I drove on Thursday, May 19, on what was then the first day of the Saudi weekend. That night I uploaded the video to YouTube. It was completely in Arabic, with no subtitles, my hair was covered, and I was wearing big sunglasses. It was like someone’s home movie. I hoped that most of the people who had watched the previous video might see this one too, but not leave so many nasty comments. The next day was Friday, Islam’s weekly holiday, a time for prayer, for sermons from imams, and for whatever public punishments the kingdom might mete out. The following morning, Saturday, I went to work as usual. Except that nothing would ever again be the same.
One of my colleagues walked into my office and, holding on to the lip of my desk for support, he told me that my video was the most watched YouTube video in all of Saudi Arabia and one of the top videos in the world, with more than 700,000 views and a 20:80 like:dislike ratio. At first I thought he was joking, but then I checked online. Someone living in Australia had posted in the comment section, “I have no clue why the hell everyone is watching this.” But every Saudi knew exactly why he or she was watching. And the reaction was quickly overwhelming.
Aramco publishes a private directory listing the names and contact information for its employees. It didn’t take long for angry strangers to find me. My inbox was clogged with messages calling me a “whore” or worse. “If I ever see you in the street . . .” one began. I immediately deleted it. Another started with the words, “We are digging your grave.” A third, “You have just opened the gates of hell on yourself.” I began forwarding the worst ones to Aramco security. Even after reading only a few words, I could feel the writers’ anger seething across cyberspace. The phone on my desk was ringing constantly, some callers doing nothing but breathing on the end, but some screaming, “You drove a car! Your face was uncovered!” It didn’t matter that a group of Saudi clerics had acknowledged a woman’s right to uncover her face or that there was no statute explicitly banning women from driving. I endured rants about my bringing chaos (fitna) to the country. On YouTube, I disabled the video’s comment section because about half of the four hundred comments were vile. At lunchtime, two strangers stopped at my cubicle and read my nameplate. They stared, but said nothing and then left. I felt nervous that someone would try to hurt me.
Not long after, I went to my boss and requested two weeks off; I didn’t want to cause any trouble at work. My request was verbally accepted, but I was determined to finish out the current day as if nothing had changed. Soon the department manager came to my door.
“I want you to listen, Manal,” he told me. “I want you to be very careful with the things that you are doing. We don’t like it, and we don’t want the company’s name involved, in any way.” And then he asked this: “How are you going to change anything by doing what you’re doing?”
I looked at him and replied, “It’s 2011. It’s time.”
He asked me again to be careful, to think of my son and my family, and to think of all that I was risking, including my job.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have things under control.” But I also did not want anyone to doubt my commitment.
The chaos of that morning had thwarted one key piece of my plan. I had intended to go to the local traffic station during my lunch break and apply for a Saudi driver’s license. I had already checked; there was no statute prohibiting me from doing this. I still had my valid American license, and I had completed the Saudi application form. All I needed was my younger brother acting as my mahram to accompany me. But he was unable to leave work, I couldn’t find a taxi, and I was occupied by angry emails and harassing phone calls. The license application waited, folded inside my bag.
After work, I picked up Aboudi, got into a taxi, and together we headed to my brother’s house. I told him about the video and the responses. But now I had a new concern: how could I be certain the women who drove on June 17 would be safe? After the forty-seven women who had driven in Riyadh in 1990, only the occasional woman here and there had dared to drive. In each of those instances, it appeared that the woman had been brought to a Saudi traffic police station and her guardian summoned. The women were forced to sign pledges agreeing never to drive again.
When I had driven two days before, I hadn’t encountered any traffic police and I hadn’t been stopped. I had hoped that no one would stop any woman driving on June 17, but after the reaction to the video, I was worried. “I need to find out,” I told my brother. “Let’s go now and I’ll drive by the traffic police.”
My brother agreed. He told me, “I will be with you until the end,” and handed me the keys to his car, a Hyundai Azera sedan. But my sister-in-law was upset and begged us not to go. I told her that it was late in the day, the officers would want to go home quickly, and there was no rule that made my driving illegal.
My brother suggested that I drive down Corniche Street again, the biggest street in the city of Khobar. There were always traffic cops on that street. So my brother, my sister-in-law, their baby, and five-year-old Aboudi got in the car. I got in as well, but unlike every other time that we had ridden together like this, I was behind the wheel. I was excited but terrified. I hoped having my family with me would offer some protection if I was harassed. As I drove, I asked my sister-in-law to take out her cell phone and make another video. I was already thinking about how I could post it on YouTube, a Part 2.
I drove for about thirty minutes until we reached Corniche Street, the steering wheel feeling comfortable—easy and familiar—in my hands. Right away, I saw the first traffic cop. I held my breath as we passed. But he did not wave me over. Nothing happened.
“We have the green light!” I shouted. “We have the green light! It’s okay!”
I kept on driving, watching the faces of the other drivers on the opposite side of the road. All of them stared, even swiveling their necks around as we passed. Some glanced down or looked away and then looked back, as if they could not believe what they were seeing: a woman driving. I looked them straight in the eye and smiled, as if to say, Yes, you are seeing a woman behind the wheel. Time finally to get used to it.
I continued until I reached an intersection. There, directly facing me, standing in the middle of the street, was another traffic cop. I came to the horrible realization that perhaps the first traffic cop had not reacted simply because he had not seen me. This time I was in full view. As the traffic cop looked at my vehicle, our eyes locked. When the light changed, I made a left turn, directly in front of him. I was barely through the lanes for oncoming traffic when I heard the command blaring over the police address system: “The Azera, pull over.”
“That’s us, Manal. Stop!” my sister-in-law called, her voice rising from the backseat.
“No, wait a minute,” I said. Perhaps, I rationalized, he meant a different Azera.
But then the police address system blared a second time, “The Azera, pull over.”
I jerked the car to a stop. I blew out a big breath as I saw him striding up to my window, the driver’s-side window. Then I saw that he was smiling.