Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

thousands of panicked people. Soon, many
Saudis felt Riyadh to be unsafe; the planes and roads to Jeddah
were jammed. Madness had erupted in our quiet kingdom.
    Sara and I were thrilled to hear that Kuwaiti
women, who are allowed to drive and go unveiled, were even driving
across our roads and into the streets of our capital. No Western
women could ever imagine our mixed emotions. We were crashing into
a storm, and while our glee was mixed with wonder, at the same
moment we were frothing with jealousy that our Arab sisters were
driving automobiles and exposing their naked faces in our land!
Were our essentials of life, the veil and Saudi customs, now
considered nothing more than clutter so easily dismissed in the
heat of hostility? Life had been easy for these Kuwaiti women, in
stark contrast with our heavy endurance of male mastery. The sting
of envy bubbled through our veins. While sympathetic for these
women who had lost their country, their homes and loved ones, we
were undeniably swollen with resentment at the ones who had exposed
the ridiculousness of our puritanical situation. How we hungered
for the rights they had assumed with such ease!
    There was a rumor a minute in those dark days
of August. When Kareem told me that the latest rumor was true, that
our king had agreed for foreign troops to travel to our land, I
knew our lives would never again be the same.
    With the arrival of the American troops,
Saudi feminists’ most ambitious dreams felt the spark of life. No
Saudi had ever imagined seeing women in military uniforms—guarding
that ultimate bastion of male dominance that is Saudi Arabia. It
was unthinkable! Our men of religion were aghast and spoke with
heavy tidings of the coming harm to our land.
    The disruption to our lives can never be
measured. No earthquake could have shaken us more.
    While I was happy at the turn of events, and
felt the change would be beneficial, many Saudi women raged with
contempt. There were those I deemed silly who fretted with the
possibility of these foreign women stealing their husbands! I
suppose such a worry was real, for most Saudi women endure their
husbands’ trips abroad with trepidation, few believing their
spouses would remain faithful in the midst of Western blonde
temptations. Many of my friends reassured themselves with the
thought that only a prostitute or a woman with little else to
promote herself would consider such degradation as shared living
quarters with strange men. Saudi women whispered that they had read
that these American women were allowed in the armies solely to
service the men and keep them from sexual deprivation.
    Our emotions were in conflict over these
superwomen who came and went at will in a country not their own. We
had known little of American female soldiers, for our country
censors all news of women who control their destinies from the
citizens of Saudi Arabia. And during our infrequent travels abroad,
our paths led us to shopping districts, not military bases. When
Asad brought Sara uncensored copies of American and European
magazines and newspapers, we were astonished to see that the women
soldiers were quite attractive. Many were mothers. Our
understanding could not let us imagine such freedom. Our modest
goals involved only the acts of uncovering our faces, driving, and
working. Our land now harbored those of our sex perfectly prepared
to meet men in battle.
    We women of Arabia were on an emotional
roller coaster. One moment we hated all the foreign women, both
Kuwaiti and American, in our land. At the same moment, the Kuwaiti
women warmed our hearts with their show of defiance of our
centuries-old tradition of male supremacy. While conservative, they
had not completely succumbed to the insane social custom of male
dominance. Yet moments of jealousy came and went as we realized
that they had somehow lifted the status of all Muslim women by
their very attitude while we Saudi women had done little to elevate
our lives other than to complain. Where had we gone wrong? How had
they managed to discard the veil and obtain freedom to drive at the
same time?
    We felt the agony of envy, yet we were
ecstatic too. Confused at the happenings around us, we women met
daily to dissect the shift of attitudes and the sudden universal
awakenings to the plight of Saudi women. In the past, few women
dared express their desire for reform in Islamic Saudi Arabia, for
the hope of success was so dim and the penalties too severe for
challenging the