Saudi Arabia to lift driving ban
SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that women will be able to legally drive from next year, moving to shatter a longtime taboo seen as emblematic of the conservative kingdom’s repressive treatment of women.
The royal decree lifting the ban on women operating motor vehicles is one of a number of measures pushed by the conservative kingdom’s reform-minded young crown prince, who has pledged to revisit some of the kingdom’s most controversial strictures on women and their place in society.
The move triggered a joyous outpouring on social media from women’s activists and their supporters in the kingdom and around the world, with many using the hashtag #women2drive.
The rejoicing, though, was laced with reminders that Saudi Arabia remains a country in which women face suffocating social strictures – for example, needing permission from male relatives, sometimes their own young sons, to exercise basic freedoms such as travel.
‘‘The rain begins with a single drop,’’ tweeted Manal Sharif, a Saudi author and professor who was arrested for driving in 2011.
For Saudi women, many of whom are highly educated, the driving ban has for decades dented dignity, thwarted professional aspirations and rendered the most ordinary of daily activities – getting to work, socialising, running errands – an expensive and frustrating ordeal.
Female activists who defiantly took the wheel faced vilification by clerics, lost prominent positions and endured sustained harassment by authorities.
Following the announcement, jubilant activists posted an ‘‘honour roll’’ of those arrested since 1990, when the protests began, for the punishable offence of trying to drive a car.
‘‘We have been calling for this, and lobbying for this, and expecting this, any day and any year,’’ Maha Akeel, a 46-year-old writer from the port city of Jidda, said. ’’This gives women more independence and confidence, and empowers women to know that they can manage their daily life.’’
At the same time, the lifting of the ban – if it goes ahead as promised next year, when driving licences will be issued to women for the first time – marks the start of a long road.
Many now fear a strong backlash from conservative clerics, although the announcement was coupled with a reminder that the state remained the ‘‘guardian’’ of Islamic values.
The Saudi government announced that a royal decree from King Salman had declared that drivers’ licences would be issued to women beginning in June 2018.
But many saw the fingerprints of the king’s ambitious 32-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has embarked on a series of reforms meant to present a more palatable and progressive face to the outside world.
The official statement said a panel would be formed to look into how to implement the order. The eight-month delay will allow the government to create what it described as needed infrastructure for dealing with women on the road, including the hiring of additional female police officers as well as driving instructors. –