ArabianSaudi Blog by Zaki Safar

Saudi Arabia, the prototype of a unique confluence of antiquated cultural norms and a ridged, puritanical interpretation of Islam, known in the West as Wahhabism, has long served as fertile ground for fundamentalist ideologies and religious extremism, leaving the burden of shouldering the ensuing repressive social environment on its women.

Nevertheless, Saudi women have, of late, taken a stance more resolute than previously in pushing for their freedoms, including the right to take the wheel. Following the arrest of friend and Aramco colleague Manal al-Sharif, who challenged the de facto ban on driving, as a result of which she was forced to divorce herself from the Women2Drive campaign which called on women to drive en masse on June 17, the fate of the initiative has been steeped in deep uncertainty.  However, hopes were promptly restored once Women2Drive released a statement reaffirming that the June 17 plan was still in place, and subsequently more and more women have driven their cars (some posting videos anonymously on Youtube).

The most recent such event occurred on June 9, when the police arrested six women found driving on an out-of-the-way, empty plot of land. One of the women agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions, stating that she had taken the driver’s seat because she “had a right to,” adding, “[Saudi] women are oppressed in so many ways, most notably through the male guardianship system.” That is, in violation of article 15 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Saudi Arabia requires each and every woman to have a male guardian without whose written consent she cannot study, travel or work.

The detention of the women evoked an unlooked-for remark from al-Sharif herself, who said on a Facebook page marketing the cause: “Although I was obliged to make a promise to refrain from meddling…if more women continue to take to their cars, the authorities will ultimately have to make room on the road for us.”

As expected, such female defiance of taboos was received and reacted to pejoratively by the Wahhabi establishment. Loud speakers of Friday sermons vibrated with strident calls to “tame” the daring, and erring, women. Via internet and television, prominent sheikhs-once held as role models-sent shock waves throughout society by labeling the women as anything from “wanton” to “whores”. Religious zealots even went a step further and lobbied for their public lashing, as some young traditionalists advocated violence against them on Facebook and Youtube.

But in point of fact, radical rhetoric and fanatical frames of mind not always have been so inextricably interwoven in the fabric of Saudi lifestyle. The year 1979 represented a turning point in Saudi history.

Juhayman al-Otaibi, a member of the Saudi National Guard who left it in the early 1970’s and later formed  a cult based on his personal understanding of the Muslim faith, had long been exasperated with what he viewed as Muslims’ drifting away from true Islam. He pinned the blame on the House of Saud for shifting the way of life in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in a Westerly direction, and for allowing women more liberty than was proper. He traveled around the Kingdom gathering followers and, after months of careful planning and hard work, on November 20, 1979, they did the unthinkable: Juhayman and his militants entered and seized control of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca.

In response, Riyadh dispatched a successful counter-insurgency operation to cleanse Islam’s holiest-of-holies of all traces of the armed radicals and, in the weeks that followed, a pressing question hung in the air: What measures should be taken to prevent a recurrence of such events? With memories of the ousting of Iran’s Shah after his falling out of favor with the religious establishment still fresh in mind, the solution to extremist religion was understood by the vested religious interests in the Kingdom to be more religion!

Charming Juhayman in Captivity

Then came the clampdown. Four cinemas in Jeddah were ordered shut, together with music stores and coffee shops allowing gender mixing, as well as a women’s gym. Photographs of women no longer appeared in dailies or magazines, and no women were permitted to be seen or heard on the radio or TV. The black abaya was imposed on foreign women. To make ends meet through working at bazaars was no longer an option for women, and other job opportunities became severely limited. Men of the “morals police,” now more amply funded, patrolled the streets harassing particularly women. The capture and execution of Juhayman in 1980, ironically, marked the birth of his program.

The first fairly serious attempt by Saudi women to rid themselves of the heavy, ever more tightening hand of the religious lobby occurred in 1990, when forty-seven women, looking to the Western presence in their region during the Gulf War for inspiration, took the wheels of fourteen cars and drove through central Riyadh in a demonstration against the ban.

Before long, the “westernizing, communist whores” were either suspended or dismissed from their jobs and their names made public. Furious sheikhs ferociously denounced them from pulpits and in the newspapers, before former Grand Mufti bin Baz issued a fatwa forbidding women to drive. A blunt announcement aired on state-run TV warned that any women caught driving on the Kingdom’s roads would be “penalized.” And because Saudi youth are inculcated from childhood with dogmatic, uncompromising teachings, the conservative posture was met by popular endorsement.

With the exception of a September 2007 petition to King Abdullan demanding the lifting of the ban on women driving, this long-standing issue had rarely been as soberly brought up until the Jasmine Revolutions of 2011, leading to the detention of al-Sharif and other women.

With Friday, June 17 being just around the bend, what will unfold that day is hard to prophesy, yet the odds may be slightly tilting in favor of the movement.

During the past few weeks, as ultraconservatives exhausted all efforts to stop women from driving, the government has remained largely reticent, a sign construed by observers as a tacit green light.

Contrast this to the reaction of the 1990 driving demonstration, or to March 11, 2011 Saudi Arabia’s “Day of Rage.”

During the days preceding March 11, state-run media inundated audiences with warnings issued by the Ministry of the Interior against taking part in the planned rallies, reflecting similar remarks made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Searches and arrests were conducted, and thousands of riot police forces deployed to certain corners of the Kingdom. Facebook pages promoting the protests were blocked, and the current Grand Mufti declared all forms of demonstration impermissible.

On the other hand, as reported on June 6, King Abdullah has ordered officials to start allowing women-only sales assistants in lingerie shops and other industrial facilities, and, on June 7, the Shura Council favored women suffrage rights.  These signs bode well for Saudi women?

While upholding indigenous Islamic values, we as a nation, ranked 130th out of 134 countries for gender parity by the World Economic Forum 2009 Global Gender Gap Report, must take wider steps toward according more liberties to, and ensuring the inclusion and participation of, half our population, without succumbing to a self-righteous and too austere a religious institution that, in its own right, has been hindering our country’s progression into the twenty-first century.

Juhayman's Buddies