JEDDAH — The assembled audience at the Jeddah Exhibition Center could not believe their eyes or ears. Nothing has been seen quite like it before — at least not in Jeddah.
They had come to the opening of the Jeddah Economic Forum on Saturday night — local and international business leaders, administrators, functionaries, the great and the good — all expecting speeches about the importance of international alliances. That they got. But they got much more. They got a concert with full classical Western orchestra — plus an Arab orchestra, dancers and massive screens behind rolling out dramatic images of life in Jeddah pulsating in time to the music.
This was a fusion of Arab and Western music, with rhythm and attitude. For half an hour, we did not quite know whether we had stumbled into an unknown Jeddah nightclub or whether it was some amazing mistake that would suddenly stop.
It started, lights dimmed, with a single oud filling the hall with a hauntingly romantic, classic Arab sound — but to Western ears playing a vaguely familiar tune.
Slow hand clapping in time to the music started to come from the women’s section. A piano joined in, then the violins and cellos of the orchestra. It was Mozart. A little known concerto for oud, piano and orchestra perhaps?
Dancers took to the stage and moved to the music then the music changed: More Mozart, more upbeat. So it continued for a good half hour. There was singers, more dancers, an Arab orchestra — and a rhythm and a beat all the way through. The audience loved it. By the end they were clapping and cheering.
This was more than just mere entertainment. There was a clear political and economic message here. The forum’s theme this year is “Value Creation through Alliances and Partnerships.” Here was proof in music that putting different cultures together can work. Arab music and Western music had come together in a form that was exciting as it was novel. It worked brilliantly.
The message that there is everything to gain by working together with the wider world, everything to be lost by remaining aloof from it, had been enunciated earlier in words by the forum’s Chairman Sami Bahrawi, by Commerce and Industry Minister Hashim Yamani and by the Governor of Makkah Region Prince Khaled Al-Faisal in their opening speeches.
Human civilization has always been enriched by dialogue and exchange, Yamani told the audience. The Muslim world had been part of the process in the past, contributing to the wider world’s understanding of science and medicine among other subjects.
Today, globalization is an ongoing process from which the world benefits, he said, and Muslims have to be fully part of it. Partnerships with other countries, other cultures, are to be welcomed. Fears of one’s own culture being swamped or western economic domination are exaggerated, he said.
Likewise, Prince Khaled spoke of Jeddah having always been in contact with and influenced by the rest of the world because of its position as gateway to the Two Holy Mosques and the most important port on the Red Sea.
Globalization has changed Jeddah and will change it further, making it even more prosperous. There was nothing wrong in following other countries’ moves, he said. The gap between Saudi Arabia and other countries had to be closed.
But if anyone missed the message that dialogue and interaction with other societies works, the beat of Mozart on the Red Sea left no doubt. Arab and Western cultures had come together. There had been no clash, no discord — just harmonies, exciting new harmonies.