The Crushing of Dissent in Saudi Arabia and the Endurance of Hope
A wise ruler might see the writing on the wall and accelerate at least the public relations of reform, in the face of revolution closing in all around. But not so in Saudi Arabia. As well-entrenched dictatorships in its neighbourhood crumble to both local and global applause, the absolute monarchy of the House of Saud is tightening its grip rather than loosening it, and throwing a handout to other beleaguered tyrants while at it.
Saudi Arabia clings to its dubious status as being unique in the world in several respects: It's the last remaining state where women have no rights to vote whatsoever (and of course, cannot run for office... not that there is a lot of elected representation going on in the kingdom). It's the only country in the world where it's illegal for women to drive. Saudi Arabia has the lowest representation of women in the workforce in the world (5%). It's one of the few remaining countries still enthusiastically using capital punishment, and not just for murder by the way: you can be executed in Saudi Arabia for apostasy, drug offenses, sexual deviancy, and witchcraft. Yes, witchcraft. Beheading by sword is the preferred method, but stoning and crucifixion are on the books as well. Since 2009, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the only known countries to have executed children. Public executions remain common.
The social contract that exists between citizens and their government in a democracy, is in Saudi Arabia rather a contract between the conservative Islamist clergy and the government. The citizens (or more accurately, subjects) are mere fodder stuffed into what meagre political space remains. The monarchy opts to hold itself hostage to the Islamists while occasionally throwing a bone to the people, as when a minor prince says this or that reform should maybe be considered, some day. A pathetic little cough of token sympathy to the nation of prisoners under their thumb, as in the promise that the government is contemplating (deeply, no doubt) introducing a minimum marriage age of 17 or 18 for girls. Currently, nothing protects girls from being married off by money-seeking or debt-burdened fathers, and marry them off they do. In 2009, a man married his eight-year-old daughter to a 58-year-old man for a payment of approximately $10,000. The marriage was twice upheld as legal in Saudi courts and the girl was told she could not divorce her husband until she reached puberty (the husband was ultimately pressured to annul the marriage). But rest assured, the (unelected) Shura Council, which has no legislative power itself but advises the Ministry of Justice, has recommended the introduction of a minimum marriage age. Some day.
The state's pandering to the most hardline Wahhbabists that could possibly be plopped upon the mosques' pulpits leaves little space for dissent. And what little dissent survives is systematically crushed by the authorities. In a long established pattern, dissenters politely and quietly hint at the need for change, the princes smile and nod, someone goes too far, and the whole movement is pushed back to be even worse off than before.
In 1990, 47 brave women gathered in Riyadh to demand the right to drive. The women drove in a convoy of cars around the capital for about 30 minutes before being stopped by police. The women (and their spouses) who participated were forbidden from leaving the country for a year and those who worked were swiftly fired from their jobs. “The drivers,” as the women still refer to themselves, were denounced across the country by clerics and labeled as immoral, sinful women. Pamphlets were distributed in which the women were described as "whores," trying to bring down the good, pure society that is Saudi Arabia. There were demands for them to be flogged. Media coverage of their protest was banned, and the women continue to face stigma, over 20 years after the incident. Prior to the 1990 protest, the ban against women’s driving was unofficial. The government response was to legislate the ban into formal effect.
Early this year, as protests swept the Arab world, a "Day of Rage" was planned by Saudis for March 11th. One of the key organizers, Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahad, was dead by March 2nd, at the hands of Saudi security forces. On March 11th, the police presence made it clear there would be no replication of Tahrir Square on Saudi soil. A few hundred protestors nevertheless braved the bullets in Qatif, al-Awamiyah and Hofuf, but the streets were empty in Riyadh and Jeddah, safe for a lone protestor. Khaled al-Johani, a one-man demonstration, walked up to a BBC Arabic TV crew and said:
We need democracy. We need freedom. We need to speak freely. The government doesn’t own us. There is no free media under a monarchy state. The media cannot report freely. They only report the statements of the Ministry of the Interior. They didn’t expect that anyone in Saudi Arabia will dare to speak to the media because he or she will be jailed. We don’t have freedom. We don’t have dignity. We don’t have justice. The whole world is free except us under this country.
He's been in jail ever since.
And yet, as Gandhi told us, all tyrants eventually fall, and as Vaclav Havel would say later, hope "is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." And thus, while no crowds of thousands thronged the streets of Riyadh or Jeddah this year, crowds of dozens, or sometimes hundreds, did come out in small protests that have continued since January to the present. There's little international attention to cushion them from the usual fate of dissenters, and they come out knowing acutely that the consequences can include imprisonment, torture and death. But though the outcome they seek is elusive, they know the outcome they seek is what makes sense and it's what is right.
Similarly, the campaign for women's right to drive did not die out in 1990, despite the legal regress. In May of this year, a 32-year-old Saudi woman, Manal Al-Sherif, posted a video online of herself driving on youtube, making headlines around the world before the Saudi regime had the video banned, her Twitter account ("Women 2 Drive") hijacked, and her Facebook group shut down. She was twice arrested, but still joined with other women in declaring June 17, 2011 as the national day when women should start driving. They took to the streets again that day, and as in 1990, fundamentalists demanded that they be punished by being whipped for their "rebellion". The fundies also engaged the usual ruse of turning to "negative outside influence" as the cause of the country's woes (including a unique collaboration between Zionsts and Iranians):
Many of those opposing women driving claim that it is a Zionist/Western/Iranian/Shia conspiracy to disrupt Saudi society and corrupt the morals and honor of Saudi women. Also that any woman that speaks out for lifting the ban is not a pure Saudi but rather a woman who is nontribal or an immigrant. Because according to them no pure Saudi woman wants to drive.
Got that? No pure Saudi woman wants to drive. Only the sexual deviants and the witches!
And the original 47 women who drove in 1990 hold an annual reunion every November, proudly wearing t-shirts declaring them "Drivers" and eating a cake with a car on it:
They take a group picture — just as they did back in 1990, right after their protest. "It was so scary at that time, because we were chased by all the religious people," al Bakr says. "But then we decided that this is a very historical moment, so as many of us, we should get together and have a picture and just keep it. And we did, actually. We gathered in one of our friend's house and we took a historical picture, and I'm sure this picture is going to be in some museums somehow."
Some day.
Lauryn Oates is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist.
