This article describes the changes undergoing in the Saudi society. It is a narrative piece that attempts at presenting the truth through the telling of a personal story. It is written in the style of Theodore White, for it dramatizes history. It uses various writing techniques; including playing with perspective and using varying sentence lengths. It humanizes a foreign people, by presenting some details about their lives, and it attempts at intertwining the human with the concrete. It tells a story of average people who are heroic in their simplicity.
I reconstructed the events by research and interviewing surviving members of the family. I also insert myself into the story as a character, but I have changed my name to create some distance. I narrate the events through the third person.
They sat on a large dining table flooded with books, notebooks, laptops, wires, papers, pens, pencils, post-its, highlighters and endless amounts of coffee. Armed with everything one needs to study, they spent most of their evenings in the common area of their building studying for midterms, working on papers, or doing any other assignments needed to earn their graduate or undergraduate degrees.
“I am so tired, I can’t keep my eyes open,” Sarah said, a graduate student, as she placed her empty Starbucks cup on the table.
“Me too, but I have to finish this paper tonight,” replied her friend an undergraduate who added, “just think in a few more weeks we’ll be back home and it will be summer vacation.”
Sarah grinned nostalgically remembering her family and especially her little eight-year-old brother whom she had been teaching to play cards via skype,“ I can’t wait to see everyone,” she said as she picked up her pen and began writing. She then paused for a few moments, gathered her wavy brown hair in her hands, and tied it into a bun securing it with her pen. She looked around the room at her friends, most of whom she has met only a year ago. They were all wearing sweats and hoodies, with no make-up and disheveled hair. They clicked away on their laptops, determined to get their work done, anxious that they won’t finish in time, and oblivious to how important and socially significant they all really were.
They were all Saudi girls, among the large wave students being sent abroad on Saudi government scholarships to seek higher education. An opportunity once reserved mostly for men, women today are offered an equal opportunity to pursue their education through the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission.
SACM is a specialized agency created by the Saudi government to aid Saudi students in the US. It functions as an intermediary between US academic institutions and their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. There are currently about 15,000 Saudi students in the US, both on government and non-government scholarships, and that number is projected to increase to 30,000 in the next five years. The US is among numerous countries in Asia, Europe, and North America that is receiving the latest wave of the Saudi student population. What makes this wave of students different from their predecessors who came in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, is the significant influx of single Saudi females given the opportunity to study abroad; an unthinkable act only a few years ago.
Saudi Arabia is a state in transition. It is a society whose traditions are deeply rooted in history and whose identity is derived from an ancient and proud heritage. It is a country founded on an intertwining of religious conservatism and tribal alliances. For average Saudis, all aspects of their daily life are permeated by religion and tradition, but the waves of change have been advancing, and dramatic, tangible differences can be seen from one generation to another.
Sarah is one of a long line of Saudi females. Her grandmother, Hela, grew up in a small town two hours west of Riyadh. Like all the people in the town, Hela lived in a mud house and her day-to-day activities consisted of helping her mother in the kitchen, basket weaving with the prominent ladies of the town, milking the family goat, prayer, and daily reading the Quran. It is only through the madrasa, the local Quran-teaching school, that she learned basic reading skills and it was only when she got older that she received a formal education by going to public school set up by the government, as part of campaign to reduce illiteracy among adults.
Hela was a spirited, inquisitive, and a bright-eyed young girl, always getting into trouble, and often getting hurt herself. Her curiosity lead her on many adventures in town, climbing palm trees and investigating the local seen. She would lead the other children during her escapades, causing her to be labeled by the other mothers as the “rowdy one.” It was during one of her many adventures that she met her future husband, Suleiman.
Early one morning, when she was fifteen years old, she decided to investigate an abandoned well in town to see whether or not it still had water. The large well was in an isolated part of town, and she had to walk half a kilometer alone to reach it, for no one had agreed to come along. When she arrived, she found that the well had a large wooden ledge that lay across the cylinder’s opening. Hela, hoping to get a better look inside, stepped on the ledge and leaned across. The ledge however began to waver, and she slipped and fell inside. Luckily, the well was not dry and she found herself floating in a pool of war. She did not know how to swim, and she held on to the ledge, grinding her nails into the wood, and yelling for help. Dusk set in, and no one came. Finally, after what seemed like days, a young man named Suleiman heard her voice and quickly came to her rescue. He found the pretty local girl he had often heard of but had never seen uncovered, for her veil had fallen off in her struggle to stay afloat. After some maneuvering, and with some help from some men in town, he pulled her out. Hela and Suleiman were married a few months later.
She eventually moved to Riyadh with her young family and had five children. Her two oldest daughters died before the age of three due to illness, a natural thing at that time, leaving her with two sons, and her youngest, a daughter she named Norah which in Arabic means “light.” Dreaming of better things for her young family, Hela decided to work to help her husband earn some money for a car, a necessity when living in a big city. She had once seen a black Cadillac driving down a main street in the Riyadh, and knew that a Cadillac was the car for her. Although she would never be able to drive it, because driving was reserved for men, she wanted the best possible car for her family. Eventually, she got a job at a local pre-school, and along with her husband saved enough money for a shiny black Cadillac, achieving her dream in life.
Hela’s strength of character and warm nature made her loved and respected in the community. She understood the value of hard work, and taught her daughter that through work, perseverance, and the blessing of God, one can accomplish anything. She pushed her daughter to move forward in life, while always remembering to maintain a balance between ones duty to God, then to the community and duty to oneself. She reminded Norah of where they came from, and the importance of preserving their honor and staying true to their origins as they advanced through life.
Norah, like her mother before her, grew up to be a woman of strength. She went to middle and high school, and eventually got into the famous King Saud University as an Arabic Literature major. She excelled as a college student and tried to expand her horizon by learning English and Hebrew. She got married at the age of 19, while still in college, but made sure that her husband knew that her education came first. After earning her college degree, she started getting curious about a new gadget called a computer, for she recognized that this maybe the wave of the future. As an attempt to understand it, Norah earned a graduate diploma in Information Systems, and eventually was able to navigate anything on her PC. But more than anything, Norah excelled at being a mother to her six children.
She raised her children instilling in them the values she learned from her mother. She wanted them to honor their ancestors’ history by upholding their countries traditions, but also aim to be modern Saudis with a global presence.
She wanted the best for her children, and this caused her to make many hard decisions like agreeing to send her eldest daughter, Sarah, to the outside world to earn a Masters degree. She recognized that the society was changing, that women were advancing, and that if her daughter wanted to make something of herself she would need more than a degree from King Saud University. She did not want to stand in her daughter’s way, and she spent many sleepless nights worrying about what the consequences of sending her daughter alone might be.
The decision to send Sarah abroad was met with much resistance from family members and friends. Cousins, uncles, and aunts said it was almost blasphemous to send an unmarried girl alone, but their opinions were that of a shrinking majority. More and more people were encouraging their daughters to go abroad, for in the outside world a girl can benefit from opportunities that do not exist in the country. Norah agreed to send her daughter and son together, to mitigate family tensions and to help her sleep at night.
She encouraged Sarah to set goals for herself while in the foreign world, and then follow through with them. She wanted her daughter to be more than she ever dreamed possible for herself, and she wanted to make sure that Sarah would remain true to her origins and faithful to her simple family legacy.
Like many mothers and daughters in country, Norah and Sarah were aware the growing number of role models Saudi women had to look up to, like Muna Abusulayman, Lubna Al-Olayan, and Nora Al-Faiz, who are all successful Saudi career-driven females who have been pushing the social boundaries. These women have been cracking the glass ceiling that stands in the way of women in the country, through gradual pressure and have achieved what was once considered impossible.
Muna Abusulayman is a prominent media personality, a founding co-host of Kalam Nawaem, the number one talk show in the Middle East. This media exposure made her one of the most recognizable faces in the Middle East, and it also made her very controversial in Saudi Arabia. She is an outspoken female from a country where women operate outside the public sphere and are rarely seen on television. She made history in 2005 when she was appointed by the UNDP as a Goodwill Ambassador, the first woman from Saudi Arabia. Muna Abusulayman also serves as the Executive Director of Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, the philanthropic branch of HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company. Through this work, Muna aims to bridge the gap between cultures and religions and aims to present a true vision of the Saudi state, not what is often portrayed in the media.
Lubna Al-Olyan is one of the most powerful women in the world, according to Forbes magazine. She is an influential businesswoman in Saudi Arabia who runs Olayan Financing Co., a multibillion-dollar empire, and has been its chief executive since 1986. She is an advocate of progressive business practices in Saudi Arabia and she co-chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Luna’s reputation is one of a tough woman who, after encouragement from her father, began working in the business world in 1983, a time when few women were welcome in Saudi corporations. Socially, Lubna is controversial because she is married to an American lawyer, making her one of a handful of Saudi women who have married non-Saudis.
The newest and most shocking female celebrity in the kingdom is Nora Al-Faiz, the first female member of the Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers. She was elected earlier this year as the fist female Deputy Minister of Education, and she is the first and only woman to reached a high ranking office within the public sphere. Her appointment was an earthquake and a significant sign that a quite revolution is taking place. Becoming the Deputy Minister had an immediate impact on Saudi women, who were once banned from entering the Council of Ministers building. This is no longer the case, for she has said, “My door is open and accessible to all members of the society.”
Sarah looked around at her friends as they worked on their individual assignments and thought of how lucky they were to have an opportunity to live in the US, and how lucky they were to have role models to look up to. Their mothers and grandmothers were all strong women, receptive to change and unafraid to send their daughters aboard. They were willing to take the first steps by sending their children, and Sarah acknowledged that they were, in their own way, making history.
“I need to get more coffee,” she said as she got up to leave. Sarah adjusted her Boston University sweatshirt, walked toward the door, and turned around to ask “anyone want anything?”
“No thanks,” mumbled the girls in the room as they continued to click away on their laptops. She looked at them envisioning a brighter future not only for themselves but for their country as well.
I reconstructed the events by research and interviewing surviving members of the family. I also insert myself into the story as a character, but I have changed my name to create some distance. I narrate the events through the third person.
They sat on a large dining table flooded with books, notebooks, laptops, wires, papers, pens, pencils, post-its, highlighters and endless amounts of coffee. Armed with everything one needs to study, they spent most of their evenings in the common area of their building studying for midterms, working on papers, or doing any other assignments needed to earn their graduate or undergraduate degrees.
“I am so tired, I can’t keep my eyes open,” Sarah said, a graduate student, as she placed her empty Starbucks cup on the table.
“Me too, but I have to finish this paper tonight,” replied her friend an undergraduate who added, “just think in a few more weeks we’ll be back home and it will be summer vacation.”
Sarah grinned nostalgically remembering her family and especially her little eight-year-old brother whom she had been teaching to play cards via skype,“ I can’t wait to see everyone,” she said as she picked up her pen and began writing. She then paused for a few moments, gathered her wavy brown hair in her hands, and tied it into a bun securing it with her pen. She looked around the room at her friends, most of whom she has met only a year ago. They were all wearing sweats and hoodies, with no make-up and disheveled hair. They clicked away on their laptops, determined to get their work done, anxious that they won’t finish in time, and oblivious to how important and socially significant they all really were.
They were all Saudi girls, among the large wave students being sent abroad on Saudi government scholarships to seek higher education. An opportunity once reserved mostly for men, women today are offered an equal opportunity to pursue their education through the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission.
SACM is a specialized agency created by the Saudi government to aid Saudi students in the US. It functions as an intermediary between US academic institutions and their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. There are currently about 15,000 Saudi students in the US, both on government and non-government scholarships, and that number is projected to increase to 30,000 in the next five years. The US is among numerous countries in Asia, Europe, and North America that is receiving the latest wave of the Saudi student population. What makes this wave of students different from their predecessors who came in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, is the significant influx of single Saudi females given the opportunity to study abroad; an unthinkable act only a few years ago.
Saudi Arabia is a state in transition. It is a society whose traditions are deeply rooted in history and whose identity is derived from an ancient and proud heritage. It is a country founded on an intertwining of religious conservatism and tribal alliances. For average Saudis, all aspects of their daily life are permeated by religion and tradition, but the waves of change have been advancing, and dramatic, tangible differences can be seen from one generation to another.
Sarah is one of a long line of Saudi females. Her grandmother, Hela, grew up in a small town two hours west of Riyadh. Like all the people in the town, Hela lived in a mud house and her day-to-day activities consisted of helping her mother in the kitchen, basket weaving with the prominent ladies of the town, milking the family goat, prayer, and daily reading the Quran. It is only through the madrasa, the local Quran-teaching school, that she learned basic reading skills and it was only when she got older that she received a formal education by going to public school set up by the government, as part of campaign to reduce illiteracy among adults.
Hela was a spirited, inquisitive, and a bright-eyed young girl, always getting into trouble, and often getting hurt herself. Her curiosity lead her on many adventures in town, climbing palm trees and investigating the local seen. She would lead the other children during her escapades, causing her to be labeled by the other mothers as the “rowdy one.” It was during one of her many adventures that she met her future husband, Suleiman.
Early one morning, when she was fifteen years old, she decided to investigate an abandoned well in town to see whether or not it still had water. The large well was in an isolated part of town, and she had to walk half a kilometer alone to reach it, for no one had agreed to come along. When she arrived, she found that the well had a large wooden ledge that lay across the cylinder’s opening. Hela, hoping to get a better look inside, stepped on the ledge and leaned across. The ledge however began to waver, and she slipped and fell inside. Luckily, the well was not dry and she found herself floating in a pool of war. She did not know how to swim, and she held on to the ledge, grinding her nails into the wood, and yelling for help. Dusk set in, and no one came. Finally, after what seemed like days, a young man named Suleiman heard her voice and quickly came to her rescue. He found the pretty local girl he had often heard of but had never seen uncovered, for her veil had fallen off in her struggle to stay afloat. After some maneuvering, and with some help from some men in town, he pulled her out. Hela and Suleiman were married a few months later.
She eventually moved to Riyadh with her young family and had five children. Her two oldest daughters died before the age of three due to illness, a natural thing at that time, leaving her with two sons, and her youngest, a daughter she named Norah which in Arabic means “light.” Dreaming of better things for her young family, Hela decided to work to help her husband earn some money for a car, a necessity when living in a big city. She had once seen a black Cadillac driving down a main street in the Riyadh, and knew that a Cadillac was the car for her. Although she would never be able to drive it, because driving was reserved for men, she wanted the best possible car for her family. Eventually, she got a job at a local pre-school, and along with her husband saved enough money for a shiny black Cadillac, achieving her dream in life.
Hela’s strength of character and warm nature made her loved and respected in the community. She understood the value of hard work, and taught her daughter that through work, perseverance, and the blessing of God, one can accomplish anything. She pushed her daughter to move forward in life, while always remembering to maintain a balance between ones duty to God, then to the community and duty to oneself. She reminded Norah of where they came from, and the importance of preserving their honor and staying true to their origins as they advanced through life.
Norah, like her mother before her, grew up to be a woman of strength. She went to middle and high school, and eventually got into the famous King Saud University as an Arabic Literature major. She excelled as a college student and tried to expand her horizon by learning English and Hebrew. She got married at the age of 19, while still in college, but made sure that her husband knew that her education came first. After earning her college degree, she started getting curious about a new gadget called a computer, for she recognized that this maybe the wave of the future. As an attempt to understand it, Norah earned a graduate diploma in Information Systems, and eventually was able to navigate anything on her PC. But more than anything, Norah excelled at being a mother to her six children.
She raised her children instilling in them the values she learned from her mother. She wanted them to honor their ancestors’ history by upholding their countries traditions, but also aim to be modern Saudis with a global presence.
She wanted the best for her children, and this caused her to make many hard decisions like agreeing to send her eldest daughter, Sarah, to the outside world to earn a Masters degree. She recognized that the society was changing, that women were advancing, and that if her daughter wanted to make something of herself she would need more than a degree from King Saud University. She did not want to stand in her daughter’s way, and she spent many sleepless nights worrying about what the consequences of sending her daughter alone might be.
The decision to send Sarah abroad was met with much resistance from family members and friends. Cousins, uncles, and aunts said it was almost blasphemous to send an unmarried girl alone, but their opinions were that of a shrinking majority. More and more people were encouraging their daughters to go abroad, for in the outside world a girl can benefit from opportunities that do not exist in the country. Norah agreed to send her daughter and son together, to mitigate family tensions and to help her sleep at night.
She encouraged Sarah to set goals for herself while in the foreign world, and then follow through with them. She wanted her daughter to be more than she ever dreamed possible for herself, and she wanted to make sure that Sarah would remain true to her origins and faithful to her simple family legacy.
Like many mothers and daughters in country, Norah and Sarah were aware the growing number of role models Saudi women had to look up to, like Muna Abusulayman, Lubna Al-Olayan, and Nora Al-Faiz, who are all successful Saudi career-driven females who have been pushing the social boundaries. These women have been cracking the glass ceiling that stands in the way of women in the country, through gradual pressure and have achieved what was once considered impossible.
Muna Abusulayman is a prominent media personality, a founding co-host of Kalam Nawaem, the number one talk show in the Middle East. This media exposure made her one of the most recognizable faces in the Middle East, and it also made her very controversial in Saudi Arabia. She is an outspoken female from a country where women operate outside the public sphere and are rarely seen on television. She made history in 2005 when she was appointed by the UNDP as a Goodwill Ambassador, the first woman from Saudi Arabia. Muna Abusulayman also serves as the Executive Director of Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, the philanthropic branch of HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company. Through this work, Muna aims to bridge the gap between cultures and religions and aims to present a true vision of the Saudi state, not what is often portrayed in the media.
Lubna Al-Olyan is one of the most powerful women in the world, according to Forbes magazine. She is an influential businesswoman in Saudi Arabia who runs Olayan Financing Co., a multibillion-dollar empire, and has been its chief executive since 1986. She is an advocate of progressive business practices in Saudi Arabia and she co-chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Luna’s reputation is one of a tough woman who, after encouragement from her father, began working in the business world in 1983, a time when few women were welcome in Saudi corporations. Socially, Lubna is controversial because she is married to an American lawyer, making her one of a handful of Saudi women who have married non-Saudis.
The newest and most shocking female celebrity in the kingdom is Nora Al-Faiz, the first female member of the Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers. She was elected earlier this year as the fist female Deputy Minister of Education, and she is the first and only woman to reached a high ranking office within the public sphere. Her appointment was an earthquake and a significant sign that a quite revolution is taking place. Becoming the Deputy Minister had an immediate impact on Saudi women, who were once banned from entering the Council of Ministers building. This is no longer the case, for she has said, “My door is open and accessible to all members of the society.”
Sarah looked around at her friends as they worked on their individual assignments and thought of how lucky they were to have an opportunity to live in the US, and how lucky they were to have role models to look up to. Their mothers and grandmothers were all strong women, receptive to change and unafraid to send their daughters aboard. They were willing to take the first steps by sending their children, and Sarah acknowledged that they were, in their own way, making history.
“I need to get more coffee,” she said as she got up to leave. Sarah adjusted her Boston University sweatshirt, walked toward the door, and turned around to ask “anyone want anything?”
“No thanks,” mumbled the girls in the room as they continued to click away on their laptops. She looked at them envisioning a brighter future not only for themselves but for their country as well.
