Times A'Changing

On this very same faithful month, 11 years ago, the World Trade Center and the confidence of the American people came crashing down in a matter of minutes as two hijacked planes by a group of terrorists decided to crumble the world's largest superpower. Wanting fingers to point at the responsible it was soon revealed 15 out of the 16 hijackers hailed from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Further fingers stretched out to find Osama  as the main root of this insurgency. Perfect. Just Perfect.

I was only 8 years years old when this incident occurred and Saudi, who once lived in its own corner, hardly known to the world and they too, hardly acknowledging themselves as part of the world, had now been shoved onto the center of the stage with the spotlight glaring at them, with the Western media plucking out its flaws furiously.

"Birthplace of Osama! Creator of the Al Qaeda! Women discrimination! Corrupt Royal Family! Extremist Islamic Views! Religious Intolerance! Abusing Expats!" The blames kept rolling. Justice was being asked for, but Saudi like a wide-eyed naive child, didn't know how to give it, further being suppressed by Anti-American groups.

Even our little coastal town Yanbu, which we once used to describe as, "The place near Jeddah?" was now appearing on international news as the terrorist attacks started infiltrating within the country itself. I remember the day when my dad yelled out for us to join him in the living room with BBC being played on the TV. Nik Gowing was speaking and there at the bottom of the screen our humble town was being mentioned under the banner of "BREAKING NEWS." Apparently two Saudi men had beaten up this American man who was later tied to the back of their car and was dragged along the road...I told you we had cars!

But jokes aside, Saudi was becoming a dangerous place. In the capital, Riyadh, the police had found the head of a white man who had been missing for a few days, stuffed in the refrigerator in a terrorist's apartment.

A colleague of my dad too had apparently joined this league of terrorism.

I studied in an American International School and my teachers who had once lived a spoilt and luxurious life, were now fleeing to save it. Apart from fire drills and earthquake drills, we even were introduced to a terrorist drill - because you could never be too sure. However, 3 years later, we too decided to leave. I just narrowly escaped turning 12 and having to wear the abaya out in the streets.

That's when Saudi realised something was wrong. (My lack of presence tends to do that.) There was only so much denying they could do and change was needed. As the then-Crowed Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, but now King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz,  put it,"We must study, what has happened. Something serious has gone wrong here, and we must try to put it right." Just as the 9/11 had changed America it was also changing Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah leading the charge. He raised the social and economic conditions of the country. He promoted women education and introduced the first co-ed university, King Abdullah University of Science of Technology.

The 5-times-a-day prayers whose sermons bred intolerance towards other religions were banned. The public education system was changed too - the syllabus now concentrated more on math and other conventional subjects and less importance is given to religious studies. King Abdullah also held a religious meeting calling various leaders from different religions, including Jews, but he received a faint response from his fellow comrades of his own country.

The curbing of this extremism had obviously upset the Wahabists - the extreme Muslim leaders and followers of Saudi. This is what lead to the terrorist attacks within the country but which in turn lead to the fall of the favoritism of the local Saudi people as their own blood was being murdered by this group and the Al Qaeda.

Today Saudi's doors are open, but maybe not wide enough. Although King Abdullah may have given the green light, many of his reforms have not permanently altered the kingdom's political system.There are changes, but not significant enough. The young population are struggling for their freedom but with the help of the Internet they are able to threaten the government to start an uprising of their own if dissatisfied; a disease which is fast spreading in the area going by the name of The Arab Spring.

So will Saudi Arabia end up having a revolution of it's own? Only the future will tell.

The Women of Al' Saud

I remember having a Saudi family as neighbors. I remember how the wife’s English was broken but that never stopped her from inviting my mother and my sister and I over for some tea and snacks. I remember her house always smelling of some woody Arabian spices that would eventually make you drowsy. I remember sitting next to her kids and watching Arabic dubbed versions of Pokemon and Dragon Ball-Z on MBC Channel 3. I also remember being too afraid to ask them to change the channel into something I could comprehend. I remember the Aunty entrusting us with her parrot when her family and her went off on a trip somewhere. The parrot would wake us up in the middle of the night screeching out words in Arabic. I’m ashamed to admit, the parrot knew more about the language than I did.

But I also remember that that Aunty would never invite my Dad over unless her husband was around. I also remember how she would cover herself from head to toe in black whenever she chose to step outside her house. It is a law in Saudi that women could not travel without a male guardian and her abaya, a law even my mother had to abide to despite being a Christian.

For those of you who haven’t read Princess by Jean Sasson (a crime I tells ya!), it is perhaps one of the best books to read about the women of Saudi Arabia. A true tell-all story through the eyes of Princess Sultana Al’ Saud (renamed for the sake of protection and privacy) belonging to the uncontrollably rich Saudi Royal family. Despite hoarding possibly a quarter of the country’s wealth, she still lives in a gilded cage all because she is a woman. 

According to Sultana, the (backward) people of Saudi believe “women are dominated by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior.” Utter hogwash, she says, in more elegant terms of course. But because of this, women who choose to determine their own lives suffer – from stoning, to being drowned in their own family swimming pool.

However, what is evident through Sultana’s tone throughout the book is that she demands change.

Although this book was written in 2001, a response to the 9/11 attacks, women rights is now a hot potato in Saudi Arabia, believed to have found foothold due to the recent uprising in the other Middle Eastern countries. From jobs, to driving cars (yes, women are not allowed to drive cars. Although my mother uses this as her excuse “11 years of no driving, how do you expect me to pick up again?” I personally believe she’s afraid.) Women are also ready to defy laws taking on the risks of being jailed.

Samar Badawi is one such woman who served 7 months in prison because she chose to disobey her father under the guardianship law – a law which requires women to gain permission from their father, brother, husband or even their adult son to carry on with their day-to-day activities. She had been abused by him since the age of 14 and chose to run away to a women’s shelter. Once she got out of jail, she in turn sued her father for not allowing her to marry when she wanted, and won.

Badawi doesn’t blame the law but just demands awareness. She claims the laws are “very fair” hence they helped her escape her father’s grasp, it's just that women are unaware of what the law can do for them. Earlier this year she went on to receive the International Women of Courage Award by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton.

However, not all women would agree with her. Najla Hariri was recently condemned for driving her son to school under the guardianship law which her husband and she were forced to sign to prevent her from doing it again. She argued, “I reject the idea of his being my ‘guardian’ because I’m a 47 year old woman, I should be my own guardian.”

But not all Saudi women agree. Many argue these are the rants of the well-to-do Saudis, of people who already have everything on their plate and all they’re missing is to be “able to take a passport and travel as they want, or drive a car.” Poor Saudi women actually like the fact that they are so pampered and protected by their family. Bring me a poor Saudi woman who’s against this, a woman asserts.

But, I believe, this is the opinion of a sole minority group. Saudi women are educated with foreign degrees and are tired of sitting at home waiting for something to do and no longer want someone else telling them what to do. And so Hafia Al Mansour decided to get off her ass.

She is the first Saudi woman to have directed a film called “Wadjda” which is going to be screened at the next Cannes Film Festival. The story revolves around a girl in Riyadh (the capital) who desperately wants a bike – again, an anti-oppression movie.

However, predictably, this movie will not be shown in Saudi Arabia mainly due to the fact there are no theaters there. (I assure you we had plenty of DVD stores and even more pirated DVD stores.)

Perhaps this is Sultana’s dream coming true – women standing up, demanding for freedom and with King Abdullah standing right behind them. Although change might not be an overnight shift and might take a generation of radical Islamist to change their view, there is hope for the Saudi women.

The About

"SAUDI ARABIA?"
Uhm, actually, it's The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Whenever I admit having lived in this country for 11 years of my life the very first question that pops out of everyone's mouth like a piece of unchewed coffee flavoured toffee is, "Did you have to ride on camels to travel?" Yes, why indeed we did! And if we fed them a special date milk it would enhance their 'horsepower'.

For those who couldn't get the hint, that was sarcasm. Why would cars not exist in a country that is literally drowning in its oil reserves? Rumour has it, Saudi Arabia is still going to be the next major oil exporter for another 20 years. Just to clear the air even further, people did own cars and I went to school everyday on a big, bright, yellow school bus.

I won't disregard what the world claims to know about the country - women are constricted, there is religious intolerance being an Islamic extremist country, and yes, we got the cheapest Laban (buttermilk so thick and full of flavour you'd erupt into a fit of giggles once your stomach is full.)

But I'm also here to give the flip side of the coin.  Life was bliss, until of course the 9/11 which put this country and its cultural injustices under the spotlight. (Yet America keeps crawling back asking for more barrels of oil.)

Saudi Arabia isn't all that bad as the Western media portrays it and times are changing. For interested feminists, in 2011 King Abdullah granted voting power to women and are slowly cracking open to the idea of working women. The 9/11 has passed and I hope to provide a more tolerant view of the birthplace of Osama Bin Laden and perhaps change this opinion (I kid you not, this is real):