The BALL REPORTS

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If you have to ask....,

it is not much of a right!,

Saudi women seeking right to drive

September 21, 2007

Group plans to take its case to the king

D. Abu-Nasr

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia – A group of women in the only country that bans female drivers has formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel, and it plans to petition King Abdullah in the next few days for the privilege.

The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive. But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis – men and women – consider a “stolen” right.

“We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue,” said Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars.

Committee members want to deliver their petition to the king by Sunday, Saudi Arabia's national day commemorating the country's unification.

The driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign, and forces families to hire live-in drivers. Women whose families cannot afford $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them.

Two years ago, Mohammed al-Zulfa, a member of the unelected Consultative Council, asked his colleagues to think about studying the possibility of allowing women older than 35 or 40 to drive – unchaperoned on city streets but accompanied by a male guardian on highways.

The suggestion touched off a fierce controversy that included calls for al-Zulfa's removal from the council and stripping him of Saudi citizenship. He was also accused of encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men.

The uproar underscored the divisions in Saudi society between the guardians of its strict Islamic codes of behavior and those who want to usher in more liberal attitudes.

Conservatives, who believe women should be shielded from male strangers, say women in the driver's seat will be free to leave home alone and go when and where they please. They also will unduly expose their eyes while driving and interact with male strangers, such as traffic police and mechanics.

But supporters of female drivers say the prohibition exists neither in law nor Islam, but is based on fatwas, or edicts, by senior clerics who say women at the wheel create situations for sinful temptation.

Women tried to defy the ban once and paid heavily for it. In November 1990, when U.S. troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women drove family cars. They were jailed for a day, lost their jobs and had their passports confiscated.

In the weeks ushering in the holy month of Ramadan, which began Thursday, a furious debate erupted in Al-Hayat newspaper over a TV series.

In “Amsha bint Ammash,” the main character, Amsha, loses her father and is forced to relocate from her village to Jiddah. After an unsuccessful round of job searching, she decides to become a taxi driver – a job open only to men.

She disguises herself as a man, adding a mustache and donning the white robe and red-and-white-checkered headdress Saudi men wear. This angered many viewers.

Yesterday, the newspaper Al-Watan ran an article about a car dealership sending invitations for women in Jiddah to try out a new family sedan for 24 hours. The dealership emphasized that the invitation was for women and their drivers, who are the only ones permitted to test-drive the cars.

So I must ask, Who is afraid of whom?

Is this a progressive society?

Is slavery still rampant in the middle east?

 

Your humble Ace Reporter

Bob

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