It has been two weeks and two days since the royal decree was issued to allow women to get driver's licenses in Saudi Arabia next year. It seemed for so long, that the day would never come. And then it did. I was out of the country, without my laptop. An American friend posted the story on facebook and tagged me. It took me by surprise, yet it was, and is, glorious news. For eight years, I've been posting stories and opinion pieces about the issues surrounding women driving in Saudi Arabia. There were weeks when there was no news. The issue seemed to fade into the background. Yet, from my own years living in Saudi Arabia, I knew that the frustrations of Saudi women continued, as they tried to carry on their daily lives with the added hurdle of transportation.
And then it happened. I always wondered what it would be like. Would women take to the streets right away? No, they did not. Would there be wide protests? No, there were not. Saudi society is absorbing this change. The first driving school for women is said to be underway. Authorities are planning the implementation of the law. Women are choosing their first cars, and the auto industry is no doubt celebrating at the new market they can sell to in the Kingdom.
As for this blog, it moves into a new stage of tracking how the implementation of the law will happen. I am particularly fascinated to see how women's added independent mobility will change daily life there. I will keep posting stories on this, as well as opinion pieces from various points of view.
Congratulations to all those who fought for this change, and to all their supporters behind the scenes. I congratulate those who spoke up for women driving at all levels of society, and to the brave men who supported the women they know in their quest for this privilege.
Sometimes the end of a great endeavor ends quietly. I think the end of this particular endeavor is actually the beginning of a more fruitful and fulfilling era for all in Saudi Arabia.
On October 7, 2017, Ben Hubbard of the New York Times reported on the '47', those women who drove in 1990 in defiance of the ban on women driving. This is a landmark piece as it interviews several of the driving activists and tells what happened to them after their driving demonstration. A link to the story is here, and the story is pasted in below.
A pair of married couples
celebrating the news of Saudi women being able to drive. The husbands
stood outside their cars as their wives posted selfies.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
They
were arrested, suspended from jobs, shunned by relatives and denounced
by clerics as loose women out to destroy society. Their offense? They
did what many in Saudi Arabia considered unthinkable: getting in cars
and driving.
Their
protest in 1990 against the kingdom’s ban on women driving failed, and
the women paid dearly for it, with the stigma of being “drivers”
clinging to them for years.
So last month, when King Salman announced that the ban on women driving would be lifted next June, few were happier than the first women to demonstrate for that right — almost three decades ago.
“I’d
thought maybe I’d die before I saw it,” said Nourah Alghanem, who had
helped plan the protest. Now she’s 61 and retired with five
grandchildren. “What’s important is that our kingdom entered the 21st
century — finally!”
The
backlash against the 47 women who protested illustrates how deeply the
driving ban was embedded in Saudi Arabia’s conservative society,
reinforced by the state and its religious apparatus.
But
since then, globalization, social media, economic pressures and
leadership changes finally created the conditions for the ban to end.
These are dizzying days in Saudi Arabia.
Carmakers are now targeting advertisements toward Saudi women, and a women’s university is planning a driving school.
And the changes are not only related to the prospect of so many new drivers on the kingdom’s highways. At a public celebration last month, crowds of men and women danced together as a D.J. played music. An end to the ban on cinemas is expected soon.
But
in 1990, when the four dozen women took an extraordinary risk by
fighting the driving ban, conditions in the kingdom were notably
different.
“I’d thought maybe I’d die
before I saw it,” said Nourah Alghanem, who helped plan the 1990 protest
against the driving ban, which is being lifted next year.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
Controlling Women
At
the time of the protest, Ms. Alghanem was 34, with a high school
degree, a husband, four children and a job at an elementary school.
“I didn’t have anything interesting in my life,” she recalled.
At
the time, Saudi women were severely restricted. The culture was highly
patriarchal, and clerics, thanks to their alliance with the royal
family, had tremendous power to defend the kingdom against what they
considered to be corrupting influences.
Much of that meant controlling women, and they saw the driving ban as necessary to prevent adultery and other social ills.
“Allowing women to drive contributes to the downfall of the society,” the kingdom’s top cleric at the time wrote in a fatwa that was removed recently from a government website. “This is well known.”
Women
who chafed under the ban saw an opportunity when Saddam Hussein, the
Iraqi strongman, invaded Kuwait in 1990. American forces flooded the
kingdom, including American servicewomen who drove military vehicles.
Kuwaiti women who had fled the invasion also drove.
Ms. Alghanem took note.
“I saw that we as Saudi women were powerless,” she said.
She
invited other women to her home to discuss the issue, and they later
decided to take action. They sent a letter to Salman — at the time the
governor of Riyadh Province — telling him that they planned to drive.
They
never heard back, they said, so on Nov. 6, 1990, they met near a
supermarket in Riyadh, piled into 14 cars piloted by women with valid
foreign licenses and drove around town.
They
were social outliers, backed by no political party, and other Saudi
women did not rush to join them. Many came from affluent families and
had studied abroad. They included teachers, professors, a social worker,
a photographer and a dentist.
Most
were married with children; at least two were pregnant. One woman
joined late, with her two daughters, one of whom was breast-feeding.
Some had defied their male relatives to show up. Supportive husbands and
brothers dropped off others at the meeting place.
Word
spread, and the women were stopped by both the traffic police and the
religious police, some of whom furiously banged on the cars.
“‘I
want to dig a hole to bury you all!’” Fawziah al-Bakr, an education
professor, recalled one man shouting at her. “They were thinking that we
were going to destroy this country.”
They
were taken to the police station and released around dawn, after they
and their male relatives signed pledges that the women would not drive
again.
“It is not just driving a
car, it is driving a life,” said Asma Alaboudi, a school social worker
who participated in the 1990 protest.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
Furious Backlash
The
next morning, Asma Alaboudi, a school social worker who had
participated, overheard her colleagues saying that the women at the
protest had burned their clothes, worn bikinis and danced in the streets
— all grave acts that had not happened.
Soon, the women’s names were distributed, inflaming public anger.
King Fahd issued a decree suspending those who had government jobs, and preachers excoriated them during Friday prayers.
“At that point, the society revolted,” Ms. Bakr recalled.
Monera
Alnahedh, who later became an international development worker, said
her father quit praying at his local mosque after the preacher said the
women had been inseminated by 10 men.
Officials from the Interior Ministry came to the home of Madeha Alajroush, a photographer, to confiscate and destroy all her negatives — 15 years of work.
“That was a way of punishing me,” she said.
Some friends and relatives shunned the women.
“It was a very, very scary environment,” Ms. Alajroush said.
Photo
Monera Alnahedh, who became
an international development worker, said her father quit praying at his
local mosque after the preacher said the protesting women had been
inseminated by 10 men.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
‘A Decade of Silence’
The harsh response from the state and society buried the issue of women driving.
“It
was a very heavy blow on the women who drove, and it was perceived by
the society as a very heavy blow,” said Ms. Alnahedh, the development
worker. “There was a decade of silence.”
The suspended women struggled to find work, with some choosing to pursue advanced degrees.
About two years later, a princess intervened with the king, who returned them to their jobs and paid some of their lost wages.
Many
of the 47 faded into private life, while others looked for ways to help
women at girls’ schools, women’s universities and in programs for
abused women and children.
After she participated in the
protest, officials from the Interior Ministry came to the home of
Madeha Alajroush, a photographer, to confiscate and destroy all her
negatives, 15 years of work, as punishment.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
Slowly, society changed.
University
enrollment for both women and men rose, and in 2005, King Abdullah
created a scholarship program that sent hundreds of thousands of young
Saudis, including many women, abroad, broadening their perspectives.
He added women to the Shura Council, an advisory body, and social media spread among the kingdom’s youth, giving them freedom online that they lacked in real life.
The
internet eroded the monopoly Saudi clerics had on religious
interpretation, and many Saudis realized how differently Islam was
practiced in other countries.
In
2014, Loujain Hathloul tried to cross the border from the United Arab
Emirates into Saudi Arabia in her car and was jailed for 73 days.
Few of the women who had driven in 1990 joined the new protests, but they cheered the younger women.
“We
were very angry,” Ms. Alajroush, the photographer, said of Ms.
Hathloul’s detention. “But inside of me, I thought that was a big step
forward because finally we were taken seriously.”
Photo
Fawziah al-Bakr, a professor,
with her son, Motaz Alyahya, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She was one of
the 47 women who took to the road in 1990 to demand the right to drive.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
As the price of oil sank, sapping the economy, the crown prince laid out a sweeping plan to reform the economy, including increasing women’s participation in the work force.
Other steps followed. Women voted and ran for seats on local councils in 2015 for the first time, and some won. Public schools were told to offer physical education for girls, which clerics had argued threatened their femininity.
Then
late last month, Ms. Alghanem, who had held the first meeting on the
driving ban in 1990, was playing cards when her phone suddenly began
overflowing with messages, she said.
Her husband called, shouting, “Congratulations!” and told her the ban was being lifted.
Ms. Alghanem — who had merely ridden along in 1990 and still cannot drive — now plans to learn.
“I must get a license and drive,” she said.
The
government has played down any role the women activists played in
prompting the decision, and some of the women say security officials
have told them in phone calls to keep quiet.
The Information Ministry denied such calls were being made.
Many
Saudis argue that the women exacerbated the issue by provoking the
conservatives. In the kingdom, they argue, rights are given by the
ruler, not publicly demanded by the people.
A woman parking her car in a
town in Saudi Arabia owned by the oil company Aramco. In this so-called
“mini-America,” woman are allowed to drive.Credit
Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
“It
is natural that they are happy that they have been given their legal
right that they had demanded before,” Prince Abdulrahman bin Musaid, a
businessman, wrote on Twitter. But he called the idea that the women’s “struggle” had influenced the decision “a great fantasy.”
The women believe the government will not acknowledge them so as not to encourage other activists.
Many
restrictions on women remain, including so-called guardianship laws
that give Saudi men power over their female relatives on certain
matters. But the original protesters are overjoyed that their daughters
and granddaughters will have freer lives than they did, thanks to the
automobile.
“That
I am driving means that I know where I am going, when I’m coming back
and what I’m doing,” said Ms. Alaboudi, the social worker.
“It is not just driving a car,” she said, “it is driving a life.”
Correction: October 7, 2017
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article
misidentified a Saudi woman who took to the road in 1990 to demand the
right to drive. She is Meshael al-Bakr, not Fawziah, who is her sister.
Saudi women's rights activist and best-selling author, Manal al-Sharif, wrote this opinion piece for the Washington Post dated October 5, 2017. A link to the story is here, and the text is pasted below. The world has been waiting for Ms. al-Sharif to speak up about the news that women will be able to get driver's licenses in Saudi Arabia. And she has spoken! Bravo, Manal!
Saudi Arabia is finally freeing itself from the grip of
decades of religious fundamentalism. The key to this change? Car keys.
On Sept. 26, the Saudi government formally announced that it would
lifted the ban on women driving. Saudi writers have compared the
struggle that led to this day to the battle of the royal decree to open
the first government girls’ school in the kingdom. The decree came three
decades after the founding of Saudi Arabia. But this revolutionary
moment is about so much more than driving. It is about changing the very
direction of the country.
Denying women the right to drive has imposed huge costs on Saudi citizens. Up to 1.5 million foreign men must be paid to work as drivers. Many neither speak nor read Arabic, and some of these “drivers” have never driven a car before. A paltry 15 percent of Saudi women work outside their homes,
in part because hiring a private driver can cost between one-third and
two-thirds of a woman’s salary. Saudi men must be responsible for the
transportation of their wives, sisters and mothers. In desperation,
women without access to male drivers have put boys as young as 9 years
old behind the wheel, propped up on pillows to see over the dashboard.
It is no wonder that the kingdom has among the highest traffic fatality rates in the world.
Beyond the social and economic costs, literally forcing
women to remain in the backseat has hobbled Saudi Arabia’s global
progress. It has the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves
but ranks behind Cyprus and Malta on the United Nations Human
Development Index. Now at last we have a path forward: an open Saudi
society for men and women.
Driving is a start. It can
help end the larger oppressive guardianship system, which requires women
to obtain permission from a male relative for the most basic decisions
and activities. (Interestingly, the kingdom has announced that a woman
will not need permission from her guardian to obtain a driver’s
license.)
Today, guardianship and control over women are
less about ancient traditions inside the kingdom — after all, the
prophet Muhammad married a successful businesswoman — than about
fundamentalist religious forces enforcing their grip on society. Many of
the current restrictions on women were imposed after the neighboring
Iranian Revolution and the armed seizure of Mecca’s Grand Mosque by
Sunni radicals for two weeks in 1979. Following those events, women
disappeared from Saudi state television and newspapers, coupled with a
huge crackdown on women employment. Fundamentalists also renewed their
calls to end women’s education. But the current generation of Saudi
women has refused to listen. Women now make up more than half of all
Saudi university students — 51.8 percent as of 2015, according to the Ministry of Education.
For the first time, I dare to dream of a different Saudi
Arabia in the coming years. I have 10 wishes for women’s equality in my
country: I wish for a kingdom where the guardianship system ceases to
exist; where at 18 or 21 years of age, women are recognized by law as
adults; where women can study for any college degree that they want,
including the “male-only” degree of engineering; where women can work in
any field they choose; where women who have been jailed do not need a
male guardian’s permission to leave; where it is a crime to marry off a
child; where women are appointed as ambassadors and ministers and heads
of organizations; where Saudi mothers can pass their citizenship on to
their children; where the law protects mothers and children; and where
women can compete as athletes on any playing field.
More
change is coming. For the first time in the kingdom’s history,
leadership is passing to a younger generation. Saudi Arabia has long
been known for its octogenarian kings, but today the crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman, is only 32. As he told
The Post’s David Ignatius in April, “I’m young. Seventy percent of our
citizens are young. We don’t want to waste our lives in this whirlpool
that we were in the past 30 years. We want to end this epoch now. We
want, as the Saudi people, to enjoy the coming days, and concentrate on
developing our society and developing ourselves as individuals and
families, while retaining our religion and customs. We will not continue
to be in the post-’79 era. That age is over.”
Seven
years ago, I cried on the streets of Saudi Arabia. I cried because after
a doctor’s appointment, I could not find a male driver to take me home.
I had to endure harassment as I walked alone. I had an American
driver’s license and I knew how to drive, but the government would not
allow it. To drive while female was punishable by arrest and jail time.
Indeed, in May 2011, I was arrested and jailed after I drove on Saudi
streets as part of the June 17th movement to protest the ban. Last week,
I cried again, but my tears were tears of joy. In June 2018, seven
years after that protest, Saudi women will be free not only to drive
their own cars but also to be the drivers of their own lives.
AlArabiya.net reported on the first Saudi woman to be granted a driver's license. A link to the story is here and the text is printed below.
Mohamed al-Harbi, AlArabiya.netSunday, 1 October 2017
Sixty six years ago, a judge granted one woman a license to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Historian
Abdulkarim al-Hawqil, speaking to Al Arabiya about what happened at the
time, said that the story involved a blind man who had two daughters
and a car that was driven by one of them in order for her to care for
her father with ease.
There were times when the man would sell items in a local market.
"At
that time, people in the market considered it a disgrace," Hawqil said.
"How can a lady drive the car? It is strange for them to see behind a
woman behind a steering wheel."
The
historian went on to say: "The market people took the blind man and his
daughters to a judge, Sheikh Ali bin Suleiman al-Roumi. He listened to
the words of the blind man and his circumstances and the for his
daughter to drive the car.
“The judge became the first to allow a woman to drive in Saudi Arabia, 66 years ago.”
Adam Workman of the National reported the following on September 30, 2017. A link to the story is here, and you can find the story below. I advise following the link to the story so you can see all the graphics and gifs.
Hot on the heels of the excellent news that women in Saudi Arabia
will finally be allowed behind the wheel, came countless advertising
campaigns with the aim of wooing this unexpected new market.
There have been some clever graphic design campaigns paying heed to
the traditional Saudi dress code, but as I scrolled through numerous
adverts “welcoming” these women drivers, something niggled me. Behind
the “good-vibes” show of support for the decision, opportunism lurks.
Here we take a look at some of the adverts that have come out since the announcement by King Salman, just five days ago. Jaguar Mena
The
stop-motion animation of Jaguar Mena's effort is cute enough. But a
handbag featuring spilled contents is a little stereotypical. Cadillac Arabia
This contribution to me is an airbrushed vision of the past that
seems to hint that women should maintain their modesty, despite their
newfound transportation freedom.
Ford Middle East
This eyes-in-the-rear-view mirror concept is certainly
attention-grabbing. The niqab-draped view out of the front windscreen
behind the main focal point suggests a level of driving visibility that
looks frankly dangerous. Nissan Middle East
Keeping it simple appears to have been the smartest option: Nissan
Middle East's 2018 GRL KSA number plate is a lesson in classy minimalism
that succeeds in telling the story without resorting to tired
gender-courting shenanigans. Although even saying girl as opposed to
women is a little patronising.
It will be interesting to see the uptake from women drivers in the
kingdom when the ban is lifted next year – no doubt many will still be
kept from the driver’s seat by familial and societal pressures. But in
celebrating this leap forward, let’s not be swayed into thinking that
the car manufacturers deserve any particular praise.
Habib Toumi, bureau chief of Gulf News, wrote the following story that appeared on September 30, 2017. You can find a link to the story here. Text is below.
Amsa learnt to drive to take her mother to hospital for regular treatment
Manama: A Saudi woman who has been driving clandestinely for 40 years
welcomed the decision to allow women to drive in the kingdom, saying it
would greatly help them.
Amsa Bint Hadhel said in the four
decades she had been driving in Al Baha, in south-western Saudi Arabia,
she never had any problems, was never harassed, and was never arrested
or booked by traffic police.
“I
learnt to drive out of necessity, and not because I was idle or had
ample time to spend or wanted to show off,” she said in remarks
published by Saudi daily Okaz on Saturday.
“As
a young woman, I used to go with my uncle whenever he drove into town. I
watched carefully how he drove, and I learnt how to drive and fix a
vehicle.”
When Amsa grew up, she had to take care of her sick mother who needed regular medical treatment.
“We
needed to transport her regularly to the public hospital, and I was the
only one available as my father was no more. When I got married, one of
my conditions was that I be allowed to drive without any problems. My
husband had to move to Riyadh, where he worked, and I stayed back home
with my mother, and I had to drive her to hospital.”
Amsa said she was very careful not to get into trouble as her mother needed her.
“I
had no problem with the family and my community as they understood the
need for me to drive. For avoiding the traffic police, I used dirt roads
to take my mother to the hospital. It was tough job but I did it as I
wanted to look after my mother.”
Amsa said she was looking forward to June 2018, when women will be officially allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.
“I
pray for King Salman [Bin Abdul Aziz] because his decision will ease
the situation for so many women. Unfortunately, most people are not
really aware of how they [women] have been suffering,” she said.
The Arab News reports on October 1, 2017 that the all-women university, Princess Nourah University, will open a driving school for women. A link to the story is here, and the text is pasted in below.
JEDDAH: Princess Nourah Bin Abdulrahman University announced on Saturday
that they are ready to establish a driving school for women in
cooperation with the relevant authorities. The university made the
announcement on their twitter account, adding that their decision comes
in line with the Royal directive to allow women to drive equally with
their male peers in the Kingdom.
King Salman issued the decree last Tuesday, according to a royal court statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
“The royal decree will implement the provisions of traffic regulations,
including the issuance of driving licenses for men and women alike,” the
SPA said.
The decree orders the formation of a ministerial body to give advice on
the practicalities of the edict within 30 days and to ensure the full
implementation of the order by June 2018.
