By Andrew L. Jaffee

…The [Saudi] driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign, and forces families to hire live-in drivers. Women whose families cannot afford $300-$400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor’s. …

- Associated Press

Our “friends,” the Saudis, living in the Stone Age… Some Saudis have had the guts to defy convention, but have paid the price. Will they succeed in changing Saudi society? From the AP:

For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel, and they plan to petition King Abdullah in the next few days for the privilege. …

The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive. But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis — both men and women — consider a “stolen” right. …

The last time the issue was raised was two years ago, when Mohammed al-Zulfa, a member of the unelected Consultative Council, asked his colleagues to think about studying the possibility of allowing women over age 35 or 40 to drive — unchaperoned on city streets but accompanied by a male guardian on highways.

The suggestion touched off a fierce controversy that included calls for al-Zulfa’s removal from the council and stripping him of Saudi citizenship, as well as accusations he was encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men. …

Women tried to defy the ban once and paid heavily for it. In November 1990, when U.S. troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women got behind the wheel and drove family cars. They were jailed for one day, their passports were confiscated and they lost their jobs. …

In the weeks ushering in the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began Thursday, a furious debate erupted in a Saudi newspaper over a Ramadan television serial that takes up the hardships the ban has caused.

In the serial, “Amsha bint Ammash,” the main character, Amsha, loses her father and is forced to relocate from her village to Jiddah. After an unsuccessful round of job searching, she decides to become a taxi driver — a job open only to men.

To get around the ban, she disguises herself as a man, adding a mustache and donning the white robe and red-and-white-checkered headdress Saudi men wear.

When the program was first advertised, some reacted with shock that a Saudi woman was not only portraying a man, but also one who drives. Conservatives say women should not emulate men in behavior or dress.

The controversy has forced the serial’s writer, Abdullah Abdul-Amer, to issue a statement stressing the goal of the program, aired on the Lebanese satellite channel LBC, “is not to incite women to drive.” …