Saturday, June 18, 2005
The first female Saudi pilot
Saudi women cannot drive, but apparently they can fly. A Saudi woman who recently obtained her pilot's license in Jordan said Thursday she has been hired by a private aviation company to fly commercial planes.
Although proud of her career, Capt. Hanadi al-Hindi said she expects an angry reaction when she arrives back in Saudi Arabia on Saturday....
Al-Hindi, 27, graduated last week from the Amman-based Mideast Aviation Academy and plans to join the private aviation firm owned by billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of King Fahd, a reformist who has been paying for her studies in Jordan.
Al-Hindi said she won't be wearing the traditional black cloak - or abaya - and headcover that are mandatory in Saudi Arabia.
``I will be dressed like any other pilot so I can fly without complications,'' she said.
Matta said from her first day at school, al-Hindi understood that female pilots cannot cover their hair.
Just as well, in al-Hindi's case. Otherwise, what would be the point of that excellent highlight job?
Now that I've made light of the situation, perhaps a serious point is in order. In some societies, "firsts" by women mean relatively little other than to women qua women. In Saudi Arabia, women who do simple things that we Occidentals take for granted -- driving, or holding down a serious job, or flying jets -- are subversive. Prince Alwaleed (the same fellow who offered New York $10 million in aid after 9/11, which offer was famously rejected by Rudy Giuliani) is obviously trying to make a point. He paid for al-Hindi's training in Jordan, he gave her a job in his company flying jets in and out of Saudi Arabia, and his company -- "Kingdom Holding Company" -- issued a press release trumpeting all of this. Alaweed is facing the clerics big time, and al-Hindi is sort of a subsidized and backed version of Rosa Parks.
Alaweed's motives for this are probably self-interested -- he figures that he has a better chance of surviving the post-monarchical deluge if he has established himself as a reformer well in advance. Indeed, an ignorant Westerner might well imagine that at least some Saudi royals figure they can keep the whole gravy train going for another generation if they throw some incrementalist freedom in the direction of their subjects. The subtle hint here: our form of oppression involves greater freedom for women (including cute pilots); jihadi oppression brings you nothing but misery.
I wished I knew more about internal Saudi politics.
Link via Sabbah.
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4 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Jun 18, 11:34:00 AM:
Do they let pilots have extra big eye holes in the burqas?
By , at
Sun Jun 19, 01:44:00 AM:
By , at
Wed Feb 08, 07:13:00 PM:
This was a great article - I'm always interested in cool articles about other cultures.
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