On October 26, 2013, the Saudi YouTube production company C3 released ‘No Woman, No Drive’ to coincide with a major protest against the ban on women driving in the Kingdom. The video, based on Bob Marley’s song, ‘No woman, No Cry’, addresses the issue of women’s driving directly and has earned over 12 million hits on YouTube.

In this presentation, Dr Foley will argue that the video grew out of a process by which Saudi artists utilized culture as a vehicle to promote a discussion on social issues and reform. These individuals built on Saudi Arabia’s tradition of humor and irony, both of which utilize multiple messages, add or assert multiple truths simultaneously. Their approach rejected the chief political argument made by many in the Arab world in recent years: that the only way to reform an Arab state is to overthrow the systems of power from the top. Instead of overthrowing the state, Saudi artists wish for the system to continue to operate under a set of evolving cultural and social norms that they help to shape.

This event is free and open to the public but seats are limited. Please RSVP to ANU Events.

Dr Foley is a US professor of Middle East history and is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University. He speaks Arabic and Bahasa Malaysian, has published widely, and has delivered public presentations to audiences around the world. He has also held Fulbright fellowships in Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia. He is the author of The Arab Gulf States: Beyond Oil and Islam (Bounder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010). From April 2013 until February 2014, he lived and researched in Saudi Arabia for a new book entitled A Kingdom of Many Colors.