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SAUDI-WOMEN-RIGHTS-REFORM,FEATURE
Saudi women rev up motorbikes as end to driving ban nears
RIYADH, June 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Even a year ago, it would have been
hard to imagine — Saudi women clad in skinny jeans and Harley-Davidson T-
shirts, revving motorbikes at a Riyadh sports circuit.
But ahead of the historic lifting of a decades-long ban on female drivers
on June 24, women gather weekly at the privately owned Bikers Skills
Institute, to learn how to ride bikes.
“Biking has been a passion ever since I was a kid,” said 31-year-old
Noura, who declined to give her real name as she weighs public reactions in
the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom.
Overturning the world’s only ban on female drivers, long a symbol of
repression against women, is the most striking reform yet launched by
powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
But it has been overshadowed by a wave of arrests of female activists —
including veteran campaigners who long resisted the ban.
None of the women at the floodlit motoring circuit wanted to talk about
the crackdown, a deeply sensitive issue, focusing instead on securing a basic
freedom long denied to them.
“I grew up watching my family riding bikes,” Noura told AFP as she
mounted a Yamaha Virago.
“Now I hope… to have enough skills to ride on the street.”
Next to her, revving a Suzuki, sat Leen Tinawi, a 19-year-old Saudi-born
Jordanian.
For both women, biking is not just an adrenalin-fuelled passion, but also
a form of empowerment.
“I can summarise the whole experience of riding a bike in one word —
freedom,” Tinawi said.
– ‘It’s your turn to ride’ –
Both bikers follow their Ukrainian instructor, 39-year-old Elena
Bukaryeva, who rides a Harley-Davidson.
Most days the circuit is the domain of drag racers and bike enthusiasts –
– all men.
But since offering courses to women in February on the basics of bike
riding, four female enthusiasts have enrolled, most of them Saudis, Bukaryeva
said.
“They always wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. And now they are
saying ‘it’s my time’,” Bukaryeva told AFP.
She echoed a catchphrase printed on the institute’s promotional material:
“It’s your turn to ride.”
Asked why more women had not enrolled for the course, which costs 1,500
riyals ($400, 340 euros), Bukaryeva said: “Maybe their families stop them.”
Tinawi echoed the sentiment, saying she faced strong reservations from
her family.
“My parents said: ‘You on a bike? You are a girl. It’s dangerous’,” she
told AFP.
In Saudi Arabia, taking the wheel has long been a man’s prerogative.
For decades, hardliners cited austere interpretations of Islam as they
sought to justify the ban, with many asserting that allowing them to drive
would promote promiscuity.
Many women fear they are still easy prey for conservatives in a nation
where male “guardians” — their fathers, husbands or other relatives — can
exercise arbitrary authority to make decisions on their behalf.
“Expect more accidents” because of women is a common refrain in an
avalanche of sexist comments on Twitter.
The government has preemptively addressed concerns of abuse by outlawing
sexual harassment with a prison term of up to five years and a maximum
penalty of 300,000 riyals.
– ‘Climate of fear’ –
The most immediate practical worry for female motorists is the dress
code.
Inside the private institute, the bikers wear skinny jeans, with
abrasion-proof knee pads wrapped outside — but that is still unthinkable in
public.
Body-shrouding abaya robes — mandatory public wear for women — are
impractical while riding as their flowing hems could get caught up in the
wheels.
Many women also complain that female instructors are in short supply and
that classes are expensive.
But topping all concerns is the crackdown on women activists — while the
kingdom trumpets women’s rights.
Saudi Arabia this month said it detained 17 people for “undermining” the
kingdom’s security. State-backed media published pictures of veteran driving
activists, the word “traitor” stamped across them in red.
“It’s a complete contradiction for the government to proclaim it is in
favour of new freedoms for women and then target and detain women for
demanding those freedoms,” Samah Hadid, Amnesty International’s Middle East
director of campaigns, told AFP.
The arrests have unleashed a torrent of global criticism — including
from vocal supporters of Prince Mohammed’s reform drive, such as Bernard
Haykel, a professor at Princeton University.
Calling the crackdown “a mistake”, he has urged the government to “apply
due process and the rule of law” in handling jailed activists’ cases.
Observers say the arrests seem calculated by the crown prince to placate
clerics incensed by the modernisation drive and to send a clear signal that
the pace of reform will be driven by him alone, not the activists.
Back at the institute, as the floodlights dimmed and the women bikers
donned their abayas to leave, the crackdown was not a topic of discussion.
“A climate of fear is now evident in Saudi Arabia,” Hadid said.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1639 hrs