It is celebration time in Saudi Arabia. An era has ended and another has begun as Sunday unfolded at the stroke of midnight when women, flaunting their richly deserved licences, revved up their car engines in the fountainhead of theocratic rule, on occasion reminiscent of the medieval era. A symbol of repression has been relegated to the footnotes of history.

“Suddenly I feel free like a bird. Saudi Arabia has finally entered the 21st century,” was the euphoric chant of Samar Almogren and many others who took to the steering wheel. That bout of romantic euphoria was reflected on the social media too ~ “Today, you take on the streets, tomorrow, Mars!” Such effusions of hope, indeed normal life, would have been inconceivable barely a year ago.

In the truest sense of the term, the women at the steering wheel personified freedom as they drove through the streets of Riyadh and other cities and stopped at coffee shops, unaccompanied by male guardians. Reservations of the clergy were accorded short shrift by the women, their families, and most importantly by the generation that is now helming the palace.

The liberal winds are blowing across the desert sands and Sunday marked a moment in history for the desert kingdom ~ the reformist agenda of Crown Prince Salman has eventually attained fruition. The next in line for the throne has scripted history as political as it is social; the woman’s right to drive reinforces her right to enter the sports stadia, cinema halls, and not least her participation in the Shura (governing council), if with a curtain separating the genders.

On a parity of societal reasoning, that curtain will hopefully be removed as governance graduates towards gender equality. That freedom must, however, chime oddly with the fact that many are still held in detention for having clamoured for driving licences for women. It also runs counter to the medieval forms of punishment for crime.

The Crown Prince can reasonably be expected to take a call on both issues with a profound bearing on societal mores and governance. The intrinsic contradictions in Saudi society and the structure of governance will hopefully now be addressed.

The country can scarcely afford the contradiction in terms to be institutionalised; it will be no less a challenge to strike a balance between reformist women and the theocratic clergy. Saudi society is torn between the forces of change and continuity.

The reformist palace will have to countenance a possible backlash from hardliners who doggedly believe that allowing female motorists will “promote promiscuity and sin”. Sunday the 24th of June signalled a great achievement for all women and it is definitely the key to more momentous changes. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman must be acutely aware that he will succeed to a challenging inheritance.