Saudi Arabia's fine balance, between muttawas and internet cafes
JYOTI MALHOTRA

RIYADH, JANUARY 21: ``Cover your head!'' As we walked down a central street in Saudi Arabia's capital last morning, one of my journalist colleagues nudged me and muttered, ``It's the muttawwa,' the religious police, they're here''.

Driving slowly along the kerb and following our bare-headed, heretical progress was a big, broad van. Emblazoned on the sides and back was a logo of an open book, beneath which said `General Presidency for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.' Inside were three burly Saudi men in beards, long cafins and very angry expressions. It was the driver who was gesticulating and shouting, unmistakably in English, ``Cover your head!''

So this was the dreaded muttawwa, about whom we had been warned even before we had set foot on the soil of Saudi Arabia. It is their duty to ensure that all Saudi nationals did their appropriate duty to God and to the Sharia. For example, shops and work establishments had to shut shop five times a day for namaaz. Just as all women -- non-Muslims were not bound by the order in theory -- had to be suitably covered in public, all over in all black. The muttawwa, clearly, was the conscience-keeper of the kingdom.

We escaped that morning, largely because we ignored the muttawwa and walked on. According to the law, however, women cannot walk the streets if they are not escorted by a male, who must be a brother or a husband. If the muttawwa had wanted to force the issue and discovered that our male journalist colleague was neither, punishment would have meant six months in jail.

Clearly, this last bastion of conservatism is slowly changing as Saudi Arabia increasingly ties itself with the rest of the world. As education and knowledge become coveted attributes, more and more people are publicly showing signs of embarrassment about religious practices seen as incompatible with a modern society in the make.

It is this delayed, strung-out tension -- a whole decade after the end of the Gulf War -- that charges the air here. Saudis, mostly the men, are beginning to publicly formulate the first, tentative questions about modernity and its relationship with tradition, including gender issues. It's like watching a country battle with itself in very, very slow motion.

Omar Bahlaiwa, the genial assistant secretary-general for foreign affairs in the Saudi Chamber of Commerce & Industry -- an organisation in the forefront of the debate to open the economy -- is a highly articulate proponent of controlled change. He speaks with a strong American accent, but clearly knows India well (``we are both conservative societies''). Obviously, he knows his own country even better.

``In Rome, do as the Romans do,'' Bahlaiwa remarked, adding, ``In Saudi Arabia, we cannot have a lady in a bikini selling something on the streets like in the US. We are an Islamic society and we have to live by our standards... I would only request you, please don't judge Saudi Arabia from the colour of your abaya (the long, black cloak that women must wear).''

Newspapers across the kingdom are picking up the signs of change. The Arab News on Sunday reported a story called `Another free-thinking woman comes along,' about the author's sister who came to Jeddah from the village and was shocked that she wasn't allowed to drive -- especially since she was very much at home with a pick-up truck in the village, collecting wood for the fire, taking her ill mother to hospital and buying medicines from the nearest town.

Perched on the edge of the Red Sea, the sophisticated port city of Jeddah has always been in the forefront of change. The souks and city centre are alive with women commonly seen without the customary abaya and restaurants do not bother with partitions for women-only sections. Riyadh, in contrast, right in the center of the kingdom, reflects the attitude of the hide-bound conservative far more comfortable with the status quo.

Faheem Al-Hamid, foreign editor of the powerful Okaz, a Jeddah-based paper, points out that change is inevitable as Saudi Arabia joins the world. ``But even I feel a little uncomfortable in Riyadh,'' he adds.

Nevertheless, it's changing. Ten years ago, satellite dishes would be covered with black cloths -- ``just like a woman in an abaya,'' one man joked -- so as to prevent damage from the religious police. Today, both satellite dishes and Internet cafes are common -- though it is commonly known that the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology has a very expensive center that censors outgoing e-mails -- in cities across the kingdom.

Even in Mecca, the heart of the religious establishment, satellite dishes are common within 50 metres of the mosque -- and the most popular channels are believed to be MTV and Indian dance-music programmes.

But even as many Saudis may believe that it is increasingly impractical to live by the strict code of the Sharia and its manifestations -- like muttawwa and death by the sword for drug-trafficking -- many continue to believe that all personal and religious freedoms must be circumscribed by the tenets of the Koran. Moreover, as unemployment has risen in the aftermath of the Gulf War, support for the muttawwa has risen from the religious right which feels that the Royalty is far too sympathetic to liberals.

Others have different reasons for favouring the muttawwa. One liberal-minded Saudi man told this reporter that as things change in Saudi Arabia, young people are increasingly disrespectful of the law and are not averse to using their ``high connections'' to get out of trouble. ``It is only the muttawwa who can stop these young kids. They cannot call their influential father and ask him to bail them out of trouble.''

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.