I think that I may have found the whole situation amusing had it been slightly less absurd and had I not been the victim. But there you go. Not everything in life is designed to make you laugh without the odd occasion when you may well turn out to be the butt of someone else’s joke.
“What are your plans for the summer?” inquired my friend.
“I don’t really know,” I replied in earnest.
“What do you mean?” he asked sounding incredulous. “Summer’s already here. Don’t you want to travel?”
“Yes. But leaving is not entirely that easy or straightforward when you are in my position,” I reminded.
“Your position?” he queried in search of some nuggets of information that would justify that rather cryptic statement.
“You know,” I said nonchalantly. “My dad is on a cruise somewhere and my brothers are both abroad, so technically speaking I have no male guardian who can sign off on my travel permission. I don’t have a mahram.”
“Well,” he replied after thinking for a moment. “Would you like me to see if I can help you out?”
“You can?” I asked wide-eyed seeing a mirage of Hyde Park and Shakespeare’s darling buds of May floating before me. “Brilliant!”
What I should have known through all of this was that even though my friend is extremely well-connected, has a great deal of influence in all the right spheres and has a ton of favors that he can comfortably call in at any given time, in Saudi Arabia you cannot always beat the system. And the odds are, of course, entirely against you if you happen to have been born female. By law, a woman, regardless of age, aptitude or necessity cannot leave the Kingdom without the consent of her male guardian. The irony of the situation is that, hypothetically speaking, my 70-year-old grandmother who may be in urgent need of foreign medical treatment could potentially be at the mercy of her 18-year-old hooligan grandson should the need for her to travel arise. Like Excalibur, this is just one of the irrational mysteries of life.
My friend is very tenacious, excessively generous with his contacts and once he takes something on, he completes it to perfection, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when I received a follow-up call the next day asking me to write a letter to a certain gentleman who could help me undermine the illogical bureaucracy that underpins most government procedures.
“Here’s what you do,” he began having planned out his strategy. “Write a letter detailing your problem, social condition, nature of employment, reasons for travel and I will do the rest.”
Without a second thought, I immediately obliged filled with an equal measure of forbidden hope and subliminal dread. I handed over the epistle with my passport and within a few days was regaled with the unbelievable news that a special decree had been advanced to the Passport Department allowing me (the word “allowing” makes me feel as if I am being forced to bite the proverbial bullet as I write) to leave the Kingdom. I jumped for joy, made my reservations, called up family and friends and waited with feverish anticipation for the beautiful yellow permission card to fall into my eager hands.
My friend instructed me to send a go-between to the Passport Department in order to collect that most coveted and treasured document. Being a woman, I would not be entertained in such a singularly male inspired bastion, even though I do contribute toward the 50 percent or so of us who are entitled to get a passport, but “Yallah,” I mused, “This is not the time to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
And so off went the “facilitator” whose fantastic qualification is that he happened to be born into the right gender that afforded him the unequivocal right to enter restricted territory. I waited in bittersweet anxiety for his return. A bit like that woman from Greek mythology whose husband goes off to battle and she embroiders a never-ending tapestry to pass the time.
After an interminable stint of reading without even turning the page, my mobile leapt into action and I saw his glorious number flashing on the screen.
“My sister,” said the voice sounding rather miffed. “We have a problem.”
“A problem?” I asked feeling the contents of my heart in my throat. “What do you mean a problem? They won’t issue the travel permission?” I asked swallowing hard to stop my vital organ from escaping my mouth.
“No sister,” he continued. “They have the travel permission. It is all signed and stamped. But they won’t allow me to take it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked rhetorically preoccupied with the thought of where on earth the Passport Department was and how long it would take me to get there so I could reclaim it myself. “I will leave right away,” I said authoritatively. “Just wait there.”
“No, Madam Lubna!” he protested. “The head of the Passport Department said that you have to send your mahram, like your brother or your father or your son, to collect it.”
“My mahram?” I barked astonished. “My mahram?” I repeated infuriated by this request.
“Yes, Madam. That’s what he said. He won’t allow anyone except your legal male guardian to collect your travel permission.”
I can’t say that I am a stranger to such exercises in blatant futility. After all I have lived here for a very long time. What makes my blood boil above and beyond all else is just what it is that these legislators are trying to prove with regards to their dire ignorance. The only reason why I made such a heartfelt petition was that I had no available male guardian in the first place. Why else would I beg and plead to be released from this gilded cage? What is even more aggravating is that such mandates have nothing to do with our religion. Which other civilized Muslim country exacts such a heavy punishment from its womenfolk using the pretext that they were born into the wrong gender? As far as I know, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) taught always that all believers were equal in the sight of God and that women in particular were to be treated with the utmost deference and respect. This does not equate to involuntary incarceration however warped and far-fetched the so-called interpretations that have been proffered by some of our scholars may be.
What is more pertinent is that I have no intention of leaving Saudi Arabia for good if that’s what all the kerfuffle is about. I love this country and I choose to stay here. Perhaps they haven’t heard of the adage, “If you love something set it free. If it comes back it was always yours. If it doesn’t it never was.”
(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)