From Café Culture to Tweets

Abstract

In Saudi Arabia the social segregation of men and women has arguably led to the development of a public sphere that operates, to some extent, separately across gender lines but that is rapidly changing. The important roles played by café culture, khutba meetings in mosques, the dissemination of cassette tapes, and forums such as Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz Centre for National Dialogue will be considered in this article. Social media (SM) platforms such as Twitter have added a new dimension to the public sphere, since they have the ability to both empower individuals to communicate on their own terms and to restrict and shape that communication.The literature includes many definitions of the term public sphere. Jürgen Habermas (1989: 231) defined it as “a domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens. . . . Citizens act as a public when they deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion.” From this definition, it appears that two essential components of the public sphere are the formation of public opinion and the inclusion of people from various backgrounds. Habermas, however, noted that “we call events and occasions ‘public’ when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs—as when we speak of public places or public houses. But as in the expression ‘public building,’ the term need not refer to general accessibility; the building does not even have to be open to public traffic” (2). Arguably, the Saudi public sphere is “public” in this second sense: because some of its more conservative constituents believe that women’s voices are awra (or forbidden for men to hear), it has not been possible to have a public sphere that was truly “open to all” (Makboul 2017). Some authors have viewed Muslim society as divided into separate “sub-universes”: the universe of men, the umma, the world of religion and power and the domain of women, the world of domesticity and family. Thus many women wear a veil if they enter a public space where they might come into the view of men, as it shields them and keeps them in their private space (Tadros 2005). This article explores the extent to which this division has changed both because of recent political and economic changes following a royal decree in 2011 that gave women new opportunities to enter into the public workforce (Alshoaibi 2018) and because of the creation of virtual “public spheres.”Ali Al-Qarni (2004: 215) was one of the very few Arab scholars to investigate the Habermasian public sphere in the context of the Arab society, writing that “Arabs maintained their own private/public sphere through their meetings in mosques, markets, cafés and households where news was deconstructed and analyzed by literate Arabs and explained for the laity.” In Egypt cafés served as places where topical economic and political issues could be debated. The Fishawi Café in Cairo was probably the most famous of these cafés, as it was frequented by politicians, writers, and intellectuals (Alotaibi 2017). It should be noted that, due to Arab cultural norms about the mixing of sexes, few women would have used these cafés to meet and discuss. The Fishawi Café, popularized by internationally famous Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, opened in 1797 (Al-Ahram 2010). Since then it has been patronized by a long list of illustrious Middle Eastern and Egyptian customers who varied greatly in their political views. These include Jamal Al-Din Afghani (the nineteenth-century Islamic philosopher who opposed Western imperialism), Sheikh Muhammad Abdou (an Islamic modernist of the 1960s), Abdelaziz Bouteflika (former Algerian president), Jaafar Nimeiri (former Sudanese president), Ali Abdullah Saleh (former president of Yemen who supported Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait), and the Egyptian diplomat Amr Moussa, who occupied the post of secretary-general of the League of Arab States (2001–11) and was political adviser to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi (Asharq Al-Awsat 2007).Cafés and restaurants are places where people can gather and have discussions outside the domestic environment and, as such, have long been considered by historians and sociologists as playing a part in the development of the modern public sphere (Devery 2017). In Saudi Arabia these informal forums were largely denied to women, but changes in legislation have given women freer access to them. At the end of 2019 the Ministry for Municipal and Rural Affairs in Saudi Arabia abolished rules requiring restaurants to provide separate entrances and areas for women and families and for male patrons dining alone, and restaurants no longer needed to provide private spaces. This meant that women could now use cafés and restaurants that had previously denied them service because they were too small to provide a separate space for them (National News 2019).Traditionally, one of the most important forums in Saudi Arabia has been its mosques, in particular the Friday sermon (khutba). The men who speak during the khutba, such as imams, give advice and debate issues of relevance to the community; although women are in a separate part of the mosque, they can participate as listeners. The khutba thus can greatly influence the direction of public opinion, although without participation from the audience (Almakaty, Boyd, and Tubergen 1994). In the late twentieth century, despite opposition from some religious leaders, these religious platforms played a key role in persuading Saudis to accept foreign, non-Muslim troops in their country in their bid to liberate Kuwait from Iraq (Alotaibi 2017).In relation to Saudi women using religious platforms to voice their opinions, Laila Makboul (2017) considers the role of the al-dāʿiyāt al-muthaqqafāt (traditional female preachers in Riyadh) and notes how they engage in issues affecting Saudi society beyond those that are gender specific, and how they encourage women to take a greater part in the public sphere. One such preacher, Nawal Al-ʿId, had more than 4 million followers on Twitter when the study was conducted in 2017. Although many female preachers confine themselves largely to “female” topics and do not preach to mixed audiences, new technologies have surmounted this barrier, and there are now instances of female preachers participating in sessions at the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue, where their talks have been transmitted to the general public.1Technology has always been an important facilitator of public discourse—in recent years, increasingly so. For example, one of the most important ways in which public opinion was mobilized in Saudi Arabia during the 1980s was by means of cassette recordings. Certain religious leaders, for instance, made use of cassettes to exhort their followers to attend religious ceremonies or resist enemies, as was the case with cassettes that issued a jihad against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan. Cassettes were therefore a means to alter opinion, especially when the message they contained was disseminated by ardent campaigners over a wide area. During that period some religious leaders had information that allowed them to cogently debate jihadi issues in order to manipulate public opinion. This activity could be categorized as propaganda, which has been defined as the dissemination of information, true or otherwise, against the state (Dahlgren 2005). Cassettes were enormously popular throughout the Middle East in that period, where it was customary to listen to them with family and friends and discuss in private the ideas they contained (Fenton-Smith 2015).Another example of the successful use of media by Islamic clergy to communicate to the masses can be found in the Salafist Sahwa (Awakening) movement in the 1980s, which campaigned for a more traditional Islamic rule in opposition to the other regimes in the region. In addition to the more usual books, flyers, and brochures, the Sahwa movement made extensive use of cassette tapes (Alobied 2012). The discourse was crafted by religious individuals who went under aliases such as “Reformer,” “Educator,” “Thinker,” “Journalist,” and “Enlightened.” These individuals gained the trust of Saudis who opposed the Arab regimes and became a dominating force in the public sphere after the first Gulf War in Kuwait. The Sahwa movement, to spread its ideology, effectively took advantage of Saudi anger about reports regarding Iraqi aggression against Kuwait that were published in traditional media. However, B. Alobied (2012: 4) argues that in trying to take control of the public sphere, the Sahwa movement effectively prevented freedom of expression and proper debate with its discourse.The Sahwa discourse centered on two important issues. The first of these was the unwanted US presence on Arab territory and the subsequent emergence of Al-Qaeda, a phenomenon that did not suddenly appear fully formed in 1988–89, as is sometimes suggested (Almousa 2012). Much of the ideology of Al-Qaeda had already been developed by writers such as Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb; in particular, the latter’s works Milestones (1964) and Social Justice in Islam (1949) shed light on the jihadist ideology of that early period (Quiggin 2010). Osama Bin Laden’s private collection of about fifteen hundred cassettes was unearthed in Afghanistan in 2001 and contains many speeches by him. Richard Fenton-Smith (2015) comments that audiocassettes were the perfect means of proselytizing and spreading propaganda, as they could be shared, dubbed, or passed around easily, since censors paid little attention to them.The second issue around which the Sahwa movement was centered was related to whether Saudi women should be allowed to drive. The reason the Sahwa movement took a stance on two issues so fundamentally different was to appeal to Saudis’ horror of sedition and breaking articles of faith and, ultimately, to alert them to the hazards of allowing either (Alobied 2012: 4). Using such tactics to appeal to raw emotions is a common way of managing public opinion. Saudi women took to the media to campaign for their right to drive. Lama Altoaimy (2018) reported that Manal Alsharif used Twitter and Facebook to carry out her “women2drive” campaign, which prompted a fierce debate and attracted international attention—which arguably both contributed to the subsequent lifting of the ban in 2018 and drew attention to the restrictions on women imposed in Saudi Arabia.Because in Saudi Arabia all off-line media are strictly regulated by the censorship, it was not possible until the mid-1990s to create a public sphere similar to public spheres seen in the West. From the mid-1990s, however, things began to change, due to better access to international media and to the emergence of satellite broadcasting and online communication. These new technologies fundamentally changed the way in which Saudis think of the public sphere. Satellite television, for example, opened up communications with the world, but this form of media was still controlled and cannot be considered to radically challenge the status quo of gender roles. Ashraf Abdelmogeth and Heba Mossad (2018), who explored how women were portrayed in the daily morning program on women’s empowerment that is broadcast to the Arab world via satellite television services, showed that male characters were still represented more than female ones, with more than 50 percent of female characters shown as homemakers in Saudi Arabia.Although Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has implemented a number of measures to encourage women to join the workforce, and although Najia Saquib, Priyanka Aggarwal, and Saima Rashid (2016) stressed the importance of measures such as flexible working hours and recruiting women for management positions, women workers are still a minority. This continued economic inequality may account for women still being largely portrayed as homemakers in the media. Further, Aylin Topal (2019) notes that the focus of Vision 2030 on enabling women to enter the workforce limited its efficacy as a tool for fostering gender equality in Saudi Arabia, as such a profound cultural shift would necessitate a more radical reorganization of the prevailing power structures. A recent survey on women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia concluded that Saudi women’s empowerment would be precipitated by women’s voices being heard in places like the Shura (Council) and that issues of women’s rights needed to be further addressed. The study that featured this survey also concluded that women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia was being most effectively advanced through education (al-Qahtani et al. 2020).Indeed, since Saudi girls and young women were first given access to education in the mid-1950s, the number of women with degrees, in particular of those with degrees from foreign universities, has increased enormously (Rather 2016). Although fewer women than men enter graduate programs, recent statistics show that the number of women at the undergraduate level is exceptionally high. For example, in 2018, 66 percent of Saudi university graduates in natural sciences, mathematics, and statistics were women (AllahMorad and Zreik 2020). A study of nine women professors at the Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, the largest women’s university in the world, analyzed how faculty members engaged in political, social, and cultural issues in the Saudi public sphere as well as globally and found that most of the professors were actively engaged on all these topics (Almansour and Kempner 2016).Academic publication is one way of being a voice in the public sphere, but its impact may be minimal if it does not attract newspaper, broadcast, or online media coverage. The traditional Saudi media are restricted in what they may publish, but SM offer an arena where it is arguably easier for Saudis to be heard.Eman Bukhari (2011) argues that the Saudi public sphere resides at the intersection of mainstream and new media. However, it has already been demonstrated in other parts of the world that SM alone can facilitate social change by providing channels for discussing matters of public concern. Using SM, the public was able, to some extent, to debate issues other than those aired in the official media and outside the control of the authorities (Al-Qarni 2004). Al-Qarni also points out that “the Internet has not only been a public sphere where Arabs exchange views and formulate opinions regarding political issues, but also a place for political activism outside formal state control” (252). In reference to the Arab world, other scholars, however, have warned that despite the internet’s contribution to reducing the power of gatekeepers in official, state-regulated Arab media, the function of the public sphere to create a shared public culture is threatened by the creation of cyber ghettos that can even contribute to intolerance among groups that may not have much contact with or understanding about one another (Dahlgren 2005).Aziz Douai and Hala K. Nofal (2012) used the example of reactions to the prohibition on minarets in Switzerland2 and to the construction of a mosque at ground zero on the site of the twin towers in New York City to explore how such issues are framed by the Arab public sphere. When online comments posted by readers of Al Jazeera.net and Al-Arabiya.net were analyzed, they showed that this emergent Arab public sphere enabled Arab citizens to challenge and bypass controls imposed by the authorities. The study also reveals how the existence of this Arab public sphere can have serious repercussions worldwide on domestic policy decisions.Similarly, Yeslam Al-Saggaf and Peter Simmons (2015) argue that debates on SM about the disastrous floods in Saudi Arabia in 2009 occurred at a time when there were strict controls over citizen participation in public matters. Al-Saggaf and Simmons demonstrated that SM circumvented government restraints and allowed citizens to communicate to other people their concerns about the gravity of the situation. Although the discussions on SM platforms such as Al-Saha Al-Siyasia (a political forum) were rational in nature, this debate functioned more like a useful means of understanding the feelings of the people, as it was unlikely to be the sole cause of any social change. However, SM discussions of this type can facilitate trends toward change that is already happening in other countries; most Arab governments are wary of the power that SM have to subject them to pressure (Al-Saggaf and Simmons 2015).More recently, W. A. Alsahafi (2019) studied activism on the anti-male guardianship hashtag on Twitter, to ascertain how Saudi women used this SM platform to promote their campaigns and fight for their rights. He concluded that such activism provided an “alternative space” for Saudi women who were geographically dispersed, framed issues related to male-guardianship issues, and challenged the patriarchal and victim-blaming discourse dominating the Saudi public sphere (4). However, due to attempts at censorship and the online trolling that interferes with discourse, SM do not yet provide a truly democratic and free space (310). Nevertheless, in a recent study regarding the role of “citizen journalism”3 on serious economic issues, data analysis revealed that platforms like Twitter give citizen journalists more freedom of expression than traditional Saudi media and allow for interactivity both locally and globally that helps shape the Saudi public (Almutarie 2019). Furthermore, the influence of SM in Saudi Arabia is evident in traditional media’s increasing use of information posted on SM, and both the Saudi government and religious leaders use these platforms to disseminate information.The Saudi public sphere has a complex history and development that needs to be taken into account when assessing the impact of new technologies such as SM on the extent that Saudi women’s voices have entered the arena. In a society where traditional media has been strongly regulated, and the influence of culture and religion has meant that women have, until recently, been largely excluded from public life, SM platforms such as Twitter have provided an alternative means for Saudi citizens to obtain information, exchange opinions, and make demands of their government. In particular, SM have added a dimension to the public sphere in which Saudi women might speak to all Saudi citizens and interested parties abroad. Although Saudi female preachers and academics have, to some extent, been heard in the public sphere, SM give them a broader platform and also give women outside these privileged enclaves a chance to enter public debates. Using SM to participate in the Saudi public sphere is not without its problems, but it has meant that, to some extent, some of the voices in it are now female.