In an effort to calm an increasingly vitriolic debate and to curb a rash of suffragette-style demonstrations, the government of Saudi Arabia has at last decided to allow women to drive. The ban on women behind the wheel dates to the establishment of the state in 1932, and Saudi conservatives and religious scholars have long argued that giving women the right to drive will lead to a "Western-style" erosion of morality and a loss of traditional values. Protests culminated recently in the delivery a petition containing 1,100 signatures to Saudi King Abdullah by a women's rights group, which claimed there was no religious reason the ban should stand. And last week, a United Nations committee monitoring standards set by the Convention on Elimination Discrimination Against Women issued harsh criticism of the ban, which forces women to hire dedicated male drivers or rely on male relatives to get around.
Continued after the break.
According to one government official, "There has been a decision to move on this by the royal court because it is recognized that if girls have been in schools since the 1960s, they have a capability to function behind the wheel when they grow up." But although the decision has been reached, the government won't issue an official degree until the end of the year, and it may be years after that before women are able to penetrate the bureaucracies controlling licensing, insurance, and vehicle ownership. The issue is a particularly hot one in Saudi Arabia (consider the Saudi political cartoon below) and in the Arab community as a whole, made more so after an incident earlier this month in which a Saudi woman in Cairo (driving a Hummer, according to reports) allegedly exceeded the posted speed limit and slammed into a taxicab, killing its male occupants.
A Saudi political cartoon entitled "Women Drivers."
