No Oases for Saudi Youths

Majid Korni is sipping a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, his mobile phone resting beside a makeshift ashtray where a Marlboro slowly burns. His eyes casually take inventory of the Faisaliah mall, looking past the food court and the storefronts as he searches for love.

All around are women, veiled from head to toe in the traditional Islamic black gown. But a few yards away are the brown-robed religious police who enforce Saudi society’s strict moral codes. If the 23-year-old college student so much as approaches a woman, he could be arrested. So if Korni is interested, he jots his cell phone number on a piece of paper and tosses it toward the woman.

Dating is forbidden, so the most any young man can hope for is a flirtatious phone call in return or, if really lucky, a secret liaison. “It is very hard to live here for young people,” Korni said. “Mixing with girls is very hard.”

The difficulties facing young adults in this region go far beyond searching for romance. Across the Arab world, young people have had a glimpse of the better life through access to satellite television and the Internet, and they’re worried that they won’t be able to go to college, find a good job or have a home of their own.

In Saudi Arabia, these concerns are especially shocking to a generation that grew up with an unparalleled sense of entitlement after the oil boom of the 1970s and ‘80s, which turned this once-backward country into a land of wealth and excess.

Today, Saudi youth live in a society that appears wealthy but is deeply in debt. The boom years were followed by lower oil prices, government deficits and rising unemployment. Unlike their parents, young people are no longer guaranteed good salaries and prestigious jobs.

They also live in a society that expects conformity but exposes them to the diversity of the world. It is saturated with symbols of American culture but promotes hostility against America’s foreign policy, values and Judeo-Christian underpinnings.

These economic and social pressures have left many young people scared, angry and susceptible to the kind of political thinking that inspired 15 Saudi men to participate in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Though not all young Saudis support Osama bin Laden, many freely express satisfaction with the assault on America.

“This is where disease finds a ripe ground,” said the kingdom’s longtime foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal. “When there is poverty, lack of resources and lack of opportunity for young men to pursue work, productive work, and there is the existence of festering problems like the Palestinian situation . . . that is a very volatile combination.”

To talk to young people and their parents in Riyadh, the capital, and the Red Sea port of Jidda is to get a glimpse into a society struggling under the weight of its demographic imbalance, economic problems and puritanical religious teachings. Few here believe this nation is in danger of the sort of upheaval that occurred in Iran with the 1979 revolution. But they fear that, without significant changes, Saudi Arabia could experience a slow unraveling of its social fabric.

The numbers alone have forced the Saudi government to pay close attention: An estimated 65% of the population is younger than 25. In 1970, 2,500 students graduated from high schools; this year, 200,000 will graduate. With the population growing at about 3% a year, the government must expand the economy about 6% annually to create the jobs needed to keep up with demand. In recent years, however, growth has been about 1%.

Many Arab regimes, from Egypt to Algeria, have even greater worries: Their economies have been hit hard by recession, and they do not have the benefit of the massive oil reserves held by Saudi Arabia.

The challenges are magnified here, however, because of the political, social and religious dynamics generated in a country that has done all it can to preserve a traditional way of life laid out about 1,400 years ago by the prophet Muhammad.

From its founding by Abdulaziz ibn Saud seven decades ago, the kingdom has controlled its fractious tribes through an alliance with the puritanical Wahhabi movement. The Islamic sect calls for living by the literal interpretation of the Koran. In Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy book serves as the constitution.

The agreement that binds a leadership interested in thrusting the country into modernity and a conservative religious camp dedicated to keeping the shades drawn amounts to a division of power: The religious community was given sway over social issues while the government took control of foreign affairs and other such matters of state.

Young Caught Between Cultures of East, West

This has created a society filled with young people caught between two powerful forces, Islamic fundamentalism and Western culture. The contrast is stark in terms of socializing. Religious rules prohibit unmarried men and women from mixing under most circumstances. Even at weddings, the bride and groom must have separate parties. Many marriages in Saudi Arabia are arranged between families.

Desperate for something to do, many young men flock to male-only restaurants outside the city. They sit under long tents staked in the desert, eat traditional foods and smoke fruit-flavored tobacco from water pipes. All the while they watch satellite television broadcasts of “The Sopranos,” “Ally McBeal” and other American shows.

“You see Saudi kids who dress Western, hang out at the mall, surf the Internet looking for pornography, but these are the same kids who stand up and cheer for Bin Laden,” said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity. “The kids are really mixed up.”

For young women, the options are even more limited and the frustrations greater. One 18-year-old said the best she can hope for is to go shopping, visit with friends in her home or go with the family on a picnic. But like teenagers everywhere, she is rebellious; she meets secretly with her American boyfriend in her house while her parents are out. If the young couple were caught, he would be kicked out of the country. She wasn’t sure what her punishment would be but was willing to take the risk.

“It is very boring here,” she said, adding that most of her friends are so eager for something to do that they almost always call the numbers that are thrown at them by men. “No one can stop it,” she said.

Though the frustration among young people is most evident in terms of social restrictions, they are deeply concerned about shrinking options for the future. Five years ago, 90% of high school graduates were admitted to the free public university system; today, there is room for only 65% of the growing pool of graduates, and the percentage is falling.

Even those who make it to university worry about finding a job after graduation.

“When I think about it, I believe I will not find a job. So it is better not to think about it now,” said Naief Asef, 23, a political science student at Riyadh’s King Saud University. “I am worried.”

There are reasons for concern. At the heart of the nation’s financial difficulties is its dependence on oil, which makes up an estimated 75% of the government’s budget. In 1981, per capita income in Saudi Arabia was equal to that in the United States, about $28,600 in current dollars. Primarily because of falling oil prices, it has since slid below $8,000.

Leaders are trying to diversify the economy by organizing a massive new gas project, privatizing more of the economy and inching toward admission to the World Trade Organization. “The idea is to be independent of any one source of income,” said Ali Ibrahim Naimi, minister of petroleum and mineral resources. “That is easier said than done.”

But even if the government succeeds, there are psychological hurdles resulting from the sense of privilege oil bestowed on native Saudis. The unemployment rate for young men is conservatively about 14% (relatively few women are permitted to work). But the problem is not a lack of jobs--it is a lack of suitable jobs. Foreign workers make up about a third of the country’s 22 million people. Saudis would not dream of becoming a cook, hotel clerk, elevator mechanic or, heaven forbid, taxi driver. They expect white collar jobs.

Naimi said it is a difficult dynamic to overcome. “They are knocking on our door daily, saying, ‘It is my right to have a job.’ ”

When Asef, the political science student, and his friends reflect on the changing reality around them, they express anger and confusion. “Everything here is American,” Asef said. “This building is made by Americans; you go to the hospital, it is American; but the kingdom doesn’t like American politics against Islam.”

Tensions--between East and West, hope and reality--are visible in downtown Riyadh on any Thursday night, the first day of the weekend. Young people have one thing on their minds: finding something fun to do. But movie theaters and dance clubs are not permitted.

Entertainment means either sneaking into malls--which on the weekends are restricted to families--going to a coffee house, taking a drive or staying home absorbed in Internet chat rooms. Many young men in Riyadh said that whenever possible they make the 2 1/2-hour drive to neighboring Bahrain, where they can meet with Eastern European “hostesses” and drink alcohol openly. In Jidda, young men said they often try to meet up with foreign women who work as flight attendants for Saudi Arabian Airlines and live in a compound within the city.

Stoplight Offers Chance for a Brief Encounter

For many, there is not much else to do but cruise. Along Olaya Street, Riyadh’s main drag, traffic police are out in force. The road is clogged with cars packed with young men cruising. New Suburbans and Mercedes and Chevrolets jam the intersections. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, but they’re easy to spot--sitting alone in the back seat.

At a red light, four young men in a Chevy Lumina pull alongside a car carrying a woman. They turn on their overhead lamp, take off their traditional scarf headdresses, put baseball caps on backward and turn up the music. The seated young men begin to dance wildly, rocking the car as they try to get the woman’s attention with herky-jerky hand motions reminiscent of Michael Jackson.

The woman peers at them through her veil. Then the light changes, the men lower the music and speed off.

If the religious police--volunteers organized by the state-financed General Presidency for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice--had spotted them, the young men probably would have been taken in and their parents called.

Back at the Faisaliah mall, a year-old monument to Western-style consumerism, Korni wasn’t any luckier.

Though single men are not allowed in the shopping center on weekends, Korni and his friends persuaded the guards to let them in. Their liberty was short-lived: The religious enforcers expelled them before they were able to score a phone number.

Dejected, the three young men left the ultramodern marble-and-glass building for the street, where they said they would drive around--looking for women.