Interview with Rahaf Mohammed on escaping Saudi Arabia to Canada
- Gender Studies Student
- Mar 23, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 25, 2019
This YouTube video was uploaded by CBC News: The National, and the video consists of the full interview that took place between Rahaf Mohammed and newscaster Susan Ormiston. In January 2019, Rahaf Mohammed an eighteen-year-old girl, fled Saudi Arabia and traveled to Canada to seek refuge. This resource relates to transnational social movements as it provides a personal narrative on what it is like to have to flee your home country and to seek refuge in a new country. Rahaf Mohammed is beautifully and horrifically honest in her explanations of how she escaped and why she was needing to escape.
I chose this resource because I believe it is a video that would provide clarity to those who do not understand why someone would need to seek asylum. Rahaf Mohammed, as well as all individuals who seek asylum are extremely brave and Mohammed expresses her experience in a way that I am sure many people who have had to seek asylum can relate to. This video is very important for this project as it gives the viewers both a visual and audio reference of the complexities and truths transnationalism holds. I believe it is easier to understand something when provided with a real life testament or personal narrative. This video rings true to my belief as it helped me a gain a deeper understanding of what really occurs when someone seeks asylum. Videos such as this one show people just how dangerous and volatile other countries are and how it is of the utmost importance that we all work towards pushing government agencies for peace and unity not only with those within our own countries but worldwide.
Keywords: asylum seeker, Canada, refuge, transnational
Author: H Dimes
After watching the video of Rahaf’s interview, I felt deeply with her struggle facing the injustice of her family under the current Saudi legislations. Rahaf’s story may apply to many Saudi women suffering from the same situation. Yet, what I keep thinking of and wondering about, that she escaped from her family when they were in Kuwait, in her way to Thailand and then to Australia to seek refuge under the Australian refugee law. But the Canadian government stepped out to help her immediately. Would the Canadian government help this lady if she was not from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? did her nationality make a difference under the current Canadian- Saudi political relations? I just hope that human beings…
It happened that I have watched this interview a couple of times when it spread through social media. I think the case is interesting and obviously the writer of this entry was very sympathetic and supportive, which is totally normal and acceptable when a person encounters such a story. In the GNDR class and in regards of transnational feminism, we came across Chimamanda Adichi who presented a very interesting view of the “danger of the single story”. The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story, which in my opinion is misguided because there is always the other side of…