Rights aren’t given, they are taken and if you aren’t willing to stand up and make a sacrifice for those rights, then just forget it. Black people would never gotten their rights, if Rose Parks had chosen to give up her seat to the white man in the bus, and let’s imagine the history of black people, if Marten luther King had chosen to remain silent and hadn’t given his revolutionary speech. Every movement in the world, regardless of how peaceful it appears, hasn’t succeeded without sacrifices.
Saudi women have been dreaming for more than twenty years to get their basic civil rights, to be like every woman in the world: to drive their cars, to travel without a permission or restriction, to be treated as a citizen like men, to have their voices heard, to be ministers and decision makers and to have equal opportunities in education and work. None of these has been achieved so far. What has been achieved recently is that Saudi women are now allowed to sell lingerie, instead of men in Malls!
Many Saudi women have spoken about their struggles in newspapers and public media, but very few of them have taken action in the ground to actually change the society. Words are powerful, but not enough to change the reality.
Today, Saudi women are planning to make a history and challenge the society by driving their cars in public. I believe that this step, if they make it, is a significant turning point in women struggle in Saudi. If women were able to enforce their rights to drive, they will then realize that they are also capable of enforcing their rights to work, to travel without permission and to vote.
Now the question that everyone keeps asking is that will Saudi women break the fear barriers and drive their cars today?
To Drive or Not to Drive, that is the question!
