international intrigue

Saudi Policeman Completely Flummoxed by Female Driver

Saudi Arabia has almost entirely escaped the uprisings and protests that have spread throughout the Arab world in recent months. But one peaceful movement with modest goals is beginning to pick up some momentum there. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women aren’t allowed to drive, probably because if women are allowed to drive, they can become self-reliant, and then what’s the point of having women at all? But today Saudi women defied the driving ban in a coordinated nationwide protest, and a correspondent from Time was in the backseat when one protester was stopped by the police.

We pull over. The cop walks up to the drivers side, and, flummoxed by the sight of a woman in a full-face veil at the wheel, scurries over to the passenger side to confer with [her husband,] Mohammad al Qatani. Mohammad steps out of the car with the cop, and is escorted to the waiting cruiser …. Another cop leans into the passenger side window to bark at Maha al Qatani. “Does your husband know how to drive?” he asks. Al Qatani replies yes. “Then why was he in the passenger seat?”

It was at this point that things could have gotten pretty bad. Not, like, torture-you-until-you-learn-how-to-be-obedient bad. But a Saudi woman who posted a video of herself driving a car recently spent ten days in jail, spurring today’s demonstration. Maha could have easily been locked up as well. In fact, she packed a bag for just such an occasion. But it turns out Maha was in a better situation than the police officer, who could hardly handle the moral quandary in which he had found himself.

The officer looks stricken. “I don’t know what to do,” he says plaintively. He has never been faced with a female driver before. “If I raise it up [the issue of her driving] it is wrong. If I let you go it is wrong.” Maha al Qatani just stares him down.

And the first person, of any gender, in any country, to be ecstatic about a traffic ticket.

Making History: TIME Sits with a Woman Behind the Wheel in Saudi Arabia [Global Spin/Time]

Saudi Policeman Completely Flummoxed by Female Driver