Driver of Our Own Destiny

The struggle is not about driving a car; it is about being in the driving seat of our destiny

-Oslo 2012 Václav Havel Prize Acceptance Speech

Late May 2011, a YouTube channel by the name of ksawomen2drive posted an eight minute video. The first day it was up it became the most viewed clip in Saudi Arabia, and became so popular it started trending worldwide. Any non-Arabic viewer might have been slightly baffled by its popularity. To them it would merely be a clip of a woman in a hijab driving while talking to her passenger, and a poorly filmed clip at that. The hundreds of thousands of Arabic viewers however, saw something all together quite different. They were witnessing a crime take place, an act of dissent. The video gained over 600 000 the few days it was up, but was taken down following the arrest of the driver shown in the clip. Manal al-Sharif was that driver.

The place of women in Saudi society is determined by a deeply conservative culture, vindicated by a narrow interpretation of religion, and enforced by law. That place it would appear is at home, subservient to and legally dependant on their male guardian. Saudi society suffers from pervasive segregation along gender lines and women's freedom of movement is impeded, forcing them to rely on male chaperons.

There is one place where Saudi women can escape marginalization; online. Twitter has of yet no separate site for either sex nor are women confined to their own account page on facebook , where they can have as many male friends as they like. As is case in all oppressive societies the internet has had a delightfully corrupting effect in Saudi Arabia, not only giving access to a global free flow of information, but also facilitating organization and dissent. ...

... middle of paper ...

... and threats of violence against her. Fighting an unjust system is hard enough, but women’s emancipation is still on the wrong side of popular opinion in the still deeply conservative kingdom. And though progress has been made; the first female Saudi athletes at the 2012 Olympics and the promise of Women to participate in 2015 municipal elections, the progress is slow.

Compared to other injustices faced by Saudi women the right to get behind the wheel may seem trivial, but to someone expected to stay at home and remain subservient the sudden freedom to come and go as they wish is incredibly empowering. It means more women being seen in public. It means more women getting jobs and building a career of their own. It means more women going about their daily lives independent and unchaperoned. Nothing adds weight to calls for equality than the roar of an engine.