PERMISSION, again and again; permission, over and over. Is there no escape for Saudi women and girls and the incessant asking for permission? Not only is the asking humiliating, but then they are expected to be grateful for what should have been theirs without having to ask for permission in the first place!
It seems that our collective national memory is so weak that we forget events in seconds; only a short time ago, 14 innocent school girls died in a school fire in Makkah because they were not permitted to leave the building. Now, according to our newspapers, girls are not to be taken to hospitals from schools unless there is written permission! In other words, a girl could be in serious need of immediate medical attention but before sending her to a hospital, the school must first be sure that her father has given written permission.
Some fathers of course are suspicious and lacking in trust and would not allow their daughters to leave school for any reason. Their sons, needless to say, are a different matter; boys can get sick and be taken to a hospital as required. Girls, however, are not allowed to get sick — without permission. Why not introduce a rule that a girl must have permission for every step she takes outside her house — and perhaps in the house too for what she watches on TV and certainly for surfing the Internet?
Now, let us be serious for a minute and see how many times a Saudi woman needs permission to do what other women in other countries do unthinkingly as part of their normal lives. If there were a movement to require permission for birth, I am sure we would be the first society to implement it; after all, according to our accumulated tradition of mistrust and confusion, a female is simply a problem waiting to happen.
I will now enumerate the things a Saudi woman needs permission from her father, husband or male guardian to do; no doubt I will overlook one or two so I ask readers to help me. To begin with, we need permission to go to school and now — the new rule — permission to be taken from school to a hospital in the event of an emergency. Third, permission to get a passport; fourth, permission to go to university; fifth, permission to work; sixth, permission to get married; seventh, permission (now from her husband) to be admitted to a hospital; eighth, permission to get her own official government ID card; ninth, permission to buy property or a car (of course she cannot drive the car she buys!); tenth, permission to travel abroad and eleventh, permission to stay in a hotel in Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of all these permissions is, as you will have guessed, to protect women. They may sometimes protect women but they also give men power over women and that power, as we all know, is frequently abused and misused.
Men are always the guardians here and conscientious people of both sexes in the Kingdom are no doubt asking a question that was asked by the ancient Romans who were concerned about the honesty and probity of those in power over them: Who will guard the guards?
To end on a somewhat different note, I cannot help but feel optimistic about some of these restrictions being eased up and allowing women more freedom. This will naturally have the effect of allowing them to become more active participants in the country’s social and economic life. What a person gives of his or her own free will is much better in quantity and quality than what is given when he or she is not allowed to assume full responsibility.
Moving to another news item, Al-Watan newspaper reported that during the first day of the recent Fifth National Dialogue, the media committee asked women not to wear trousers; the committee also tried to prevent some female journalists from interviewing male participants. It also asked to see written material so that it could be approved before being published. I hope that this news item was an exaggeration, but I have to say that, in view of our history and past behavior, I would not be surprised if it were true.
Preventing Liars From Lying
A girl’s college in Taif has issued a list of medical problems that will not be accepted by the college administration when students want sick leave. The list includes headaches, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), toothache, sore throat, flu, high or low blood pressure, back pain and bronchitis.
The memo goes on to say that these problems will not be accepted even if they are accompanied by an official report from either a government or a private hospital unless the report has been approved by the college clinic. The report says too that students’ families have complained about the unfairness of the memo, saying that it rules out all the usual illnesses that affect a student’s daily performance.
On the other hand, the memo suggests, as many people suspect, that a number of students feign illness as an excuse for not doing academic work they have been assigned and that the college administration is well and truly fed up with this practice.
Granted, lies are unacceptable but in order to prevent lies, should we rule out what is legitimate as well? We are dealing with a classic dilemma — students who want to get out of doing work and who seek ways of avoiding it. The college administration understandably wants to control this so it does so Saudi style — making it difficult to be absent from school for those who might have a genuine illness and for those who lie. The solution might work with the second group, but it is unfair to those who have a real reason preventing them from attending class. To look at the list, it seems the only excuse for being absent is to be hit by a car or maybe to be already in hospital. The list looks askance at illnesses that make concentration very difficult but at the same time, it poses a question to all of us: How can we tell if someone is lying? Or better still, how can you stop people from lying?
One way is to do it “our” way and issue memos which take no account of the difference between liars and honest people. Surely we could come up with something more humane than a sick student seeing a doctor who gives her an excuse for being absent and yet still requires the sick student to come to college and have her excuse approved by the college clinic! It is time for us to work on establishing trust as well as establishing infrastructure that we can trust and depend on.
