For people who have never been to Saudi Arabia, the fact that we are one of the biggest producers of oil often gives the impression of affluence. And in major tourist attractions around the world, every Saudi tourist is thought to be a member of royalty. That’s why I believe it’s important to show that that privilege and extravagance is only true for a very small and shrinking faction of Saudi society. Some of the rest are well-off as a middle-class. And then we have the majority; people living from paycheck to paycheck or some who can’t find jobs. This is a link to an anonymous blogger who has taken it upon himself/herself to contrast the wealth of our highest-class up against the conditions of the poor and some run-down government facilities such as hospitals and schools.

The growing unemployment rate and the rising numbers of households who cannot make ends meet have been a throbbing headache for those in power. Dr. Al Qosaibi was called in to rescue the government once again as he had with the health sector but even he could not do much when up against the stubborn muttawa ideology. Every common sense proposal he tried to implement was shot down by the dogged fundamentalist.

It is depressing that in a country where there are nine million people brought in on worker contracts, many of whom are low-skill, our own Saudi youth go to waste from joblessness and idleness. Young women not being able to take jobs because they cannot afford a driver to transport them to work or they are told that their job goes against our religion and traditions. Banking jobs are believed to be unblessed by God. Hospital jobs and any other jobs that involve working with men can get in the way of a woman’s marriage prospects and are simply forbidden by many families.

 Young men who have to compete in a market where a Saudi’s basic salary could get the employer three men from India, Sri Lanka or the Philippines. I know that some accuse Saudis of being pompous and lazy but I know for a fact that the majority are hardworking and hungry for opportunity. These imported workers are willing to work ten to twelve hour work days and even live at nearby cramped quarters assigned by the employer. And all at a salary that could barely sustain an individual in Saudi Arabia, never mind households. How could a Saudi compete with that?!

To read more about poverty in KSA, here’s a link to a previous post.

Yesterday morning the minister of health, Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeah publicly got himself and one of his daughters vaccinated at a launch ceremony for the H1N1 vaccine campaign. This was reported in today’s newspapers. So I went through the comments posted on the article and just as I suspected many if not most doubted that what was in the needles used on the minister and his daughter was the vaccine or just water or vitamins. I’ve heard this so many times and now it’s posted for everyone to see; our obsession with conspiracy theories.

Logical arguments have no power at all in these cases. Just last night I was on the phone with a friend who had kept her daughter out of school this year and absolutely refuses even the idea of the vaccine. She touts around a newspaper article about an official from New Zealand being fired from the WHO because he/she has voiced objections to the vaccine.

I agree that the H1N1 might be over-hyped in the media and that drug companies are making good money out of the vaccine. But that the Saudi health minister would be in on a conspiracy to vaccinate Saudi citizens?! Some of the rumors going around are that it makes people sterile and that its effects do not become evident until five to ten years later. And so the minister would know this as a fact and like a villain out of a movie, he would push the vaccine on the Saudi population. We watch way too much TV.

Besides the CDC and the WHO websites for those with vaccinating, there are two websites that I found that are against the vaccine but base their arguments more on science rather than conspiracies:  Dr. Meryl Nass’s blog and NVIC. 

This was posted on Facebook by Reem Pharaon and is making the rounds:

On November 6. 1990, 47 brave Saudi women drove their cars publicly in the capitol of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, to demand their right to drive. They were subsequently detained, their passports were confiscated, and fired from their jobs.

On the 19th anniversary of this event, Saudi women’s activists, led by Wajeha al Huwaider, are launching the “Black Ribbons Campaign”, demanding that:

A) Saudi woman be treated as a citizen just like her male counterpart.

B) Saudi woman enjoys her rights to marry, divorce, inherit, gain custody of children, travel, work, study, drive cars and live on an equal footing with man.

C) Saudi woman gain the legal capacity to represent herself in official and government agencies without the need of a male guardian.

We, Saudi women activists appeal to all those who support Saudi women’s rights, inside and outside the Kingdom, to participate in the campaign by wearing a black ribbon on their wrists as a symbolic and peaceful gesture of their .advocacy to Saudi women’s rights.

This campaign is raising the motto: “we will not untie our ribbon until Saudi women enjoy their rights as adult citizens”.

Please make sure to wear a black ribbon on November 6th.

This is from an article I wrote for the November issue of Relativity Online:

Ultra-conservative Saudi families, and they are a majority, have a general dynamic that few Saudis could deny.  Like old-fashioned western family ideologies, the father is the breadwinner, the mother takes care of the home-front, the sons are served and tolerated and the daughters are the bit of fluff that flutters around the house.

But unlike most other cultures, daughters also have to contend with constant supervision of their every move. A job that some brothers feel falls on their shoulders. No matter what age a woman is, many families believe that as long as she is single, she is a liability. This translates into horrific intrusions of privacy and personal freedom. In one extreme case, a family I know has no locks on any of the doors including the bathroom doors, so that to insure the daughters cannot seclude themselves and do anything inappropriate; pre-approval of clothing, whether at home or when leaving the house, is common.

A friend of mine once told me she had to sit for over two hours in an uncomfortable position because she had pajama pants on and was afraid her father, who had come early from work, would see them. And this is not only with teenage girls, but also adult women… even divorced mothers. So what’s a girl to do in this situation? Many go by the Arabic saying that translates into “a woman has only three places in this world: her family’s home, her husband’s home or her grave”. Read more

This song by Shakira inspired a friend of mine to do something really wild. Thursday night after a social obligation, she tucked her kids into bed and waited until they fell asleep. At about 1:30 am she put on one of her husband’s shmaghs (Saudi headdresses), opened the garage door and drove out! And this is not some reckless teenager; she’s a working mother in her thirties. She told me that it was the most liberating feeling she had ever experienced. She has a valid driving license and has driven a lot abroad but somehow she says this was different.

As she was heading home at about 4 am, she made a right turn on a major street in Riyadh just as a BMW filled with young Saudi men was making a U-turn on the street she was turning into. She accidently made eye-contact with a guy sitting in the back. Although she had most of her face masked in the shmagh, just from that one look he somehow knew she was a woman and the chase was on!

Suddenly a few motorcycles joined in and she found herself being pushed to the curb with the BMW in front and the motorcycles to her left. The guys in the BMW opened their doors and started to get out, apparently to walk towards her. She says at that moment she suddenly felt possessed. She put her car into park, pushed on the gas pedal a couple of times for effect and turned the car onto the motorcycles. They cleared out and she sped away. She called her husband and told him the situation. He hurriedly got dressed and waited outside. He saw her coming with her trail of pursuers and she drove right through the garage door and he closed it after her. The BMW stopped at the house and her husband stood his ground and looked at them questioningly. The driver opened his window and said we were just surprised to see a Saudi woman driving. He told them to mind their own business and they drove off. The whole thing was literally like a scene out of a movie!

The adrenaline rush got her through her husband’s lecture and later he couldn’t help expressing admiration for the driving maneuvers he witnessed. He went as far as telling her if they were not Saudis, she should have been a racecar driver.  

This post was written with my friend’s permission on the condition that she remains anonymous.

The academic year is starting and it is so dreadful dragging the driver around. Tell me what should I do when I have a class that’s 90 minutes long and it takes a 30 minute drive to get there; it’s terrible to make the driver wait outside in the heat and I have to rush out asap so no after class discussions. Or do I let him take the car home and pay for double the gas and have to wait for him to get back?!  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m one of the lucky ones that have a driver to myself. I have cousins who sit at home after college because they don’t have a driver and their brothers and fathers are unwilling to drive them around. Others have one driver that they have to share with two or three other sisters. These are adults who have jobs and are responsible as teachers and bankers and yet they have to bear the huge inconvenience of scheduling their trips around each other plus taking into consideration breaks for the driver. And they can’t just hire another driver because it’s a lot more complicated than a few job interviews. They have to pay for a visa (about 2000$) and literally adopt a grown man by ensuring his accommodations, food and everything else.  

In Saudi forums those who oppose lifting the ban on women driving have four arguments that they keep going on and on about:

1-     There are much more important rights that Saudi women should be demanding and prioritizing above lifting the ban on driving. These “other rights” are never spelt out but left ambiguous in every single forum I’ve come across.

2-     That women driving is prohibited in Islam. This has been refuted by the majority of living Saudi sheikhs. However the people who use this argument keep going back to fatwas written by two dead sheikhs who were the inspiration for today’s Taliban lifestyle in Afghanistan.

3-     That Riyadh’s streets are already overcrowded and cannot take the influx that the lift of the ban might cause. To this I say, I have as much right to those streets as any man. Plus this is nonsense because most drivers have to make twice the trips that women would have without the drivers. For example the driver drops off a woman at work and goes home and then goes back to pick her up which means that that single car makes at least four trips a day. Hence using the streets twice as many times a woman would have if she was driving and parking her car at work.

4-     Our men cannot handle seeing a woman behind the wheel. It’s too sexy for them to just look the other way. And women would use it as an excuse to take off their face covers and act like the sinful adulterous beings that wise Saudi men have so far kept tame and locked up. To illustrate here’s a skit that was recently posted on Youtube, it’s in Arabic but there isn’t much talk going on so anyone can understand it. Two guys are hanging out and one guy’s sister calls and tells him that their father needs to go to the hospital and so he takes him. Later when they are hanging out again, one wishes that his sister could drive so that he wouldn’t have to worry about his father getting to the hospital. The other guy says no you don’t want that for your sister. They decide to conduct an experiment by one of them dressing up as a Saudi woman while driving and the other guy pretending to be a husband in need of medical attention in the passenger seat. Chaos ensues.

This ban on women driving makes no sense religiously because Muslim women should not be spending so much time and in such a small space with an unrelated man. It makes no sense economically. 27% of the Saudi population is made up of migrant workers. Sixteen billion dollars in salaries were sent outside Saudi by these workers in 2007 alone. And this sector of our population grows 5% annually. A fairly huge chunk of that 27% is men who come to drive Saudi women around. It makes no sense socially to have these strange men who we know nothing of driving our kids and teenagers around. It’s just not logical.

I propose that all Saudi men be banned from driving for at least three days so that they know what it’s like for us. Even better yet as a sign of solidarity with Saudi women, other countries should ban Saudi men from driving until they give us our right.

Finally a plea to King Abdullah from a little girl who wants her mommy to drive:

Translation: Girl says I want to take a flower and a card with a question asking why can’t women drive in Riyadh to King Abdullah. Man’s voice asks why do you want to do that? She says because I want my mother to be allowed to drive. Man says what if the king says that that is the law and the girl shyly responds that she’ll just say ok.

We took the kids and went driving around Riyadh on National Day to see the celebrations. Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home and had to use my cell phone to catch these images. The streets were full of guys hanging out of their car windows with flags wrapped around their heads or waving them. Below are photos and a video of the celebrations:

Some even stopped their cars at the side of the road, got out and danced! There’s a video of this too in which a bunch of young guys parked their truck on the curb and got out and danced with the stereo blasting a national song:

 And when we went to Sahara Mall, the muttawa were all out to squelch celebrations. They caught a bunch of teenage girls and took the flags that the girls had thrown over their abayas. And as we were leaving, two mall security officers were holding this guy for the muttawa SUV. As I passed by I raised my camera to take a photo and the poor guy called out to me to go right ahead and take his photo. Hubby lectured the security officers, he told them there’s nothing wrong with letting him express himself as long as he’s not hurting anyone. And the officers said that they are holding him because he offends public decency!

Whenever I’m talking to other Arabs and even fellow Saudis about Saudi Arabia, occasionally the question why is Saudi Arabia called Saudi comes up. And of course the question is not asked for a real answer but rather in a condescending manner. As though it somehow hurts our dignity to be called after the person who unified us. My view is so what? It has always been so in the Middle East. Ottoman Empire is actually the name of the ruler who first unified it and before that Al Umwyeen who reached Spain and the list goes on…etc.

King Abdul-aziz al Saud dedicated his life to realize the largest country in the Arabian Gulf and that was before oil and all its riches. To have the country named after him is only natural, especially considering that that was the way it was back then.

Yes there is corruption and yes we have issues as does every other place on Earth. However when you consider the alternative, we could have done a lot worse. We were a people in the middle of a desert in which even the Turks were not interested, let alone Western colonist who at that time were grabbing land left and right. The majority was illiterate and each region was ruled by a different family. And then in 1902 came along King Abdulaziz who had a vision of a country that he fought for and eventually won in 1932. And that makes this September Saudi Arabia’s 77^th birthday. For a 77 year old we have come a long way. In 77 years we have turned this desert into a beautiful and modern country. And that is an accomplishment that I’m proud of.

And if you are one of the run of the mill Saudi-bashers, please respect this occasion and refrain from commenting.

As a student of linguistics I know the immense weight that language carries beyond just a means of communication. And nothing reflects that in Saudi Arabia as does the use of the word hurma (singular) and hareem (plural) to refer to women. Before the ultra-conservative fundamentalist direction that many people of the GCC countries have taken, women were not referred to this way. At the time of the Prophet (PBUH) and in standard and classic Arabic, the words muraa and nissa were used. However in the past century, as more and more things were deemed prohibited concerning women, the word haram (prohibit) was slightly altered to refer to women. Yes, you read right, women are referred to in GCC dialects as “the prohibited”. This has been so ingrained into the language that women themselves use it. A Saudi woman speaking naturally and casually will say “Ana hurma(I am a prohibition)”.   Even I unthinkingly use it.