عن احداث الخبر والرياض وجده اليكم ما كتبت النيويورك تايمز ويا قلب لا تحزن
February 20, 2002





Bored Saudi Youth Take Wild Side to the Street

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

IYADH, Saudi Arabia — A rebellion of the bored is being waged on the streets and highways of Saudi Arabia.

Late one night in mid-December on the coastal road in Jidda, about 1,000 young men went wild. According to the Arabic-language Saudi daily Al Watan, they whooped and hollered, harassed women in passing cars, blocked traffic, attacked police officers and smashed car windows. The police, untrained in riot control, called in reinforcements who dispersed the crowd, but not before a number of people were injured.

Shortly afterward in the city of Dammam, more than a dozen young men surrounded a limousine, beat the driver and dragged his three female passengers from the car, Al Watan reported.

Then in early February in the city of Khobar, after the Saudi soccer team beat Qatar to win the regional Gulf Cup, a group of young men took to the corniche to celebrate. After they threw stones and bottles at the police, more than 100 were arrested and two security officers were injured, again according to Al Watan.

By all accounts, the youthful exuberance was touched off not by politics but by ennui. Saudi Arabia is, after all, a theocratic kingdom that bans dating, cinemas, concert halls, discothèques, clubs, theaters and political organizations and offers few oases like museums, libraries or gyms.





Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
In Jidda, Saudi Arabia, boys released pent-up energy playing soccer in a plaza in the Old Town.








Young people are expected to conform to the dictates of both tradition and religion, despite their exposure to the diverse world they discover from satellite television, mobile phones, the Internet, and in the ubiquitous expressions of American culture in their shopping malls — from Starbucks to Planet Hollywood.

"They have put us in a box," said a 17-year-old high school graduate too scared of his family to allow his name to be used. "And you know what happens when you are put in a box. You throw it open and go wild."

The rambunctiousness also reflects larger economic, social and demographic problems: a shrinking job market, the high cost of marriage, an educational system grounded in rote memorization and an erosion of family values in a country in which 65 percent of the population is under the age of 25.

Because of lower oil prices, per capita income has slid from $28,600 a year in current dollars in 1981 to below $8,000 today. Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz is so concerned about the kingdom's economy that he warned in a message to government agencies two weeks ago that the kingdom is suffering a "suffocating crisis" and ordered a crackdown on government spending.

The pressures have left many young people confused and restless, and admiring of the radical defiance of the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. However, there appears to be little appetite for the terrorism and violence advocated by bin Laden. Rather, young men are rebelling in other ways: by luring police officers into 120 mile-an-hour chases on the freeways, tossing firecrackers into crowds at soccer matches, even disguising themselves as women to infiltrate women-only spaces. On the night of the incident in Dammam, two young men were killed during a high-speed joy ride when their Toyota Camry hit a lamppost.

Rebellion often takes the form of Tom-and-Jerry chases with the police. On a main intersection of the capital city, Riyadh, after the soccer game against Qatar, for example, two men stopped traffic, turned up the volume of their rock music, jumped out of their car and started dancing wildly. Before the police could catch them, they jumped back in and sped away. Some groups of young men cruise girls' schools as they are closing — all the better to harass girls on their way home.

Religion and tradition prohibit unmarried men and women from mixing easily, but some of them — sometimes with the complicity of their parents — find ways around the rules. At a recent private party in a mansion in Jidda, a port city that historically has been much freer than Riyadh, about 50 young men and women in various states of dress and undress talked, sipped soft drinks, danced, even groped each other. At midnight, a lavish dinner was served by a gaggle of servants. The parents of the hostess kept watch from the vast living room.

"I'd rather have my kids having fun at home where I can watch them than be nervous that they are roaming the streets," said the young woman's mother. "As long as we keep these things private, no one will bother us."

In another part of Jidda, privileged young women have their chauffeurs drive them to a chic restaurant where they flout convention by dining on their own and imitating young men at nearby tables by smoking water pipes filled with fruit-favored tobacco.

More ominous than such antics is the willingness of young people to confront the police, a new phenomenon in a society that puts a premium on obeying authority.

"It's the police, not the Saudi youth, that are dangerous," said a foreign diplomat who has investigated the incidents. "The police in the cities aren't trained at all in crowd control. What happens if the police cannot put down the demonstrations? Do they start shooting?"

In the incident in Dammam, the diplomat said, the police blocked roads and walkways, nearly causing a stampede as bystanders struggled to flee.

Coincidentally, Saudi newspapers like Al Watan and the English-language Arab News have begun to play a more activist role by reporting and analyzing such incidents.

"As a young Saudi myself, I wondered, what has got into our young people?" wrote Raid Qusti, a 27- year-old Saudi journalist, in a recent commentary in Arab News. "Can this be the behavior of Muslim young people who have studied Islamic books from elementary through secondary school?"

Mr. Qusti offered his own explanations for the behavior. The first, he said, is bad upbringing. "Life has changed and the economic situation is tighter than before, so the father is too bogged down making a living and earning money," he wrote. "As for the mother, if she's not working as well, she's too busy on the phone or at a friend's or going out to a mall."

Then there is "repression" of the country's youth. "Any youth has hormones," Mr. Qusti wrote. "Too much leisure time and having nothing to do can get them flowing at breakneck speed."

Finally, he noted the absence of the rule of law, and favoritism for the powerful that have contributed to an erosion of the moral fabric of society.

"It's obvious the young men had no respect for the law," Mr. Qusti said of the youths in Jidda and Dammam. "Perhaps some of that is due to their parents who failed to teach their children respect for authority. But we must say that when the law is applied to everyone — including ministers, heads of departments and V.I.P.'s — then perhaps we Saudis will respect the law.

"Would a police officer dare to give a ticket to any of the above for running a red light? Impossible!"

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