Saudi Arabia, Yemen and women.
Posted on April 18, 2008
Filed Under Photography, Reportage |
I’ve been here in Yemen for just five days, and what strikes me most is 1) how tasteful the bread is and 2) most women are covered in black from head to toe. What strikes me even more is that the veil is not mandatory.
There are Yemeni woman driving car (I have seen at least one), women with uncovered face (I’ve seen at least a dozen of them), and westerners are not judged for their dress code. A young blond Italian girl I met refuses to wear more than a coloured singlet and never had problems.
If you think you are in Saudi Arabia, where a woman may not, by law, have a driving licence, walk by herself and other amenities, you are wrong. The black dress is a cultural must.
For five days, I thought the tradition was so strong, that even if Yemeni people watch Lebanese and Egyptian movies (quite voluptuous by any standard), they can not renounce to their traditional clothes. It turned out that I had the same attitude of someone thinking that bell-bottom blue jeans are the typical European costume from middle eve –or something like that.
For a male tourist, speaking with a Yemeni woman is a difficult task. There are no women in any cafe. Should you (male) meet some guy and go out with him, he will only introduce you to male friends, and so on.
But if you are here for work, the situation is different. At the Yemen Observer headquarters, half of the workforce is female –and not just the receptionist. Ok, you never know if you are speaking with the environment reporter or the public relation manager (they have similar eyes to me), but that is more your problem.
After my n-th gaffe, addressing to a girl with the wrong name, I acquainted Mohammad, reporter at the Observer, with my frustration. He said he has the same problem. “On the other hand – he said – it has not been like that for ever. Thirty years ago women had uncovered face.”
Even more, you could be the guest of a family, and eat and chew qat together with women. Something, as far as I have seen, impossible today.
What happened is that in the 1970s the oil price went from $15 a barrel to $40 (in 1973) and then to $70 (1980). The biggest producer of oil in the Middle East region (and in the world) was Saudi Arabia, which consequently with high oil price saw its economic, political and cultural influence increase all over the region. Wahhabism, the conservative Islamic Sunni stream from Saudi Arabia, became more influential in the Islamic world. Particularly in Yemen and Afghanistan, apparently.
(Just to give an idea: Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was, or is, in Afghanistan, and one third of Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners are Yemeni)
Religious schools were founded with the financial help of Saudi Arabia. And the process begun. At that time, the veil worn now by Yemeni women could not be found in any part of Yemen. That black clothes is a traditional Saudi costume. Even for men, the long shirt they wear… that comes from Saudi Arabia, it is not autochthonous. Traditionally, they would wear a shovel wrapped around their hip to cover the legs and a shirt for the torso.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Saudi influence became more marked. With the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, more than one million Yemenis were expelled from Saudi Arabia –the Yemeni government was accused to have backed Saddam. Back to their fatherland, they imported Saudi culture as well.
Today, I went to the rural area outside Sanaa. It is true that I could not find a single woman in black, but it is true that I could only “steal” images of (fully covered) women at wells. Ali and Hussein, my Virgilii, refused to speak with any woman: “It would be shameful for her if we addressed to her.”
The cover story of the last issue of the Yemen Today magazine is about women in Yemen. Statistics are frightening. In some rural areas, women have a life expectancy of 38 years. Illiteracy is above 90%. Few rights –if any– and many duties –like giving birth to 8 kids, on average.
But the mistake, as far as I can understand, is thinking that all that is linked to religion. That Islam is a religion against women. Indeed, Turkey had a women as prime minister, Italy never did (and allowed women to be judges only in 1964). In the first year of prophet Mohamed “reign”, women apparently came out of a terrible condition. Then, good periods alternated to bad periods. Thirty years ago, it was maybe better than now –but honestly I cannot believe that in the rural area the situation was *that* good…
Even today, I cannot think about any society where women have the same opportunities as men. Human societies are sexist –some of them are more, some are less. The only two axioms I can find, regarding the difference between women and men, are: women are physically weaker than men; women, even in our “knowledge driven” societies, are happy to sacrifice themselves for their kids much more than men are.
On these two simples facts, a plethora of superstructure has been built –and will for ever. At the present moment, superstructures against women here in Yemen seem pretty tough.
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3 Responses to “Saudi Arabia, Yemen and women.”
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very very nice Mario. Reading your post is like being in Yemen for a couple of minutes.
I also know many Islamic families and for some of them wearing traditional clothes (for both women and men) is more a cultural thing than a religious one. It is more or less like wearing a tie for a westerner businessman. That’s the reason why a wore one only for my wedding!
ciao ciao
You’re exactly right in your reference to the spread of Wahabi Islam into Yemen and the concerning question on on why Yemen has, not reverted, but transformed, into something it never was to begin with? Wahabi Islam is a warped twist on Islam which has done more harm than good to both Saudi Arabia and now sadly, to Yemen. This especially astonishing in the south of Yemen, which paved the way for equal laws between men and women, and once stood out as the modern, liberal and progressive sister to the traditional, tribal north. It will be interesting to see if Wahabism’s influence continues or if at least, the south, can regain its identity in the coming years.
i like your description of yemen i feel like im there instead of the united states