Princess (29 page)

Kareem, as a member of an outdated monarchy, was acutely interested in the movements of the Middle East that had ousted royals from their throne. As Arab history unfolded, kings were unceremoniously dumped, and quite a number had ended with their bodies riddled with bullet holes. As a royal, Kareem felt fear at the possibility of unrest visiting our land.

In addition, like most Arabs, Kareem felt great shame at the never-ending spectacle of Muslim fighting Muslim. For the most part, we Saudis laid down our arms when our country was bonded from the land of tribes to a kingdom united. Bloodletting is not the manner our men chose to fight our enemies; purchasing power is considered the civilized method of victory.

But for now, our lives were erupting with the insanity of the drama of real war. While our men rushed to intrude on the momentous decisions of diplomacy, we women called for Abdullah to bring his wireless radio to the sitting room. The news was sparse, but appeared to be going from bad to worse for the unfortunate Kuwaitis. Before we retired, we learned that Kuwait was occupied; our country was being invaded by thousands of war refugees. We Saudis felt ourselves out of harm’s way and gave no thought to our personal safety or to danger for our country.

The following week would shake our confidence in our observations. As Saddam’s soldiers drew near to our borders, rumors filled our country that he had in mind to swallow two neighbors in one meal!

Streams of Saudis joined the Kuwaitis in the exodus from the eastern area of our country. We received frantic telephone calls from nervous family members with the news that Riyadh was crowded with thousands of panicked people. Soon, many Saudis felt Riyadh to be unsafe; the planes and roads to Jeddah were jammed. Madness had erupted in our quiet kingdom.

Sara and I were thrilled to hear that Kuwaiti women, who are allowed to drive and go unveiled, were even driving across our roads and into the streets of our capital. No Western women could ever imagine our mixed emotions. We were crashing into a storm, and while our glee was mixed with wonder, at the same moment we were frothing with jealousy that our Arab sisters were driving automobiles and exposing their naked faces in our land! Were our essentials of life, the veil and Saudi customs, now considered nothing more than clutter so easily dismissed in the heat of hostility? Life had been easy for these Kuwaiti women, in stark contrast with our heavy endurance of male mastery. The sting of envy bubbled through our veins. While sympathetic for these women who had lost their country, their homes and loved ones, we were undeniably swollen with resentment at the ones who had exposed the ridiculousness of our puritanical situation. How we hungered for the rights they had assumed with such ease!

There was a rumor a minute in those dark days of August. When Kareem told me that the latest rumor was true, that our king had agreed for foreign troops to travel to our land, I knew our lives would never again be the same.

With the arrival of the American troops, Saudi feminists’ most ambitious dreams felt the spark of life. No Saudi had ever imagined seeing women in military uniforms—guarding that ultimate bastion of male dominance that is Saudi Arabia. It was unthinkable! Our men of religion were aghast and spoke with heavy tidings of the coming harm to our land.

The disruption to our lives can never be measured. No earthquake could have shaken us more.

While I was happy at the turn of events, and felt the change would be beneficial, many Saudi women raged with contempt. There were those I deemed silly who fretted with the possibility of these foreign women stealing their husbands! I suppose such a worry was real, for most Saudi women endure their husbands’ trips abroad with trepidation, few believing their spouses would remain faithful in the midst of Western blonde temptations. Many of my friends reassured themselves with the thought that only a prostitute or a woman with little else to promote herself would consider such degradation as shared living quarters with strange men. Saudi women whispered that they had read that these American women were allowed in the armies solely to service the men and keep them from sexual deprivation.

Our emotions were in conflict over these superwomen who came and went at will in a country not their own. We had known little of American female soldiers, for our country censors all news of women who control their destinies from the citizens of Saudi Arabia. And during our infrequent travels abroad, our paths led us to shopping districts, not military bases. When Asad brought Sara uncensored copies of American and European magazines and newspapers, we were astonished to see that the women soldiers were quite attractive. Many were mothers. Our understanding could not let us imagine such freedom. Our modest goals involved only the acts of uncovering our faces, driving, and working. Our land now harbored those of our sex perfectly prepared to meet men in battle.

We women of Arabia were on an emotional roller coaster. One moment we hated all the foreign women, both Kuwaiti and American, in our land. At the same moment, the Kuwaiti women warmed our hearts with their show of defiance of our centuries-old tradition of male supremacy. While conservative, they had not completely succumbed to the insane social custom of male dominance. Yet moments of jealousy came and went as we realized that they had somehow lifted the status of all Muslim women by their very attitude while we Saudi women had done little to elevate our lives other than to complain. Where had we gone wrong? How had they managed to discard the veil and obtain freedom to drive at the same time?

We felt the agony of envy, yet we were ecstatic too. Confused at the happenings around us, we women met daily to dissect the shift of attitudes and the sudden universal awakenings to the plight of Saudi women. In the past, few women dared express their desire for reform in Islamic Saudi Arabia, for the hope of success was so dim and the penalties too severe for challenging the status quo. After all, our country is the home of Islam; we Saudis are the “keepers of the faith.” To cover our shame at our forced repressions, we spoke proudly to our Kuwaiti sisters of our unique heritage: We Saudi women hold high the symbols of Muslim belief the world over. Then, suddenly, middle-class Saudi women threw down their shackles. They faced the fundamentalists head-on and called out for the world to free them in the same instant they freed the besieged Kuwaitis!

Sara caused me to tremble when she rushed into the palace screaming. My only thought was that of chemicals invading the air my children were breathing! Had an enemy plane filled with chemical bombs escaped the detection of the forces guarding our land? I stood still, holding my breath, undecided as to where to go or what to do. Any moment I would more than likely be writhing on the floor, thinking my last thoughts. I cursed myself! I should have followed Kareem’s wishes and taken our young ones to London, far from the possibility of painful slow deaths for those I had carried in my womb.

Sara’s words finally penetrated my fear and the news she told rung as a celebration in my ears. Asad had just called her; Saudi, yes, Saudi women were actually driving automobiles up and down the streets of Riyadh!

I cried out with joy! Sara and I hugged and danced. My youngest daughter began to sob in fear when she came into the room and saw her mother and auntie rolling and screaming on the floor. I soothed her fears when I grabbed her in my arms and assured her our silly nonsense was a result of great happiness; my prayers had been answered. The American presence was going to alter our lives in a wonderful, wonderful way!

Kareem burst through the door with a dark look in his eyes. He wanted to know what the trouble was; he could hear our cries in the garden.

Did he not know? Women had broken the first of the unyielding barriers—they were claiming their right to drive! Kareem’s response sobered our reaction. I knew his opinion on the matter; there is no mention of such in our religion, he would say. He, like many other Saudi men, had always thought it absurd that Saudi women were not allowed to drive.

With a weary tone, my husband now voiced the unthinkable. “This is exactly the type of action that we did not want you women to take! We have been battling the fanatics for every concession! Their biggest fear is that our decisions will result in women moving toward more privileges. What is more important to you, Sultana,” he cried out, “to have soldiers to protect our lives from the Iraqi menace, or to choose this time to drive?”

I was furious with Kareem. Many times he had protested against the silly custom that chains Saudi women to their homes. And now, his fear of the men of religion brought his cowardly soul to the surface. How I yearned to be wed to a warrior, a man with the hot flame of righteousness to guide his life.

In a temper, I hotly replied that we women could not be “beggars with conditions.” What luxury to be able to pick our time and place! We had to take what small opportunities were presented. Now was our time too, and Kareem should stand by our side. Surely, the throne would not be toppled over the mere fact that women drove in our streets!

My husband was angry at all women at that moment and told me in a hard voice that this incident would delay women’s causes for decades. He told us our joy would turn to sorrow when we witnessed the punishment meted out to those so foolish. The proper time will come for women to drive, he warned, but this was not the moment for such drama. His words hung in the air as he made his retreat. A man had spoken!

Kareem had stolen our small moment of pleasure. I hissed like a cat at his back and Sara’s lips trembled as she held back her smile. She dismissed Kareem’s words with contempt. She reminded me that the men in our family talked sympathetically about women’s rights, but in reality they were little different than the extremists. All men liked a heavy hand on the heads of their women. Otherwise, we would have seen some lifting of our heavy burdens. Our husbands and father were of the Royal Family that ruled the land; if they could not help us, who could?

“
The Americans!” I said with a smile. “The Americans.”

Kareem’s words proved to be true. The forty-seven brave young women who demonstrated against the informal ban on driving became the scapegoats of every grievance the mutawas considered. They were women of the middle class, women who were teachers of other women or students—our thinkers and doers. As a result of their bravery, their lives were devastated by their actions: passports taken, jobs lost, and families harassed.

While shopping in a local mall, Sara and I overheard young religious students as they aroused Saudi men against these women by saying they were leaders of vice and made their living as prostitutes; they had been denounced in the mosque as such by men who had reason to know! My sister and I lingered at a store window to hear the young men loudly proclaim that the temptations transported from the West would cause the honor of all Saudis to disintegrate!

I wanted to meet with the women, to share in their glory. When I proposed my idea to Kareem, his reaction violently closed the possibility. He threatened to have me shut in the house should I attempt such an outrage. At that moment, I hated my husband, for I knew he was capable of fulfilling his threat; he was suddenly wild with fear for our country as well as of the havoc we women could bring to the Royal Family.

Within a few days I built my courage and tried to locate those brave women. I returned to the mall. When I saw throngs of men in a circle, I told my Filipino driver to go to them and say he was a Muslim (there are a number of Muslim Filipinos in Saudi Arabia) and request the paper with the telephone numbers of the “fallen women”. He was to say that he wanted to call their fathers or their husbands to protest the behavior of their daughters or wives.

He returned with the paper; I warned him against telling Kareem. Fortunately, unlike Arab servants, the Filipinos tend to avoid our family conflicts and make no mention of our small freedoms to our husbands.

The paper listed thirty names and telephone numbers. My hand shook as I dialed the first number. Only three calls were answered in weeks of constant dialing. No matter what I said, I was told that I must have the wrong number. The harassment had been so insistent that the families chose either denial or not to answer their phones.

On his way out of the country, Ali came by to visit. He and his family of four wives and nine children were traveling to Paris for a few weeks. My brother claimed he wanted to fight the Iraqis, but his plate was filled with business responsibilities that were indeed more important to our country than another man in uniform. He, Ali, must do his duty and leave Saudi Arabia.

I knew my brother was going to wait out the war in safety. I had no desire on that day to confront his cowardice; I merely smiled and wished him a good trip.

The topic of the women drivers was introduced when Ali hinted slyly that one of the protestors had been put to death by her father for shaming the family. The father had thought that by executing his daughter, the religious fanatics would leave him and the remainder of the family in peace. Ali actually smiled! How I hated this brother of mine. He was well suited to a land that kept women at his feet. He would fight to the end to keep women in a lowly position, for a man such as he would be terrorized by a woman of strength and character.

When I questioned Kareem, he claimed not to know of the incident, but told me to put it out of my mind. This was not our affair. He mentioned that he would not be surprised, since the families of the women had suffered along with the troublemakers. He smugly said, “I told you so,” reminding me of his prediction on the day of the protest. I felt that Kareem had tricked me with his past talk of free women; surely he now was little advanced over Ali in his thinking. Was there not one man in my country who desired women’s bonds loosened?