The old adage that “the devil makes work for idle hands” must not have been far from the thoughts of Deputy Labor Minister for Planning & Development Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid when he addressed a preparatory meeting of the 7th National Dialogue in Dhahran a couple of days ago. He is worried that unless jobs can be found for the half-million unemployed Saudis, many will turn to crime.
That crime is on the increase is a shock for a country that has prided itself on being a place where people feel extremely safe both at home and on the streets. No human society is crime-free but Saudi Arabia had enjoyed the praise particularly of foreigners telling of how safe they feel here compared to other countries.
But the truth is that we all know that crime is on the up, despite the denials or — when that is not possible — the misguided willingness to blame it all on foreigners. It is far from the whole picture and undermines credibility in officialdom; truth must be faced up to and be told. It is not merely more cases coming to light. As this paper reported a couple of weeks ago, there has been a rise in house burglaries in Riyadh (of the 27,140 thefts and burglaries recorded last year, over 12,500 were in the Riyadh region). No one is totally safe, not even at home — as a group of young children and their uncle discovered last Friday when in a particularly violent burglary in the capital, thieves threatened to kill the children if the uncle did not hand over his credit card and pin code. The crooks then went to the nearest ATM, taking one of the children with them as hostage to prevent the uncle from canceling his card. The tactic of taking temporary hostages in order to prevent victims from canceling cards is so common in Mexico City that the locals there call it “express kidnapping”.
Saudi Arabia is still a lot safer than almost any other country. Despite the rise in crime, Riyadh and Jeddah are vastly more secure than Mexico City or Manila, or even New York or London. Furthermore, police success in tracking down and capturing criminals is generally higher here that in the West. The criminals involved in last Friday’s brutal incident in Riyadh were quickly caught. People respect authority and are much more willing to inform on wrongdoers than in other countries, but none of this is any reason for complacency. There are, of course, other interrelated explanations for the crime rise, such as drugs, population growth, illegal residents and a society increasingly numbed by the media into an acceptance of violence.
But jobs are crucial. Without them, the all-too-real danger is that some young unemployed Saudis, bewitched by the materialism they see others enjoying and which TV and videos suggests, will be tempted into criminal means of satisfying their wants. Jobless and with resentment gnawing in their hearts, they will turn against society and to terrorism.
Employment of Saudis is the key to a healthy Saudi society, which is why it has to be pursued with vigor and determination. There can be no letup on that front.
