body that measures the wants and needs of the community it serves and comes at a decision via a vote. By appointing 30 women to the Shoura Council, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has introduced a new dynamic never witnessed in Saudi history: The voice of Saudi women — half of Saudi society — and accountability of those individuals who seek to silence that voice.

Email: sabria_j@hotmail.com