Saudi Arabia has gotten a bad rap in the American Press. At least according to Saudi Arabia. But if a new Saudi-sponsored marketing campaign will have anything to do with it, Americans will learn the truth behind Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahabi interpretation of Islam and its restrictions on women.

“It really is a tragedy that Americans have such a negative mental portrait of the way that Saudi’s treat women,” Ibn-Al-Faisal, a spokesman for Saudi King Abdullah said. “For instance, Americans seem to believe that Saudis refuse to restrict women from driving due to our misogyny. Far from it. We refuse to let women drive because they represent a security threat to the kingdom. Have you ever seen a woman drive well? Let alone in a burka.”

Indeed several Saudi men on the street, confirmed that experiments had been conducted with women drivers in the past. According to popular myth, no woman had ever driven in Saudi Arabia. But that just isn’t true, according to tobacco salesman, Ahmed-Waleed Bin Laden.

“Sure, I have seen several women get behind a wheel and each time they crashed in the middle of the desert. Do you know how difficult it is to remove a car from a 500-foot high sand dune? It’s not easy, let me tell you.”

Bin Laden continued, claiming that Saudi women lack spatial ability.

“I don’t know about what women’s driving capabilities are like in your capitalist and sin-filled wonderland known as America,” Bin Laden continued. “But here, no woman has ever learned to read a map. One time, I told my fourth wife, Malalai, to go feed our Camel, Faldun some goat’s milk. The camel was only 200 feet away. When she hadn’t returned two hours later we had to form a search party. It turns out, she was somewhere in the vast desert, praying that God would return her to her home. And these are the people we are supposed to give driver’s licenses to?”

But in America, a different attitude abounds among the male population, men who consider themselves much too civilized to proscribe women from getting behind the wheel.

“I mean, I wouldn’t exactly say I feel safe driving with my wife,” contractor Tom Jones of Bakersfield said. “She’s got her driver’s license and all, which is nice, but I wouldn’t exactly say that driving’s her forte. But she’s getting better. She was only honked at twice yesterday. I guess I’d go for a ride with her. But I’d definitely wear my seatbelt. Definitely.”

But feminist scholar, Raquel Wilson seemed more emphatic about how necessary it is for Saudi women to receive driving privileges.

“Look, women, might not be the fastest drivers around and they might not cut you off as much as male drivers, but they’ll get you there…eventually,” Wilson said. “And there’s a women in NASCAR these days and women pay cheaper insurance. We all know how evil insurance companies are. Do you think they’re just giving women a better deal because they’re hotter than men? I don’t think so. And besides, haven’t you seen the musical “Annie Get Your Gun,” and heard the song lyric, ‘Anything you can do, I can do better.’ And no musical has ever lied ever.”

But most importantly, according to Al-Faisal, Saudi women aren’t allowed to drive because of a habit picked up from American television.

“We occasionally curse the politics of the heathen Americans and sometimes we praise their love of money and oil. However, one thing that all young Saudi males are consistent on is that they love American popular culture,” Al-Faisal said. “Here in Saudi Arabia, we watch MTV all the time and one habit that Saudi men have made their own is hollering at girls while they drive past them in their Mercedes.’ If women are driving and not walking, who will they have to holler at? No one. We can not let this happen. Saudi Arabia loves hollaback girls and hollaback girls love Saudi Arabia. Forbidding women from driving is imperative to this fabled tradition.”

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