Things are getting a little out of hand in Jubail. Apparently a public school Al-Kabirat education program for young women to obtain a high school diploma is at the center of an international uproar over the lashing and prison sentence of a young woman found guilty of assaulting the school's headmistress. Originally it was reported in the media that the young woman was a 13-year-old girl sentenced to 90 lashes for bringing a mobile phone to school. But, no, that wasn't true. Then it was reported the girl assaulted the headmistress for taking away the phone. Well, that's sort of true. Now it turns out the girl is not a girl, but a 20-year-old woman and she cracked a drinking glass over the headmistress' head while the student's mother stood by and watched. Frankly, I'd like to turn this student over my knee and give her a good spanking for acting like the misbehaving toddler she is. This student understood the rules of her school, knew the consequences, and decided to ignore them anyway. She deserves to be punished, but the reactions are way over the top. Yet the young woman's temper tantrum and the authorities' overreaction point to larger issues of Saudi society's treatment of adult women, Saudi media's haphazard and lazy reporting, the sense of entitlement among some Saudi families and lack of parental control. We can't point to the 20-year-old student as the epitome of model behavior, but it's ridiculous that Saudi women are treated like little children. All women, including parents and guests, are not permitted to have mobile phones on school grounds. It's fine to ban mobile phones use by students, but it's simply an abuse of power when applied to anyone else. If my mother came to my high school campus with a mobile in her purse, it's nobody's business but her own. And if she sat in the administration building's lobby and chatted on the phone with my sister, then it's her business. Just who has the right to stop her? Saudi girls' schools can be unreasonably strict especially in some regions like Madina. Most schools have strict dress codes that require heavy dark colored clothing without adornment that is impractical for hot weather. I remember in my days at school that girls were required to wear black shoes and white socks. Makeup and perfumes were banned. There were no mirrors in the restrooms and compacts from girls purses were often seized by school authorities. While proper decorum in an academic environment is conducive to good leaning, there's a fine line between oppression and discipline. Perhaps if Saudi institutions like this school in Jubail stopped treating women as kids they will stop acting like kids. The Saudi media, in their own inept way, helped bring international condemnation from human rights groups on Saudi Arabia. The Arabic-language press not only got the woman's age wrong but also muddled the facts over whether the lashing sentence was for having a mobile phone on campus or for assaulting the headmistress. Amnesty International made matters worse by announcing the girl was 13-years-old. Inevitably, Saudis start complaining about sloppy reporting by the Arabic-language press. The complaints are justified, but a lion's share of the blame also goes to the school for not providing the necessary information to paint a complete picture. Lack of transparency usually leads to erroneous reporting. The international community will only remember that a young girl was flogged for bringing a mobile phone to school. Nobody cares that it was an adult who attacked another woman with a deadly weapon. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this incident is that the attack appears not to have occurred in the heat of the moment, but rather after some time had passed and cooler heads should have prevailed. After the headmistress confiscated the phone, the student went home and returned to school with her mother. It was during the meeting between the three women that young woman picked up a drinking glass and struck the headmistress with it. No doubt the mother was shocked at her daughter's behavior, but one has to wonder where the daughter learned that violence solves such small problems as the confiscation of a mobile phone. It's a dangerous thing to break a glass over someone's head. This student possesses an undeserved sense of entitlement that the rules don't apply to her and she is not subject to the same consequences as her colleagues if she breaks those rules. The headmistress, though, could have stopped this runaway locomotive of a public relations disaster. She could have nipped the controversy in the bud by forgiving the student to spare her the lashing. But the headmistress had her own temper tantrum by refusing to take the high road only exacerbates the controversy. There's plenty of blame to go around here. It certainly doesn't end a spoiled brat's confrontation with school authority. – SG The writer can be reached at: [email protected] and her blog is: www.saudiwriter.blogspot.com __
