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Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi women's rights activist Souad Shimari, which aired on DM TV and was posted on the Internet on May 21, 2013:
Souad Shimari: Growing up, there was little luxury in my life. My education consisted of listening to Radio Monte Carlo at nights, and to Mufti Bin Baz's "Light on the Path" series during the day. I began to believe in the value of human life.
I was working as a shepherdess, which is the profession of the prophets. I always say to the Islamists – and I hope they don't find this offensive – that I had continued this work, I may have ended up being a prophet. I see myself as a messenger of peace and freedom.
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All the hadiths that aim at gaining ideological control over society turn women into a vessel for sex. They present [Saudi] women as a Satanic cause for suspicion, and Saudi me as brainless and irrational beasts.
Interviewer: Where do you encounter such rhetoric?
Souad Shimari: This is the rhetoric of most of the so-called preachers and sheiks. You are familiar with our society. They accuse people who think differently of being sinners and heretics who call for [unbridled] liberation.
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One female preacher [Dr. Wafa Al-Sweilam] said that a woman should not walk next to her good-looking son, lest men fantasize that she is as attractive as him [under the veil] and fancy her. She is a university lecturer. This is a catastrophe. She views herself – and makes other women view themselves – as a [sex] object in a bestial society – a society devoid of moral values, reason, or culture. Instead of developing women's virtues – it is all about prohibitions.
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