A group of Saudi women studying at universities across the United Kingdom anxiously met in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2008, with Princess Fadwa bint Khalid bin Abdullah, wife of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The students complained that their children attend school seven days a week since complying with the laws of both countries requires sending their children to both a British school and private Saudi classes.
Although Princess Fadwa sympathized that day with the students’ struggles, no solution has yet to be offered.
This is only one of many hurdles facing female students coming from Saudi Arabia to study in the UK.
An estimated 6,000 international students, including about 800 Saudis, attend Newcastle University in northeast England. Female Saudi students at Newcastle say they are adjusting well to the foreign environment, although it’s a tough slog. Saudi women acknowledge their circle of friends is mostly limited to Saudi and other Arab Muslim women.
On top of this, traveling within the United Kingdom is usually restricted to academic conferences. When social engagements are involved, they are only with university colleagues and classmates in the same programs.
In the lecture hall, though, with their strong academic performance and assertiveness when leading discussions, Saudi women defy the perception held by many Western classmates of being shy and reserved.
In their free time, female students at Newcastle University frequent Turkish and Iranian restaurants near campus, although they rarely mix with their Saudi male colleagues.
“Saudi men avoid us and we in turn avoid them,” said Miramar Damanhouri, a second-year PhD student in applied linguistics in her early 30s. “It could be that we got so used to the segregation that is rooted in our educational system that we cannot overcome it. I’d rather talk to anyone from any nationality, but not a Saudi man, simply because his reaction is unexpected. He might misjudge my intentions.”
Saudi female undergraduate and postgraduate students account for about 25 percent of the 15,616 Saudi students in the United Kingdom, according to uksacb.org, the site for the Saudi cultural attaché. Saudi women gravitate to scientific fields, including microbiology and chemistry, studying in an environment free of gender segregation.
For the 2007/2008 academic year about 5,000 Saudi students received government scholarships to study abroad as part of King Abdullah’s initiative started in 2005 to send Saudis to Western universities. The Saudi Ministry of Higher Education recently closed the United Kingdom for study due to the huge influx of students since 2007.
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Some students cite the difficulty and unpredictability of obtaining student visas in the United States following 9/11 and the US ‘War on Terror’ as a reason for studying in the UK.
To the north of Newcastle campus is the Saudi family enclave of Kingston Park where large numbers of Saudi female students live. Yet many Saudis can also be found in the student community of Jesmond or the suburbs of Gateshead.
Although they enjoy independent lives, Saudi women experience pressure from family members who fear that living in the West – especially with the UK’s entrenched drinking culture and relatively free-wheeling lifestyle – has a corrupting influence. But families also recognize that their daughters are experiencing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
“My family was so happy about it [the scholarship] and they encouraged me to move ahead with my plan to study,” said Haifa Alnofaie, who is in her late 20s and studying for her PhD in educational and applied linguistics at Newcastle.
There’s a sense, however, among Saudi women that they are under a microscope. Few Saudi women at Newcastle University wear the niqab, the Islamic veil worn by women that covers the face below the eyes, although many wear the hijab.
The Saudi student website, Saudi Share, regularly reports attacks on Muslim women in the United Kingdom. Particularly alarming was one incident in Birmingham in May when a woman wearing the niqab standing at a train platform was attacked by a man who ripped away her veil. No such incidents have been reported in Newcastle, but troubling anti-Muslim incidents still do occur.
Damanhouri said she is occasionally harassed, including one occasion when a drunken woman hurled anti-Muslim insults at her and her friends at a train station. “Nobody on the platform stood for us,” she said.
“Another time a teenager was harassing a group I was with in South Shields. He was alone and obviously had no fear. We called the police. They said he was a regular troublemaker and they solved the problem immediately,” continued Damanhouri.
Such incidents have prompted some Saudi women to reconsider how they dress in public. On football days when much of Newcastle is celebrating a victory or mourning a loss at the pubs, students leave the hijab at home and tuck their hair under a hat to avoid unwanted attention.
In June, the ultra-conservative English Defence League staged its first demonstration in Newcastle to protest what the league claims is the “Islamification” of England. Muslim women heeded the advice of police and the Newcastle Muslim Society to stay at home.
Saudis don’t kid themselves that they enjoy absolute freedom. Every Saudi, women assume, is watching.
“Sometimes the colleagues in my department go to a pub for drinks and dinner,” said one Saudi PhD student in her early 30s who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Although I would never drink alcohol, I would also never go into a pub for dinner. You never know who is watching and what will be said when they go home.”
The university leaves it to the faculty to develop skills to work with students of other cultures and religions. There is no staff instruction in cultural or religious sensitivity, said Dr. Steve Walsh, Newcastle’s postgraduate research director in applied linguistics.
“[There’s] no training given, but I feel I am okay with this as I have had a lot of experience both in this country and abroad,” Walsh said. “This is an important aspect of my work. Students come to me with their problems and I try to help.”
Language and writing skills can be problematic even though incoming students are required to pass written and oral English language tests.
“Some [Saudi students] are excellent, others pretty weak, and all, including native, struggle with academic writing,” Walsh said.
Walsh testified that the quality of Saudi education is excellent.
“But I deal with PhD students who are normally excellent,” he said.
Alnofaie, who is originally from Ta’if, said the university is responsive to her needs.
“They show respect to our religious needs and do their best to provide Muslim students with adequate services,” she said. “One example is the annual Islamic Week that is held at the university to increase people’s awareness of the reality of Islam.”
Although Saudi students see no reason to complain, attending prayer at the university is challenging. The Newcastle campus mosque in the basement of the King George Building can’t accommodate Friday prayers with an average of 200 men jammed into mosque and spilling into the hallway and out onto the parking lot. About one-third as many women attend Friday prayers upstairs in equally cramped quarters.
These are minor annoyances to Damanhouri. She said she never experienced discrimination on campus because she is Muslim. Still, British society can be difficult to navigate.
“Based on my experience with Americans, I can say that Americans are warm-hearted and more friendly. They like to make friends. But many British, and I hate to generalize, don’t like to get along with anybody who is different.”