BothAnd by Huma Abedin

Author:Huma Abedin [Huma Abedin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

On the short flight to Jeddah, after we all turned down dinner—we were still digesting lunch after all—HRC came out of her cabin, papers in hand, and sat next to me.

“I think it’s going to be really impactful for these young women to see you doing your job,” she said referring to the students at Dar Al-Hekma. “I want to reinforce that I am here to listen but also to push how important it is for women to have choices, how growing educational partnerships and encouraging civil society give them more opportunities. It might not be the most popular thing to talk about here but I need to do it.”

“You are not going to face unfriendly questions here,” I said, thinking back to my many conversations with Saudi friends. “But there is still a general sense that the West doesn’t understand this part of the world and that the media characterization has been only negative. These are students who won’t be afraid to speak their minds.”

“Good, I want them to,” she said. “That’s why I am here.”

The year I spent at King Abdulaziz University after high school, I had bristled at the stifling limitations for women in Jeddah, but simultaneously found myself defending my experience to my American cousins. I knew there were going to be young women in that audience at Dar Al-Hekma who wanted more liberties, to travel freely, to have the same choices as their brothers had. I also knew there would be women who were happy with their lives, who enjoyed the sense of security that comes from living in a communal, homogeneous society. Who resented outsiders telling them how to live. They believed they could pursue worthy professions and not give up their cultural heritage. Many, if not most, wouldn’t be able to travel overseas on their own even if they wanted to. Part of the reason for the rise of institutions like Dar Al-Hekma that imported a distinctly American education was that many Saudi students couldn’t get visas to study in the U.S. post-9/11; and if they could, their parents were worried that they would face hardships once there. I largely supported the approach of HRC and her State Department advisors, but we agreed that it required cultural awareness and sensitivity; that she should champion their freedom to choose rather than tell them what they should want. I wasn’t sure anyone who hadn’t lived there would ever truly understand this dichotomy.

HRC was looking out the window as we approached the sprawling urban landscape that was my hometown. The dark of night was scattered by the thousands of yellow lights dotting the city’s buildings and streets. Our line officer had thoughtfully arranged for my mother to meet the plane when it landed at King Abdulaziz International Airport. Mom had just hosted British prime minister David Cameron at the college, but she was far more nervous and excited about this visit. After rushed hellos, protocol dictating formality, I departed with her for one night in my childhood home.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.