Manal al-Sharif: The Woman Who Dared to Drive

[Valin]

WSJ:

Manal al-Sharif got behind the wheel in Saudi Arabia. Then she met the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

SOHRAB AHMARI

3/22/13

 

'You know when you have a bird, and it's been in a cage all its life? When you open the cage door, it doesn't want to leave. It was that moment."

 

This is how Manal al-Sharif felt the first time she sat behind the wheel of a car in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's taboo against women driving is only rarely broken. To hear her recount the experience is as thrilling as it must have been to sit in the passenger seat beside her. Well, almost.

 

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"Sir, what law did I break?" she recalls repeatedly asking her interrogators. "You didn't break any law," they'd say. "You violated orf"—custom.

 

The siblings were released but Ms. Sharif was rearrested a day later. She was detained for over a week and released only after her father personally pleaded with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for a pardon and pledged to forbid his daughter ever to drive again in the kingdom. Even now, recounting the story at New York's JFK Airport while she waits to board a flight to Dubai, Ms. Sharif's voice trembles with anger: "I was just driving a car!"

 

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As our interview ends, one question remains: Has Ms. Sharif gotten behind the wheel of a car in the kingdom since the heady days of her campaign? "Yes, I drove again," she says. "I'm a normal woman, a normal person, and I just want to drive."

 

This bird won't be returning to its cage anytime soon.