The usual introductions were being made around the restaurant table. An engineer working for a big oil company. A nurse working in the VIP section of a hospital. An IT consultant. When it came to my turn I quietly half-mumbled my name and confessed to doing a variety of things. I was hoping that the comment would fall upon deaf ears, but unfortunately it did not.

“You!” accused engineer. “You’re that journalist, aren’t you?”

As much as I wanted to feign ignorance, I had to own up to my identity and the whole throng lunged for the jugular.

“I thought I recognized you,” began IT consultant with a disgusted tone followed by an accusatory, “I read your stuff.”

“Oh yes, page three. Right?” interjected doctor.

What ensued was an attack upon my hidden agenda and questions as to what it was that I was trying to achieve through my blatant disregard of tradition and custom. It was quite typical of the kind of criticism that I have grown accustomed to being lavished with since appearing in print last year.

“Take your last article,” pontificated engineer. “You talked about child custody in Saudi Arabia and how foreign parents are not allowed to stay here, but do you know that exactly the same problem exists in the West?”

“Look,” I explained. “What I write about has nothing to do with specifics. I just think that we deserve codified laws. At least if there was some kind of structure in place, then we would not be at the mercy of the capriciousness of the courts. As a woman I think that I should have the right to be heard impartially without being judged on the basis of my gender.”

“Well,” he said sounding defensive, “let me tell you that my cousin had a child in Canada and is now banned from going to visit. All because his wife filed a petition in the court against him. Is that right?”

“No. In spite of the fact that I don’t really know the other side of the story, that’s definitely not right,” I confessed. “But that doesn’t really condone what’s going on here. I am not really trying to expound the virtues of other countries or their systems but I just think it’s important to identify ways of improving our own.”

“Yes, but they’re not perfect,” he clarified.

“By all means they’re not. I don’t think so at all, but then again neither are we!”

I am certain that you can well imagine what the rest of the evening was like, but it really is quite symptomatic of some of the underlying problems that exist within our society. In my opinion such an attitude that preponderates only serves to asphyxiate the healthy arena of discussion, debate and discourse so pivotal to the process of change.

If I chose to, I could feasibly live anywhere in the West. But for me, that is not an option. I enjoy my life here immensely. I live here because I really believe in this country and its people. I write here because in spite of the obstacles that I face and the negativity I am subjected to, I have seen change happening and things have progressed and moved forward. To me, this is extremely rewarding and heralds a new era of enlightenment and tolerance. There is so much potential in Saudi Arabia and so much scope for the future that I find it to be one of the most exciting places in the world.

However, there are still those who strongly believe that as writers and journalists we should not be drawing attention to prospective areas for improvement. I remember once a Saudi friend telling me that instead of publishing my views in the newspaper, I would be better off and more effective visiting the various ministries and knocking on their doors with my complaints.

“At least,” she suggested, “it will be a cleaner way of doing things. After all, it’s not nice to wash our dirty linen in public.”

“Yes, but don’t you think it’s about time we acknowledged our problems?” I asked incredulous at her indifference to what was going on around us. “Recognized them? Identified them? Did something about them?” I questioned rhetorically.

“That’s well and good, but why do we have to announce them to everyone? We know that we have troubles but why advertise? Why should the outside world know about internal issues?”

And there was the crux of the matter. That if somehow we could mask reality, pretend that everything was hunky-dory, present a spotless veneer of idealism, then everyone would believe us and we would believe ourselves too. And that’s the danger. Falling back into the trap of complacency where we had been ensnared for far too long.

The other mistake that we tend to make is in believing that change somehow equates to a desire for imitation. That by evolving as a society, by abandoning some of our moribund practices and outdated attitudes we are somehow compromising our identity. What we have to understand is that change is a way of protecting this identity. That if we do not recognize the necessity to refine ourselves and adapt to a new world order then we will be rendered obsolete.

We are an immensely proud people with a religion that forms the bedrock of our existence. But what we seem to have overlooked or forgotten is the inherent flexibility that Islam affords us. Islam is not the monolithic religion that it has been accused of being. Far from it. It is a religion of diversity. One of the sayings of the Prophet (peace be upon him) advises us not to make the religion difficult and if there are multiple ways of practice open to us, then to choose that which is easiest.

As a Muslim woman, I want to practice my religion unfettered by the strictures of male-dominated hegemony. That is what I am trying to point out. If we can learn lessons from other countries in order to achieve such edification, then this does not necessarily imply a selling out of our principles. I wonder why it is that when it comes to imbibing the negative aspects of other countries, we are so enthusiastic, but when it comes to adopting their positive qualities we are so reluctant. Recognizing that we can progress without compromising our integrity is paramount if we are to preserve what really matters and purge what really doesn’t.

(Lubna Hussain is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)