JEDDAH, 18 November — As a Saudi, and as a young person, I would like to highlight the challenges we face in our country.
Statistics from the Ministry of Planning show that roughly 60 percent of the Saudi population is below the age of 18. According to the last census, 52 percent of them are female.
We were children when our parents were enjoying the oil boom days. At that time making money was far easier than it is today, and there were fewer challenges.
There were no major wars in the region after 1973 that could shape the concerns of my generation, and the first Palestinian intifada did not start until after we had come of age.
At the beginning of the eighties, the population of Saudi Arabia, according to the school curriculum, was 12 million. A couple of years later, it had jumped to 16 million. Now it is 21 million. That figure is set to increase dramatically.
The Kingdom’s population growth rate is 4.5 percent annually, among the highest in the world. Without proper planning, the children of my generation may as well not study beyond high school, because they will be highly unlikely to find suitable jobs even if they do.
One of the many challenges young people of my generation now face is recognition. It is as though we are caught between two ideologies: a conservative one, which our fathers and ancestors once knew; and a new one, which takes its cue from globalization and the Internet.
One man views wearing thobes and shummaghs (the traditional Saudi attire) as essential to gain public respect and prestige; another prefers to be easy going and wears pants and a shirt simply because he feels more relaxed dressed like that. One man marries at 18, and stresses the importance of marrying early; another marries at 30 and thinks it no big deal. One man believes it is wrong or unacceptable for women to work; another prefers to marry a working woman, so they can both benefit from a joint income. One man is such a socialite that neighbors consider him to be a part of their family; another, because of the hardships in life he faces, has become so bogged down in making money that he hardly knows his neighbors’ names. One man does not care a great deal about materialism, has not given the matter of superficial appearance any thought; another says: "Father, I can’t buy this car. What would my friends say?"
The most significant issue facing young people in Saudi Arabia today is unemployment. Our local press tells us that between 25-30 percent of graduates do not have a job. Every year, hundreds of thousands more high school students graduate. Two thirds of that number cannot find a place in our seven universities. Accordingly, the acceptance average within Saudi universities has jumped from 75 percent to 90 percent in the space of a few years. Reports say that some high school graduates with a 95 percent average still are unable to gain entrance.
I regret to say that for many young people, the Kodak moment did not last long. Of the students who managed to enter college, a greater challenge was to be faced when they had finished their studies: finding a job, either in the private or the government sector. And with more and more graduates of my generation in the same position, a comprehensive solution to the problem must be found, before it has the chance to transform from a challenge into a crisis.
Our government has invited major investors in the oil industry to invest in the Kingdom, for the first time in 20 years. The Council of Ministers, headed by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, continues to encourage the private sector to shoulder its responsibilities and share with the government sector the responsibility for society’s development.
All this is to create more jobs for Saudis. But there is still much more to it than just that. Young Saudis need to ask themselves what they can do for their country, not what their country can do for them. Ideas need to change; misconceptions need to be corrected. Saudi graduates have to prove themselves in their chosen field if they want a proper job.
Perhaps one of the positive aspects of being a part of my generation is that certain norms that were pervasive a decade ago are slowly being eroded. A manual job is fit only for a Third World immigrant? That kind of thinking is no longer good enough. What goes up must come down: we Saudis have had to learn the moral of that proverb the hard way.
When young people made fun of me when I cleared my tray in a fast-food restaurant in 1989 — as everyone is used to doing abroad — how could I have known that, just a decade later, boys from my generation would be doing exactly that for a living?
Saudis working in McDonald’s or any other fast-food restaurant seemed incomprehensible in the eighties, even the early nineties. Now, you find Saudi security guards strolling in any mall all the hours God sends for a monthly salary of SR1,200.
The kind of jobs once considered only for people of "low standards" — such as limousine drivers, salesmen, and secretaries — suddenly seem attractive to Saudis too. I’m sure we are all familiar with the word "Saudization", especially after orders from the Ministry of Interior said that jewelry shops should be 100 percent Saudized.
That edict was later changed, so it could be achieved step by step.
Saudization will never be successful if young people continue to value more what their peers will think of them than what is actually best for them and their future. I am glad that my generation is correcting so many false images that once prevailed, especially regarding the job situation. But more — much more — remains to be done.
Saudi graduates need to prove themselves more successful than their foreign colleagues, especially if they are to compete in the private sector. They need to correct the reputation they have sometimes had of being lazy, willing only to accept administrative positions. They should not be afraid to experience failure. They should strive for perfection. Only then can the replacement by Saudis of non-Saudis in the work-force really take off.
This is our country, our future. No one will care enough to help us if we do not care enough to help ourselves.