Category Women’s Rights

We’re All Laila: Stockholm Syndrome

This post is part of “We’re All Laila” blogging day, which is a call to review values and prevalent ideas related to females, and how society enacts them with no consideration of their impact on women themselves. The call here is not to propagate a certain value or culture, but it is rather a call to criticize and review our own daily behavior, with a true desire to change and purify our attitudes in life from tendencies of oppression that we consciously –and unconsciously– enact to the weaker side in the society, rather than confronting its real causes. Therefore, participation is open and welcoming each and everyone, from Egypt and Arab countries, men and women, bloggers and simple citizens whom we will voice and share their experience on the internet. Everyone is absolutely free to express their opinions the way they like, as long as they believe in such opinions, and are fully responsible for them on personal basis, and are ready to defend these opinions against whatever attacks or counter-opinions that they may face; and even one should have readiness for change and being convinced if one’s opinion is proven wrong or incomplete.

Stockholm Syndrome
By Maha al-Faleh

I know that for those who know who I am, I would be judged for what I’m about to say. Others would see me as a spoiled girl who just want more. It’s true, I’ve been blessed with perfect parents, my father is a man who believes in women’s empowerment, and my brothers respect the strength of their sisters and embrace them. Basically, I have lived and was raised in a family who wouldn’t stop their girls from following their dreams.

Yet there is something missing here, and I cannot pretend that I’m ok with it. I’m the kind of girl who would always say at the end of a conversation, “hay come on, things ain’t that bad,” or would say, “well, we are lucky and blessed with many things and I’m just thankful.” I’ll be the girl who always try to be positive.

Maybe It’s true; things for Saudi women aren’t always as bad, especially when portrayed by the western media. I hate it when people act like we are waiting for the ultimate salvation, but as I start saying these words to myself, I wonder: have I been just numbing myself? And I start to realize that I might be suffering from what I think is Stockholm syndrome. For those who don’t know what ‘Stockholm syndrome’ is, it’s when a hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker. I know I can be literally crucified by some for saying that my country is taking a hostage of me, but I think since I was lucky to be raised in an open-minded community, it might had stopped me from seeing what challenges other girls are facing.

I know this might sound a bit contradicting, because although I already identified what problems Saudi women face, I think we started to grow accustomed to our problems. We started trying to enjoy our lives, ignoring what’s happing to other women. We are making what used to annoy us a little bit more tolerable. I’m not saying that this is always wrong. In fact, it can be healthy sometimes, but our ways has no difference from those who suffer from Stockholm syndrome; we stopped seeing what’s wrong, we are not getting shocked anymore.

After I graduated from college, I started working in one of the biggest women philanthropic organizations in Riyadh. I started then to see a world different than mine and things came crushing down, seeing a large percentage of women here are suffering from poverty, abuse, and many many more tragic cultural issues. I started to become angry. What about those women? What will they do? And have they been suffering from the same syndrome as I am? Many of them are actually accepting such lives when they don’t know that they don’t have to. I know that in every society in the world we find a segment that suffers from such condition because of poverty and lack of education, and this is not a special case of Saudi Arabia, but that’s not an excuse for us young women to ignore.

I no longer work for this organization as I moved to another place. But I remember that on my last day at work, a girl came in, she was my age, apparently relatively poor, and her eyes were so filled with pain. She asked me if there was someone who can help her to get a job, but since it was late at night and no one was around I told her kindly to come tomorrow morning. She then started begging me for help. She said that her father is trying to force her into remarrying her ex-husband, an old man who used to beat her. She held my hand crying and said that she doesn’t want to marry that man. I ended up crying with that girl. I talked to one of the my superiors that night and I was able to provide some money for her that might help her. She told me she wasn’t here for the money and she wanted a job, so I told her that it will help her till she gets one. She wanted to talk, and as she later told me her story with details, I tried to comfort her and I encouraged her to speak with her father and tell him that no religion or logic accepts what he is doing; that she has the right to go the human rights society here in Riyadh.

Deep down inside I knew this girl won’t go to the human rights society, I knew she won’t revolt. I was so sad and felt helpless, I provided her with money and a shoulder to lean on for 30 minutes, but what about later, I asked my self, who will save this girl?

The girl called me two months later telling me that she has enrolled in nursing school, and that she is not going to marry this man. I don’t know if my words helped her, I don’t know if the money actually helped her. All I know is that this girl felt better just expressing her frustration. Were my words of any help at all? I’ll never know. All I know that she is not marrying this man and she might get control over her life.

This girl was my age, she was living a life totally different from mine, she had no control over her life, while to an extent I did with mine, but I think when we both met, our worlds crashed together, and all things that we both took for granted, all the numbed feelings inside were awaken, I felt that my lucky life shouldn’t stop me from seeing what other women are facing.

My message here is not to my country, and not to the government because their role should be in another chapter, but to the girls and women of my country: get off your high horse, look around you, speak up! Most of the oppression is not made by our country, it’s made by our silence, by our lack of interest, or sometimes because we are too oblivious to our surroundings. Look out for each other, help those who didn’t have the chance to speak, give them hope and guidance, we should stop expecting our county to make decisions for us.

I salute all brave women who regularly go to the poor areas in my city such as Ghobera and Faisalya and many more around the country. Those who reach out for oppressed women, call for their right, educate them. Those who would spare their money and leisure time just to help unprivileged women get on their feet. These women taught me a lot, they know who they are, and never ask for any credit because they are the true Saudi women who shook off their own Stockholm syndrome.

Maha al-Faleh is a talented, hard-working young Saudi woman. We met last year during my trip to the US, and I was very impressed by her intelligence, courage and determination. When I asked her to contribute to Saudi Jeans on this special day, she generously agreed and wrote this beautiful post. In other words, she rocks, and that’s all you need to know :-)

Aramco’s Iron Lady

Here is a different face of Saudi Arabia, a face usually not seen:

Nabilah_Tunisi

Meet Nabilah al-Tunisi, aka the Iron Lady, the acting manager for projects, control and support, at Saudi Aramco. She has been recently put in charge of the engineering on a new $25 billion refinery and petrochemicals plant–the Ras Tanura Integrated Project.

Hadeel Prize

Ever since blogger Hadeel al-Hodaif passed away earlier this year, friends and fellow bloggers have been thinking about different initiatives to honor and commemorate the young women who defended free speech and believed in a new era of citizen journalism. One of the first ideas that came to the minds of her friends is to establish a prize in her name to recognize the increasing efforts in the Arab world to start a freer media on the web.

This idea has finally materialized as fellow blogger Sami Omar announced today the launch of Hadeel International Prize for New Media (HIPNM), an international award that aims at discovering, encouraging and highlighting Arab talents in the new media arena. The prize will kick off next year in five categories: blogging, specialized blogging, personal blogging, podcasting and videoblogging. For more information, please contact Mohammed al-Saleh: media@hadeelprize.org / +966504877334

On Saudi Students and Hijab in France

When the French government decided to ban all religious symbols in schools few years ago the decision hardly went unnoticed, especially by Muslims as many of them found the rule directly targeting the hijab. While I find this French rule idiotic, I find it equally if not more idiotic what some Saudi female students who got scholarships to France have to say about the implications of this rule on their education.

“There should be a clear agreement between our two governments by which Muslims going there for education could keep their hijabs on,” one of them told Arab News. After spending SR 7,000 to study French, she is now asking the officials to sort it out.

The only way I see for our “officials” to “sort it out” is this: one of them gets the French citizenship, he wins the presidential elections there, and then he makes the parliament change the law. Pretty straight forward, huh? No offense to Ms. Abdulhadi, but don’t you think you could have spent a few hours learning some general information about France and its laws before you apply for a scholarship there?

Another student went as far as asking the government to stop scholarships to France altogether. Sorry Missy, just because you think French laws contradict what you believe in doesn’t give you the right to deny others the chance to go and pursue a better education in that place as long as it suits their beliefs.

I think this story says a lot about the political awareness of our youth and how they view the world. They somehow seem to believe that it can be modified to become more in line with their liking, and that a simple call to the so-called officials disguised in the name of religion is enough to change everything as we often see around here. This should be a rude awakening to Ms. Abdulhadi and her friends, as well as for the rest of us who are still delusional about where we stand in this world today.

UPDATE: According to John Burgess, there is some confusion around this issue. Apparently wearing hijab in French universities is not forbidden, but medical schools have rules which ban head coverings as unhygienic. However, this doesn’t change much of what I said here.

First Saudi Film Festival

Guest blogger Lubna Hussain is currently in France enjoying the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, the first film festival in Saudi Arabia started last Tuesday in Dammam. The Associated Press reports, “It’s a far cry from the glamour of Cannes: No celebrities strutting their stuff; an all-male audience drinking coffee and juice rather than champagne; and if any female spectators showed up – well, no one knew. They came in through a back entrance into a separate hall, off-limits to the male organizers.”

Still, I think it is good to see the event takes place. I really wanted to attend some of the films there over the weekend, but unfortunately I’m stuck here in Riyadh for another week or so. The AP report carried this paragraph that made me feel like laughing and crying at the same time:

Information Minister Eyad Madani attended the festival Tuesday, giving the competition an unequivocal stamp of official approval. “There’s a debate over the issue of cinema and movies, and it’s a debate that should continue,” said Madani in a brief speech.

What debate the minister is talking about? The stupid debate over opening up cinema theaters in the country, like the debate over women’s driving, has gone way longer than it should. The government should step up and show its citizens and the world that they are not to be held back by a group of backward lunatics who, if it was up to them, would like to take us back to the Middle Ages. It is about time.