Hissa Hilal in Sha'er al Million
News of a young Saudi woman physically attacking a member of the Morality Police who apprehended her for walking with a member of the opposite sex is doing the gleeful rounds here. In Saudi Arabia “ikhtilat” – the mixing of unrelated men and women - is forbidden by law, with social spaces being policed by the Ha’ia who have the right to stop and question couples. Women in Saudi Arabia are notoriously oppressed: forbidden to be in public without a male guardian, unable to drive, or vote, and encouraged to remain in the home, as their submission and invisibility safeguard “traditional values”.
This new story is not the first instance of violent resistance. In 2007 two girls pepper-sprayed members of the morality police who “tried to offer them advice” about being inappropriately dressed. They were effectively cautioned after apologising. It remains to be seen if this young woman will be charged with an offence, as authorities are refusing to provide further details about the incident.
But things certainly seem astir in Saudi. There’s the recent opening of the first co-educational University in the country, the King’s firing of a cleric who criticised the university for not segregating the sexes and his shocking photo alongside women with uncovered faces (and even a few strands of saucy hair). Yet, despite the monarch’s progressive leanings, the situation is unlikely to change in Saudi as the populace remains extremely conservative and tribal attitudes toward women’s rights make open protest or even dissension dangerous. Yet women are fighting back. Hissa Hilal, the runner-up on One Million Dollar Poet (a kind of recitative Gulfi Pop Idol), may not have won the competition but her poetry, as well as her gender, created the kind of media excitement and controversy reserved for religious iconoclasts. Her criticism of religious fanaticism was forthright, as was her pragmatic explanation for wearing niqab: “Covering my face is not because I am afraid of people. We live in a tribal society and otherwise my husband, my brother will be criticised by other men…I am hoping my daughters won’t have to cover their faces and they’ll live a better life.” Hilal is ambitious and angry: her verse is as much a response to oppression as the nameless young woman fighting back when the state expected her to be shamed and quiescent. More power to them.
