Manal al-Sharif is a Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist who helped instigate the Women2Drive campaign, as women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive. Over 100 women partook in the campaign last June 17th. Al-Sharif herself has been arrested on a few occasions for driving.
In the above video from the 2012 Oslo Freedom Forum, she discusses how she came to lose her religious extremism because of the Internet and how 9/11 changed her view on the world in which she had been raised. Al-Sharif was born during the year of the fundamentalist Sunni riots in Saudi Arabia which came about as a response to the relatively liberal government that was in place at the time. Al-Sharif chronicles the change of the position of women from 1979 to the present and the taboos that began to unfold around her and her family. Women began to lose the freedoms that they had gained before the riots, but after her realization and opening up to different points of view, al-Sharif is now fighting for those rights today.
Are there any particularly powerful moments during the video that you like? Leave the time stamp in the comments!
(Thanks to ihedenius for the link!)
This is What Christianity Looks Like ..."
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This is What Christianity Looks Like ..."