Initially, I was encouraged that a good number of the men I knew—granted, a small circle, and entirely inside Aramco—supported the campaign. They saw it not as threatening but as liberating for all Saudis. Even my brother, the same brother who had been so horrified when I removed my hijab, supported me. He worked as a petroleum geoscientist, which required him to spend up to three weeks at a time out in the oil fields, far away from his wife and their newborn. They did not live inside the Aramco compound and he could not afford a driver, which meant that his wife was trapped at home until he returned. I remember him telling me that it broke his heart each time he left home, knowing his wife and son were helpless. They often stayed with me at the compound so that I could help them get around.
“When I come back from work,” my brother once told me, “I am very tired, all I want to do is rest, but at that moment, I have to take my wife all over the place.” He often had to make up excuses to leave work early so that he could drive his wife somewhere. The system left him and my sister-in-law entirely dependent. Each was without basic freedom. I also often needed my brother to drive me outside the walls of the compound. So he was “on call” for two women.
“I’m with you,” he told me. “Go ahead.”
I had convinced him. Now I had only another 7 million Saudi men to go.
Almost as soon as we started posting to Facebook, men and even some women responded with harsh criticism. They railed that we “would destroy Saudi society” and “destroy Saudi family life.” Women driving “would lead to corruption and moral decay.” The entire campaign was subjected to fierce scrutiny. People asked constantly who we were—at this point, none of us were posting using our real names and our real photos—who was supporting us, whether the driving itself was legal, where the event was going to be held. Most ominous of all, they assumed that we were calling for public demonstrations. This was unsettling because public demonstrations are illegal in Saudi Arabia and the punishments for conducting them severe. A peaceful sit-down protest can result in a sentence of lashes, jailtime, and being banned from foreign travel. To make sure that we could not be called a “protest,” I wanted women to drive by themselves, not in groups, and to record themselves alone in their cars.
Huddled one night in my town house, we decided that the best response to the criticism was to post a video on YouTube, answering all these questions and mistaken assumptions one by one. Though we had clearly stated on Facebook and in press releases what our goals were and what actions we planned to take, no one in Saudi Arabia seemed to understand.
But criticisms were not the only comments I received. Some of the responses contained words of concern, even fear. One friend who knew that I was involved emailed me directly, “Manal, you’re crazy. You’ll get in serious trouble if you go through with this. Think of the danger you’ll put yourself in, the danger to your son, your whole family.” Although I understood her worry, I felt that the campaign’s urgency and timeliness outweighed the dangers. Still, it was hard not to feel rattled by the comments, particularly those left by men on our Facebook event page. Over and over, they equated the Women2Drive campaign with women who were loose, sexually compromised, and of weak, immoral character. The comments were menacing, saying very directly that our campaign was designed to corrupt young girls and that we were “betraying Islam.”
Other men let us know how they’d use their iqal, the thick black cord men wrapped around their heads. The iqal is an old custom. Originally needed to hold men’s headdresses in place when the wind blew, now the black cord is largely decorative—although some men use it to hit their wives and their kids. I’ve never felt the sting of the iqal, but I’ve heard that the knotted rope is very painful. A Facebook page called “By Iqal” was founded to call on men to beat any women drivers they saw.
Despite this ugly resistance, I kept the image of the Arab Spring in my mind. Some of the girls backing our movement even put up a rival Facebook page stating that if any man beat a female driver, the woman would hit him back with her shoe. (Showing the soles of your shoes is regarded as particularly insulting in the Arab world.) I personally hate violence, but I felt that the message of this page was We are not afraid. We are determined. Again and again, when I reached out to others, I felt their personal support more strongly than I felt the doubts and hatred of strangers.
So I took the next step. I made an informational video for Women2Drive, in which I publicly revealed my identity. Unlike the other girls, I was divorced and self-supporting. I could take the risk. I remember the morning exactly. Each day I worked from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon. Then I would take care of Aboudi until I put him in bed at eight o’clock. Once he was in bed, I would work on Women2Drive, staying up until three or four in the morning. I never slept more than two or three hours a night. On the day I recorded the video, I got up at 5:00 a.m. Looking into the laptop camera, I explained what the June 17 campaign was about and exactly what would happen that day. I was careful not to call it a protest. I concentrated on speaking calmly and smiling continuously. I did not wear the full abaya; I made no effort to hide my face. I ended the video by reminding viewers, “We are your sisters, your mothers, your daughters. We expect your support, and now we’re giving you the chance to show it.”
My final words were this: “The whole story: that we will just drive.”
I posted the video to YouTube, and within days it had had more than 120,000 views. Using my real name—including my last name, my tribal name—and showing my face gave the recording legitimacy and drew more attention to the campaign, and it also made me the public face of Women2Drive. Threatening comments directed at me began pouring in over social media. The posters wanted to dissect my appearance and speculate on whether I was a Sunni or a Shiite Muslim. If I were Shiite, that immediately made me suspect as a possible Iranian agent. Some commentators pasted a monkey’s face or a donkey’s over my own, or wrote about my nose or my “ugly uncovered face.” The posters attacked me for my “scandalous attempts” to drive and for disrupting Saudi society. I was called a “whore,” “immoral,” “Westernized,” a “traitor,” and a “double agent.”
The comments hurt. Some left me shocked, others simply disappointed, but I learned a valuable lesson. I saw that people preferred scandals to the very real plight of Saudi women. I saw too that people criticized me and the other women behind the Women2Drive campaign because they were afraid, afraid of any real change. I had miscalculated how much effort our opponents would put into switching the focus to me and away from the movement. I trained myself to ignore them.
The other girls would send me links to the pages that attacked me and Women2Drive, but I told them, “Forget about these people. They are just noise.” Day by day, I toughened myself. I kept all my thoughts and emotions inside, I stayed quiet, and I moved on. I think that’s one of the things that puzzled our opponents. They thought they could break me with what they said, with what they posted. Even at work I was harassed. But I always stayed polite. I always kept a smile on my face. I kept saying respectful things, emphasizing that I am a Saudi, that I am proud to be Saudi, and that I love my country. I just want to change this custom. My strategy was never defend and never attack. Educate people and get more supporters, that’s what I told all the girls.
I began to see that there would be a price for standing up for my rights, as there had been for Saudi women before me. But I could not have foreseen the full consequences. I would soon learn that nothing upset Saudi men and the entire Saudi ruling order more than the simple act of women driving. The decision to take action in real life was what really scared our opponents. There had been talk of driving before, but women across the country had never just picked a date and said, “That’s it. We’ve had enough. We are going to drive.”
We were still trying to get media attention. One of the first journalists to reach out to us was Maysa, a TV host and blogger; she is Saudi but was living in the United Arab Emirates, a collection of seven prin
cipalities bordering Saudi Arabia. The friend who had convinced me to get on Twitter grabbed my phone one day and sent Maysa a message saying, “This is Manal from the Women2Drive campaign. I’d like to speak with you.” Maysa called me immediately, and later I realized why. Maysa had publicly stated that she would not return to Saudi Arabia until women were allowed to drive. (Her father had died before her eyes because when he fell ill, no other man was at home and Maysa couldn’t drive him to the hospital.)
One contact led to another. As well as interviewing me, Maysa put me in touch with Abdullah Al Alami, a retired Aramco employee who had been the head of employment. Mr. Al Alami had many contacts among Saudi journalists and officials and had been very involved in previous struggles to change the culture, particularly regarding women’s rights. He and I arranged to meet at the Aramco dining hall near my office. For nearly an hour, the older, elegantly dressed Saudi man, who came prepared with a thick file of papers, listened carefully as I explained the goals of the campaign. He didn’t interrupt once, just repeatedly nodded his head.
After I had finished, he said, “Listen, Manal, I want to tell you what happened in 1990 to those women who challenged the driving ban.”
At first I was put off, thinking, I don’t want to hear about those women again. I wanted nothing to do with them. But, as he continued to speak, I realized he was trying to offer me his insights. He relayed in great detail what happened to the forty-seven women who attempted to challenge the ban on driving, showing me a stack of old newspaper clippings. Sitting there, listening to him, I realized I had been wrong. Instead of blaming these women and accepting the lies that had been told about them, I saw that they were my sisters, my role models. They had understood, long before I did, that the only way to challenge Saudi restrictions was to organize and demonstrate; the only way was to drive.
After he was finished, he said, “You must be prepared emotionally and politically for what might happen if you go through with this. We have to go through some possible scenarios. You must be ready for the worst possible reaction.”
Mr. Al Alami explained that serious mistakes had occurred in 1990 and tried to tell me in detail how to avoid repeating them. After we discussed some of the potential outcomes, he looked me in the eyes and asked, “What is it you want, Manal?”
With no hesitation, I said, “I want to challenge the ban on women driving. I want women to drive in this country. I want to write a letter to King Abdullah.”
He looked down at his two phones, searching for prominent people to introduce me to. By the end of our meeting, he’d given me the numbers of some lawyers, people on the Shoura council (an unelected advisory council for the king), and several other high-profile individuals. He didn’t discourage me from writing a letter to King Abdullah, but he told me to expect two possible reactions: either a resounding no or no response at all. Despite his cautionary words, I did not feel discouraged. I left feeling supported and reassured.
I began in earnest to try to meet with anyone who had connections or had some kind of public profile and an interest in women driving. I knew that if we had supporters, especially if they were prominent Saudis, we had a greater chance of success. I spent nearly every day trying to arrange meetings with people who could help us promote the June 17 campaign. My meeting with Mr. Al Alami had convinced me that there was enough public support among common Saudis, including forward-thinking men, to achieve a very different result from what happened in 1990. Though there were still people telling me that I needed to be careful, I pushed all that aside. I believed in this campaign.
One of the people who gave me moral support was Wajeha al-Huwaider, the Saudi woman and seasoned activist who had posted a video of herself driving back in 2008. Wajeha and I both worked and lived in the Aramco compound, yet we’d never met. I sent her an email, asking her to meet for coffee. I didn’t tell her the purpose of our meeting: she’d probably heard murmurings of our campaign, and she said yes. We were to meet at the café inside the compound. As soon as I arrived, I realized I didn’t know what she looked like. I searched the faces of everyone sitting at the tables outside the café: a few women in full abayas and hijab and one lone woman in jeans and a blue T-shirt, her hair tied back in a ponytail with thick bangs across her forehead. I finally texted, “I’m here, where are you?”
A second later, my phone buzzed, “I’m here outside, wearing a blue top.” It was the woman in jeans, with the ponytail.
We started off talking about conditions for women working at Aramco, but before the hour was over, I summoned my courage and told her about Women2Drive. As soon as I began talking, her face lit up. “How did we not know of each other, right here in Aramco, living and working in the same space?” she asked me, reaching over to squeeze my hand. From then on, all our caution fell away. Wajeha was younger than I had expected, and despite all she’d been through, was clearly committed to the struggle for women’s rights. Since 2003, she had faced harassment: death threats, email threats, ugly comments in cyberspace. She’d been working at Aramco longer than me, but because of her activism, she’d been unable to advance in her career. Her boss had made it very clear that if she continued to agitate for women’s rights, there would be no opportunities for promotion; her goals were not “conducive to the policies or the position of Aramco.” She’d accepted these restrictions—she was glad to have a job—and she said that she would “never stop fighting for the rights of women.”
Wajeha cautioned me, “Prepare yourself for it, Manal. You’re likely to get arrested.”
I nodded but casually dismissed her concerns. Wajeha had already filmed herself driving and had posted the video to YouTube. Granted, she had driven inside the Aramco compound at Dhahran Beach, a place where women were allowed to drive, but in the video she hadn’t specified her location. I did know that she had been arrested more recently for holding up a sign on the Bahrain causeway that read, “Cars want to be driven by Saudi women.” Under Saudi code, this act was considered a protest, punishable by jail time. When I told her that I had read the traffic code thoroughly and was sure that there were no legal obstacles to driving, she smiled slightly and winked at me. “Of course, you’re right, Manal,” she said, “but that is not all that stands in the way of our rights.”
“Don’t worry,” I told Wajeha, as we parted at the door of the cafe. “This time will be different.”
We had a Twitter presence and a very active Facebook account, but inside Saudi Arabia, the local media ignored us. One reporter told us that the paper would only publish a story about us if the event happened on June 17. But if we were to have an impact, we had to get attention from the press. We needed that attention to recruit more drivers. We would have to start with the international press.
The Saudi friend who had convinced me to join Twitter now said that I needed to use it to initiate contact with other activists and with journalists. I increased my tweets about the campaign’s calls for women drivers and began reaching out to reporters outside Saudi Arabia. Almost immediately, they responded. One of the first to contact me was Donna Abu-Nasr from Bloomberg News; a few days later, Atika Shubert from CNN asked me for an interview. I was giddy with excitement and felt reassured to have that kind of attention. In other parts of the world, press coverage and public awareness offered a unique kind of protection. In Saudi Arabia, it also guaranteed that our day of driving would not go unnoticed.
The Bloomberg story was posted online right away, but the CNN interview, which I did over Skype, did not appear. There were new uprisings in Libya, which pushed our efforts off the air. I was giving up hope when one morning the official Saudi government foreign-language newspaper published a small mention of the June 17 event. It was just a mention, but it was presented neutrally. I thought we had been given a quiet nod to proceed. That night, CNN International finally aired the interview. We posted screen shots to Twitter and Facebook, and for the first time, many of our wary supporters grew braver. All of a sudden, June 17 and Women2Drive were
everywhere.
The CNN interview ended with me saying, “The rain begins with a single drop,” a quote which went viral and is still repeated today.
That week, it became clear that one of the most daunting aspects of our efforts would be logistics. Many women who wished to participate did not know how to drive. When we put out a poll on Twitter, only eleven percent of the women who said they wanted to drive had any kind of license. More than two thousand women said they wanted to learn how. We began trying to locate women who could drive and were willing to teach others, either in parking lots or other safe spaces like the desert. One woman who came forward to help teach was Najla Hariri, a Saudi woman who had lived in Egypt and Lebanon and was licensed to drive in both countries. She not only offered to teach, she began driving herself around the streets of Jeddah. I put a BBC news crew in touch with her, but they had no film footage of her driving, so many Saudis in their online comments claimed that they didn’t believe her. The government did, however, and she was later questioned and referred for trial.
Now, in addition to the logistics of driving, we had to find new ways to deal with the rising backlash to our plan.
I had an idea. I thought that if, prior to the event on June 17, someone posted a video of a woman driving, it might “normalize” the experience and show Saudi citizens that there was nothing dangerous about women driving. I also wanted to prove that many of us already knew how to drive—that we had licenses and even cars. And I wanted to prove that the Saudi authorities would not stop a woman driver. For weeks, I had heard people say, “If you drive, the man-wolves will eat you alive.” I wanted to show that there were no “man-wolves,” and a woman could drive without fear. So I decided to film myself.
Daring to Drive Page 23