Celebrating nationhood

Every year on Sept. 23 we celebrate the Saudi National Day. We get the day off and we fly our flag with pride and talk about many of the great things our country has done to further a global understanding of Islam and our leadership role among the Gulf nations.
That is if we think about these things at all. One aspect of our young country that slips under the radar is our growing maturity as a nation.
We do not often think about how we treat expatriates who come here to work and contribute to building a strong country. Or how we treat 50 percent of the population that is female who are often forgotten as part of Saudi society.
Looking inward, inside our borders, provides a much more accurate picture of Saudi Arabia as a nation than any foreign policy. It’s how we apply our religion to our daily lives and the lives of others that provide a true measure of us as a society.
Perhaps an accurate picture of us as Saudis can be found in Tabuk. This city of 668,000 people normally doesn’t strike Saudis living in Jeddah and Riyadh as a shining image of our nation, but my recent visit there offers a glimpse in what Saudi Arabia is becoming. And if the changes I see in Tabuk are any indication, then Saudi Arabia will break from the confines of the past and some of its hidebound and wrong traditions to become a modern country.
In the heart of Tabuk, Hatim Al-Jalawi and his 22-year-old daughter Hanan have opened a traditional Saudi restaurant and coffee shop. Sitting next to Jalawi’s private museum of Tabuk artifacts from the 17th through the 20th centuries, the restaurant doesn’t appear to be anything special.
But the father and daughter decided to employ an all-female staff in this conservative community. The staff numbers 17 and includes the cooks and waitresses. The restaurant prides itself in serving traditional home-cooked Saudi meals.
An all-women restaurant staff is no longer a novelty in places like Jeddah, but it’s a huge leap forward for regions like Tabuk and other rural areas. For one, Tabuk is not known for its cuisine or its dining establishments. Until recently, families preferred eating at home. Dining in restaurants was not seen as a family activity. And second, the Haia has a much stronger presence in Tabuk than Jeddah or even Riyadh.
The Haia initially rejected the Jalawis’ efforts to employ all women in the family-only restaurant with obvious questions about mixing and the perception that women were abandoning the home for business.
Jalawi convinced the community’s religious leaders that his staff would be completely veiled and avoid unnecessary interaction with men, instead dealing directly with the mother or daughter of the families patronizing the restaurant. After some convincing, the Haia gave their stamp of approval.
What makes this approach to providing employment for Saudi women remarkable is that the restaurant and coffee shop is not alone in giving women a stronger voice in the business community. Another coffee shop in Tabuk also employs an all-female staff. Entering the coffee shop, patrons find themselves in a lobby. A hostess then escorts the family to a private room named after a famous European city, such as Vienna, Rome, Paris, etc. The wait staff is fully veiled and usually interacts only with female patrons to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
Tabuk is a city without taxis because it’s viewed as a great shame for women to use them. Instead, women employ private drivers and exchange numbers among themselves to ensure they have a deep pool of vehicles available for transportation. There are very few women in Tabuk without the niqab.
But what we have seen is Saudi society embracing new roles for women in regions considered extremely conservative. We celebrate our new rights to vote in municipal elections and the government scholarships to study abroad. Thousands of women return with university degrees. We celebrate the loosened restrictions on women finding employment and the considerations to easing the regulations on guardianship.
But equally important are the small things that perhaps count the most in our growth as a nation. Providing employment for women who are unable or uninterested in pursuing a post-secondary-school education and giving them the authority to become decision-makers in small businesses is an important achievement. And this is the way I prefer to celebrate National Day.