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Translator: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Morton Bast
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Allow me to start this talk with a question to everyone.
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You know that all over the world,
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people fight for their freedom,
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fight for their rights.
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Some battle oppressive governments.
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Others battle oppressive societies.
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Which battle do you think is harder?
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Allow me to try to answer this question
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in the few coming minutes.
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Let me take you back two years ago in my life.
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It was the bedtime of my son, Aboody.
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He was five at the time.
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After finishing his bedtime rituals,
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he looked at me and he asked a question:
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"Mommy, are we bad people?"
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I was shocked.
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"Why do you say such things, Aboody?"
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Earlier that day, I noticed some bruises
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on his face when he came from school.
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He wouldn't tell me what happened.
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[But now] he was ready to tell.
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"Two boys hit me today in school.
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They told me, 'We saw your mom on Facebook.
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You and your mom should be put in jail.'"
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I've never been afraid to tell Aboody anything.
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I've been always a proud woman of my achievements.
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But those questioning eyes of my son
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were my moment of truth,
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when it all came together.
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You see, I'm a Saudi woman who had been put in jail
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for driving a car in a country
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where women are not supposed to drive cars.
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Just for giving me his car keys,
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my own brother was detained twice,
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and he was harassed to the point he had
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to quit his job as a geologist,
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leave the country with his wife and two-year-old son.
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My father had to sit in a Friday sermon
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listening to the imam condemning women drivers
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and calling them prostitutes
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amongst tons of worshippers,
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some of them our friends and family of my own father.
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I was faced with an organized defamation campaign
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in the local media combined with false rumors
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shared in family gatherings, in the streets
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and in schools.
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It all hit me.
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It came into focus that those kids
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did not mean to be rude to my son.
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They were just influenced by the adults around them.
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And it wasn't about me, and it wasn't a punishment
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for taking the wheel and driving a few miles.
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It was a punishment for daring to challenge
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the society's rules.
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But my story goes beyond this moment of truth of mine.
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Allow me to give you a briefing
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about my story.
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It was May, 2011,
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and I was complaining to a work colleague
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about the harassments I had to face
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trying to find a ride back home,
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although I have a car and an international driver's license.
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As long as I've known, women in Saudi Arabia
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have been always complaining about the ban,
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but it's been 20 years since anyone
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tried to do anything about it,
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a whole generation ago.
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He broke the good/bad news in my face.
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"But there is no law banning you from driving."
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I looked it up, and he was right.
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There wasn't an actual law in Saudi Arabia.
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It was just a custom and traditions
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that are enshrined in rigid religious fatwas
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and imposed on women.
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That realization ignited the idea of June 17,
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where we encouraged women to take the wheel
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and go drive.
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It was a few weeks later, we started receiving all these
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"Man wolves will rape you if you go and drive."
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A courageous woman, her name is Najla Hariri,
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she's a Saudi woman in the city of Jeddah,
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she drove a car and she announced
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but she didn't record a video.
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We needed proof.
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So I drove. I posted a video on YouTube.
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And to my surprise,
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it got hundreds of thousands of views the first day.
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What happened next, of course?
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I started receiving threats
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to be killed, raped, just to stop this campaign.
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The Saudi authorities remained very quiet.
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That really creeped us out.
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I was in the campaign with other Saudi women
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and even men activists.
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We wanted to know how the authorities
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would respond on the actual day, June 17,
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when women go out and drive.
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So this time I asked my brother
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to come with me and drive by a police car.
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It went fast. We were arrested,
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signed a pledge not to drive again, released.
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Arrested again, he was sent to detention for one day,
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and I was sent to jail.
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I wasn't sure why I was sent there,
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because I didn't face any charges in the interrogation.
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But what I was sure of was my innocence.
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I didn't break a law, and I kept my abaya
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— it's a black cloak we wear in Saudi Arabia before we leave the house —
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and my fellow prisoners kept asking me to take it off,
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but I was so sure of my innocence, I kept saying,
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"No, I'm leaving today."
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Outside the jail, the whole country went into a frenzy,
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some attacking me badly,
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and others supportive and even collecting signatures
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in a petition to be sent to the king to release me.
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I was released after nine days.
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June 17 comes.
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The streets were packed with police cars
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and religious police cars,
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but some hundred brave Saudi women
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broke the ban and drove that day.
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None were arrested. We broke the taboo.
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(Applause)
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So I think by now, everyone knows that we can't drive,
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or women are not allowed to drive, in Saudi Arabia,
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but maybe few know why.
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Allow me to help you answer this question.
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There was this official study
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that was presented to the Shura Council --
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it's the consultative council appointed
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by the king in Saudi Arabia —
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and it was done by a local professor,
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a university professor.
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He claims it's done based on a UNESCO study.
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And the study states,
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the percentage of rape, adultery,
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illegitimate children, even drug abuse,
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prostitution in countries where women drive
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is higher than countries where women don't drive.
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(Laughter)
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I know, I was like this, I was shocked.
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I was like, "We are the last country in the world
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where women don't drive."
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So if you look at the map of the world,
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that only leaves two countries:
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Saudi Arabia, and the other society is the rest of the world.
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We started a hashtag on Twitter mocking the study,
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and it made headlines around the world.
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[BBC News: 'End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns]
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(Laughter)
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And only then we realized it's so empowering
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to mock your oppressor.
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It strips it away of its strongest weapon: fear.
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This system is based on ultra-conservative
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traditions and customs
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that deal with women as if they are inferior
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and they need a guardian to protect them,
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so they need to take permission from this guardian,
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whether verbal or written, all their lives.
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We are minors until the day we die.
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And it becomes worse when it's enshrined in religious fatwas
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based on wrong interpretation of the sharia law,
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or the religious laws.
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What's worst, when they become codified
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as laws in the system,
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and when women themselves believe in their inferiority,
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and they even fight those who try
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to question these rules.
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So for me, it wasn't only about these attacks I had to face.
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It was about living two totally different
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perceptions of my personality, of my person --
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the villain back in my home country,
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and the hero outside.
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Just to tell you, two stories happened in the last two years.
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One of them is when I was in jail.
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I'm pretty sure when I was in jail,
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everyone saw titles in the international media
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something like this during these nine days I was in jail.
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But in my home country, it was a totally different picture.
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It was more like this:
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"Manal al-Sharif faces charges of disturbing public order
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and inciting women to drive."
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I know.
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"Manal al-Sharif withdraws from the campaign."
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Ah, it's okay. This is my favorite.
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"Manal al-Sharif breaks down and confesses:
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'Foreign forces incited me.'"
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(Laughter)
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And it goes on, even trial and flogging me in public.
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So it's a totally different picture.
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I was asked last year to give a speech
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at the Oslo Freedom Forum.
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I was surrounded by this love
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and the support of people around me,
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and they looked at me as an inspiration.
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At the same time, I flew back to my home country,
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they hated that speech so much.
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The way they called it: a betrayal to the Saudi country
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and the Saudi people,
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and they even started a hashtag called #OsloTraitor on Twitter.
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Some 10,000 tweets were written in that hashtag,
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while the opposite hashtag, #OsloHero,
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there was like a handful of tweets written.
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They even started a poll.
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More than 13,000 voters answered this poll:
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whether they considered me a traitor or not after that speech.
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Ninety percent said yes, she's a traitor.
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So it's these two totally different perceptions
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of my personality.
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For me, I'm a proud Saudi woman,
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and I do love my country,
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and because I love my country, I'm doing this.
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Because I believe a society will not be free
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if the women of that society are not free.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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But you learn lessons from these things that happen to you.
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I learned to be always there.
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The first thing, I got out of jail,
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of course after I took a shower, I went online,
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I opened my Twitter account and my Facebook page,
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and I've been always very respectful
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to those people who are opining to me.
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I would listen to what they say,
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and I would never defend myself with words only.
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I would use actions. When they said I should withdraw from the campaign,
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I filed the first lawsuit against the general directorate
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of traffic police for not issuing me a driver's license.
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There are a lot of people also --
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very big support, like those 3,000 people
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who signed the petition to release me.
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We sent a petition to the Shura Council
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in favor of lifting the ban on Saudi women,
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and there were, like, 3,500 citizens who believed in that
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and they signed that petition.
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There were people like that, I just showed some examples,
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who are amazing, who are believing in women's rights in Saudi Arabia,
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and trying, and they are also facing a lot of hate
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because of speaking up and voicing their views.
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Saudi Arabia today is taking small steps
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toward enhancing women's rights.
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The Shura Council that's appointed by the king,
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by royal decree of King Abdullah,
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last year there were 30 women assigned to that Council,
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like 20 percent.
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20 percent of the Council. (Applause)
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The same time, finally, that Council,
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after rejecting our petition four times for women driving,
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they finally accepted it last February.
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(Applause)
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After being sent to jail
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or sentenced lashing, or sent to a trial,
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the spokesperson of the traffic police said,
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we will only issue traffic violation for women drivers.
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The Grand Mufti, who is the head
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of the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia,
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he said, it's not recommended for women to drive.
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It used to be haram, forbidden, by the previous Grand Mufti.
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So for me, it's not about only these small steps.
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It's about women themselves.
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A friend once asked me, she said,
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"So when do you think this women driving will happen?"
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I told her, "Only if women stop asking 'When?'
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and take action to make it now."
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So it's not only about the system,
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it's also about us women to drive our own life, I'd say.
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So I have no clue, really, how I became an activist.
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And I don't know how I became one now.
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But all I know, and all I'm sure of, in the future
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when someone asks me my story,
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I will say, "I'm proud
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to be amongst those women who lifted the ban,
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fought the ban, and celebrated everyone's freedom."
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So the question I started my talk with,
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who do you think is more difficult to face,
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oppressive governments or oppressive societies?
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I hope you find clues to answer that from my speech.
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Thank you, everyone.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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Thank you. (Applause)
