Arwa Mutabagani, here with Saudi rider Faisal al-Shaalan in Hong Kong, is the first woman in a Saudi Olympic delegation.
By Faiza Saleh Ambah
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- The first female member of a Saudi Olympic delegation is spending her days with the equestrian team in Hong Kong, checking on horses, encouraging riders, planning training schedules and meeting with officials.
Arwa Mutabagani, 38, a professional show jumper, became a member of the Saudi Olympic Committee after her appointment in April to the government body in charge of sports in Saudi Arabia, another first for a woman.
Saudi Arabia has long been criticized for being one of a few countries that ban female athletes at the Olympics, but Mutabagani said her role is a sign that Saudi Arabia is trying to open the way for women in sports.
"The door has been opened. I want to work hard and prove I'm not just a token woman or figurehead," she said.
Some female activists say the government is not moving fast enough.
"We have been asking for years via the media and academics and education experts and officials to be allowed the right to practice sports," said Manal al-Sharif, head of the women's section of al-Madina newspaper. "There is nothing in the religion that bans this. It's only our tradition and culture that are driving this ban until now."
Saudi Arabia, a deeply patriarchal and predominantly tribal society, remains a traditional kingdom in which puritan clerics wield a great deal of influence.
Women are not allowed to drive or travel without the permission of a male guardian. The country bans sports and physical education classes in state-run girls' schools, and there are no public sports complexes for women. On their own, women have discreetly formed a few sports teams, but the level of competition is nowhere near Olympic caliber.
Activist Wajeha al-Huwaider posted a video on YouTube to coincide with the start of the Olympics, demanding the right for Saudi women to participate and an end to the official ban on women's sports. The video showed five young women sitting on a soccer field, their bodies and faces covered in the traditional black abaya and head scarf, but their hands and feet symbolically shackled by tape.
Huwaider said she was surprised and touched by photos on the Internet of European women at the 2004 Olympics holding up signs that said "Where are our Saudi sisters?"
"I posted this video because I wanted people to know that there are Saudi women as well asking for this right," said Huwaider, 46, an educational analyst at an oil company.
But women's sports is a controversial subject in Saudi Arabia, where clerics preach against the encroachment of "Western values" and the dangers and sin of women trying to imitate men.
Saudi cleric Mohammad al-Munajid told the Saudi-owned Iqra channel this month that the revealing dress of women at the "Bikini," not Beijing, Olympics, was a source of pleasure to the devil. "What women are wearing in the Olympic Games are among the worst clothes possible. Women have never gotten naked for sports like they do in the Olympics."
The Saudi Shura Council, a government-appointed body that serves as a toothless parliament, has discussed the subject of women's sports several times, and, with few in favor and many against, has not come up with any resolutions.
"What's frustrating is that they discuss it like it's a luxury, a vanity. But the right to exercise is a basic right, it's a health issue," said activist Hatoon al-Fassi, an assistant professor of history at King Saud University. "Even in schools and universities, girls are obliged to wear skirts and not allowed to wear pants because they reveal women's curves."
The activists cited government statistics showing that more than two-thirds of Saudi women suffer from obesity and many are developing high blood pressure and diabetes.
Mutabagani, a single mother who has competed in many show-jumping events in Italy and is a qualified judge, said Saudi sports officials were considering appointing a woman to the board of each sports federation but were meeting resistance from the public.
At her first public event after her appointment, just one man out of more than 1,000 from Saudi Arabia's more than 35 sports federations congratulated her, she said. "People on the outside don't realize how difficult the position of Saudi sports officials is. They are going against a very conservative society, against generations and decades of one way of thinking. It has to be done gradually."
Mutabagani, who dreams of actually competing in the Olympics, said it was premature to predict whether Saudi women would participate in the 2012 London Games.
"Definitely they're trying to make an effort for women to participate," she said "I don't know if it will be that soon. I want to be optimistic, and I will do my best. But it takes two hands to clap."
---Washington Post
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