I don’t know if news of changes that are taking place in the country reach all relevant government officials. At a time when a woman has been appointed deputy minister and another named general manager of one of the biggest shopping plazas in Saudi Arabia (Al-Mamlaka Tower), we read more about semi-official attempts to limit women’s freedom. This is both confusing and frustrating.
To start at the beginning, Al-Arabiya website carried a story about an incident at the recent Riyadh Book Fair. Two well-known Saudi novelists were questioned by a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice while they were talking to another novelist — a woman. The story is that the two men saw the woman and asked her to sign copies of her novel. Along came a commission official — no doubt stationed there to monitor any impropriety or what he interpreted as impropriety — and reprimanded the two men for talking to a woman. The men explained that they wanted her to sign a copy of her novel so the commission member took the books himself to get them signed. No doubt, the two Saudi men could not be trusted. After the woman had signed the books, one of the men thanked her, and the commission member immediately began to tell him how he should not be talking to a woman. The two men were then taken to a commission office and charged with “talking to an unrelated woman.”
The writers are asking for an apology from the commission, saying that they are sure that their actions do not reflect the thinking of the new head of the commission who has promised people a more tolerant and understanding policy.
What this incident says very clearly is that we still have a problem and it revolves around women. Even if the commission’s new policy is going to be different, it is not going to change the strict rule about interaction between men and women. Things might get easier in some areas, but problems will always arise because someone out there will feel offended if a man and woman are talking to each other in a public place, street or shop.
Suspicion and mistrust are the bottom line. Along these lines, some schools in Jeddah have made it difficult for women teachers to leave school without having written permission from their guardian — giving the name of the person who is going to pick them up, and the car’s model and license number.
A source at the Education Department told one newspaper that this was new in the Western Province as the rule had earlier been applied only to female students, but not to teachers. The source added that schools had to decide for themselves in such cases whether to apply such rules. Obviously, some schools are complaining because teachers go out before the end of the workday; they may go to shopping centers where indecencies are committed and it would obviously be best for them to have to abide by such a rule. The usual story of an entire group having to pay the price for a few who may abuse their rights.
What we are witnessing is a general insult to teachers, telling them that they are all suspects and, therefore, have to be watched and monitored by a network of supervisors at home, in the schools — even including the drivers.
Our problems remain, and we will never get rid of them as long as we regard women as the property of someone else. Under those terms, a woman cannot be independent; she must have approval from a man for everything she does. She is always suspect.
