The times, they are a-changin’

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I could’ve been in any city of the world as I munched on onion rings at Johnny Rockets while members of the bikers’ club, sporting top notch Harley Davidsons, gathered outside for a meeting and some photo ops. I was not the only woman around as I clicked away on my phone camera, taking in the bikes and jeeps plastered with stickers for a breast cancer charity, among others. The men looked like bikers anywhere in the world – colourful bandanas and shiny leather jackets. A few Hummers were parked to the side and some men were passing out freebies from sponsors.

This was not any city in the world, though. The bikers, my onion rings, and I were coexisting in Al-Khober, in an eastern province of Saudi Arabia. As I looked around me, the one thing that came to mind is that these people are not the savages the international media makes them out to be.

In countless Hollywood films, Arabs have been dehumanised, portrayed as Bedouin bandits, submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs, and gun-wielding terrorists. While the American media has unlearned nasty generalisations about African-Americans, Native Americans and Jews, the mainstream continues to degrade Arabs. In fact, Arabs are perhaps the most vilified people in Hollywood nowadays.

The original theme song of Disney’s Aladdin (1992), watched by millions of children, opened with the verse:

‘Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place

Where the caravan camels roam

Where they cut off your ear

If they don’t like your face

It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home’

A couple of lines were removed from this verse after the Walt Disney Company and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) reached an agreement in 1993 for the alteration of the theme song, but the word ‘barbaric’ stayed. Even prior to Aladdin, in the 1980s, Hollywood seemed to be on a campaign to malign Arabs. The blonde heroine, played by the little known Darlanne Fluegel, in Bulletproof (1988) says to an Arab man, “In your country you treat women like camels, and send young boys to their deaths in the name of your excuse for a God.”

The next decade was no better with box office hits such as True Lies (1994) and Father of the Bride II (1995) being criticised for anti-Arab content. More recently, in Gladiator (2000), the slave traders who kidnap Russell Crowe and bring him back to Rome are Arabs. Some TV Series have followed suit, too: in ‘24’ for example, Arabs are still the baddies and Americans play the saviours.

These media stereotypes are from the truth, at least in my experience. I’ve met Saudi men, spoken to them. Generally speaking, they are not vicious, uncouth, or tribalistic. In fact, they don’t stare, even when I break the law and venture out without the burqa. Nor is their world a surreal one of hyper-segregation.

Women, though clad in burqas and mostly veiled, are around almost everywhere – they certainly outnumber men in the gigantic shopping malls. Groups of women, unaccompanied by their ‘mehram’ (male guardians), hang out at diners and shops. And now they’re starting to break through even more barriers. Last month, the Khobar chapter of the Women’s Sports Organisation launched ‘Khobar United’. This sports collective started off as Jeddah United in 2003 with just eight girls as members; it has since grown to accommodate 300 members.

The youngsters, too, could hail from any corner of the world. From my apartment window I can see children take off their shoes and play soccer every single evening, yelling passionately. I meet Saudi kids in the elevator and say hello. They may be shy and not understand my language, but they do tell me their names and smile all the same – like children anywhere.

In my time here, I have never seen a ‘mottawa,’ a member of the Moral Police, or, for that matter, any of the extreme characters or activities I had imagined before arriving in the country. I had stereotyped Saudis long before coming here, and I never even dreamt that I’d spend most of my time dirt biking (something I can hardly do in Pakistan), bowling, and speed boating.

This is not to say that everything is hunky dory. It’s true, for instance, that I cannot drive. But I can take a taxi and go just about anywhere. While it’s not acceptable for a country to outlaw women’s driving and to force them to wear the burqa, but it’s also not acceptable for the international community to focus on such rules to the extent that nothing else about a society remains visible. We must realize that things are changing.

I know a Saudi woman who is a Taekwondo black belt, and just recently became a certified trainer after completing a course in Korea. She’s the first Saudi woman to hold the title, and although she can’t yet drive herself to the gym, I suspect many more women will follow suit. Universities are now offering professional education to women: they can choose to become engineers and doctors too. Complete co-education systems are being experimentally introduced in colleges. Women own and run business empires, they work in banks, oil companies, software houses, in schools and libraries.

A Saudi woman who has encouraged me to look for work while I’m in the country says, “There’s a general push for more women in the work force.” This may seem like little progress to you or me, but it’s a big deal for those Saudis who dream of a better, more liberal and tolerant society. In a staunch monarchy, change is slow but sure.

Maliha Aqueel is a freelance writer who lives in Lahore and Al-Khober.