When Badria Al Bisher began to write at an early age, her parents had no idea what she was doing or how far she could progress.
It was in the early Seventies, when this young girl from Riyadh used to sit quietly with her pen and make strange marks on paper. Her parents, mainly her father, who are illiterate, liked her poise and the sense of calm she generated for someone so young.
“My father felt he was living a dream — his daughter was going to school and she was writing,” said Badria Al Bisher during an interview with Gulf News at her home in Dubai.
“My mother was not aware of what I was doing. To them it was not risky that their daughter was spending time with pen and paper, book and notebook…they were just not expecting that this would one day open the gates of hell,” reminisced Badria, the second of nine children.
Later, Badria went on to become a widely read columnist who appealed to ordinary people, but invited the ire of authorities at one point following the publication of an article criticising the Saudi educational curriculum.
Reflecting on her childhood Badria talked about what she used to write as a child. “I had questions and I was trying to find answers. Like why are we here? Why should girls sit at home while the boys played outside?”
One day, Badria gave her older brother some money and asked him to buy a book for her. “He came back with a copy of The Black Tulip, a epic novel by Alexander Dumas. Now I buy this book wherever I see it,” she admitted. “ I feel this is the first book I bought and the first book I read. It is this book that laid the foundations for my strong bond with books.”
Badria was further exposed to “the art of narrating and telling stories” by her maternal grandmother who narrated tales featuring heroes and poems. Thanks to her strong family ties, and her parents’ belief in the importance of education, Badria and her eight brothers and sisters went to university to complete their education.
Involved parents
“My parents were adamant. They wanted us to compensate for what they had missed out on and send their children to school. My mother couldn’t read and write, but she used to check our homework schedule by following the dates marked on our notebooks; whether we attended school that day and if we did our homework,” recalled Badria, who also had the support of her father in the male dominated Saudi Arabian society.
“My father used to protect me from anybody who tried to interfere in my personal choices,” she said. “This included my choice of university and even when I was ready for marriage.”
Unlike many of her compatriots, Badria didn’t join an Islamic university, a first choice for those families who wanted to educate their daughters, and opted to enrol in a humanities course at King Saud University.
Badria married at the age of 19, considered to be relatively late for some girls, while she was still studying in college. In 1989 she obtained her BA in social studies and in 1997 she earned her Master’s Degree in literature.
During the first years in college Badria’s father, a former low-ranking government employee, defended his daughter when she started writing in the newspapers, thereby revealing her family name in the media.
“Some people began to feel concerned that the name of a woman coming from a conservative family was being printed in the newspaper without prior advice and that I was merely giving expression to my dreams,” she said.
Badria worked at Al Riyadh newspaper for a few years before “realising that I liked writing stories and literature.”
In literature, the ceiling of expression is higher compared to writing in the media.
“I wanted to reach out to people. I believed that I had a role to play. I was young and I dared to say that I wanted to change the world. Now I don’t dare, but then I wanted to play a role in developing society. I considered that to be an arrogant dream.
“But this dream aims to help people and talk about their issues.”
Badria later went on to realise this dream, but paid a high price in the bargain.
Saudi Arabia witnessed a media boom in the late nineties. More prominence was being given to writers who had the ability to attract a strong readership. Badria then started writing her regular column at Al Yamama, a Saudi newspaper. Her writing had a satirical tone and attracted not only a strong following but job offers as well. She later moved to Al Riyadh newspaper and then to Al Sharq Al Awsat, a pan-Arab edition which is widely read across the Arab world.
Taboos
“I managed to tackle many taboos with my style,” admitted Badria. “This was admired by the readers, but annoyed the observers [officials]. So I was stopped from writing in 2005.” It was in the same year that Badria obtained her PhD in Social Sciences from the Lebanese University.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was an article which was written criticising the Saudi curriculum. Badria blamed this on a sense of extremism among some Saudis. She argued that to put an end to this, some texts should be cut out of religious books.
Following the ban, Badria and her family moved to Dubai a year later.
In 2009, Badria felt the ceiling went up following the coronation of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz as king of Saudi Arabia.
“The reasons behind stopping me from writing became normal. So I resumed writing but this time in the Al Hayat newspaper. I always believe that you can say anything and everything provided you use the appropriate approach.”
Issues related to Saudi society are the focus of Badria’s column. “Writing in this format is a faster way to reach a wide section of people,” she reasoned. “With a distribution of nearly 200,000 copies a day, the Al Hayat newspaper provided me with a broader readership base.”
During the Arab Media Forum, held in Dubai in May, Badria received an award for the best columnist. She became the first woman to be recognised in this category.
Asked whether her chances were boosted by the fact that she was a Saudi, Badria replied gently, but with a hint of bitterness, “To have such a view is part of a certain stereotypical attitude adopted in certain societies.
“Personally, I believe preconceived judgments stop others from assessing our actual abilities. At the same time, I feel that propaganda in certain sections of the media has not been fair to us.”
Badria says of Saudi society: “It has the good and the bad; the intellectual and the illiterate. The Saudi society with its shortcomings, changes and creativity is like any other normal society. Unfortunately, some people are still imprisoned by these conventional views.”
While she mainly blamed the intellectuals for not making an effort to correct this image, Badria said it is the “right of the Saudis to be correctly judged by others just as the Saudi intellectuals succeeded in accurately judging people from other societies.”
One of the characteristics of being an intellectual is never to accept ready views, she said. One of the main issues that put the spotlight on Saudi society is the treatment of women.
Saudi Arabia was ranked 129th out of 134 countries for gender parity, in the World Economic Forum 2010 Gender Gap Report.
According to Badria, her compatriots “face many problems including the absence of fair laws — one for civil status and the other for equal opportunities between men and women in education and work.
“A woman who doesn’t drive can’t go to college, or send her children to school. When she gets a job, the first excuse she uses is ‘nobody can give me a ride’. As if women become handicapped and can’t move by themselves,” said Badria adding, “Women in other Arab countries, including the Arab Gulf states, can be seen actively participating in almost all aspects of life: in senior government roles; as diplomats in foreign ministries; in parliament; in the judiciary; driving their cars; in supermarkets and playing with children in parks.
“Under what law is half of society’s potential not used? Today, the budget allocated for educating women is huge. Billions are spent on that sector. But if three quarters of the educated women go back to sit in their homes then this is not fair to women, or society, given that half its potential will be shelved.”
According to Badria, “There are many women who need jobs to support their families. There are many women who can support their husbands in making ends meet. Education, decent living, work, heath services are basic rights for human being and everyone should be getting it equally.
“Both men and women are human beings. We can’t use the logic that if water becomes scarce then we will distribute it among the men and let the women die,” she said.
