For Maysa al-Amoudi, for believing in Women2Drive and putting us in contact with influential media figures to support the movement. For Abdulla Al Alami, Women2Drive and Right2Dignity’s godfather, for his guidance, for his time and money, for putting us in contact with the officials, for not giving up on me even when I was in jail and everyone else had abandoned the movement. For Omar al-Johani, for risking his own safety and bravely tweeting about my 2:00 a.m. arrest and letting the world know. For Abdullah, Muneera, and Hidaya, again, for being the only ones who had the courage to visit me in jail when everyone else was scared. You are my heroes. For Ahmed, our Twitter expert, thank you for keeping #FreeManal in the Twitter account favorites, forgive me for misunderstanding you. For Abduljalil al-Nasser, the talented photographer and filmmaker who took that photo that went viral online upon my arrest. Thousands around the world used that photo to show solidarity with Saudi women’s rights.
For Talal al-Ateeq, Tarfah al-Ghannam, Amjad al-Amri, Rasha al-Duwaisi, Madeeha al-Ajroush, Suaad Alshammari, Kholoud al-Fahad, Hutoon Alfasi, Dr. Badrya Albishr, Khalaf Alharbi, Turki Aldakheel, Maysa Almane, Dr. Aisha Almane, Aziza Alyousef, Bashayer Alyami, Geenan al-Ghamdi, Raneen Bukhari, and many other activists, journalists, and writers who supported the movement when everyone else attacked it or stayed quiet. Your courageous voices have made a difference for generations to come.
For Donna Abu Nasr from Bloomberg and Atika Shubert from CNN, for letting the world know about the movement. For my dear friend and true feminist Constance Piesinger and Pedro M. Burelli, who both helped me craft my TED talk: you made an important difference in my life. For Carlos Latuff from Brazil, thank you for the amazing icons you designed to help make our movement known worldwide. For Mohammed Sharaf from Kuwait, for the amazing posters and banners to support a women’s rights movement in Saudi Arabia. For all my friends and all the people around the world whom I have never met but who changed their social media profile photos to my photo to call for my release from jail: thank you!
And thank you to my honorable friend and journalist Alaa Brinji, who has been jailed for five years for his honest tweets about extremism. Your article defending my name while I was in jail, when so many had tried to smear me, was a great consolation to my family.
This book took five years. Many times, I almost gave up. But after my mother was diagnosed with stage-four cancer in June 2015, and I spent months with her until her death in February 2016, I understood why this book took so long. I was still learning my mother’s story and my own. Deep inside, I have always wanted to tell my story. What I could not have known was that after May 22, 2011, my story would be of interest to millions of people simply because I, a Saudi woman, drove a car.