Do we have domestic problems? You bet. Our per capita income has dropped from over $28,000 in the early 1980s — similar to what it was in the United States — to $7,000 now, the equivalent to Mexico. This has made ours the fastest-shrinking economy in the world.
The new BMWs, Mercedes Benzes, and other fancy cars you find zooming down Tahlia Street in Riyadh and Jeddah do not represent the standard of living of most Saudis. The used and beat-up cars that are found in other areas of these cities as well as in Dammam, Makkah, Abha, Jizan and Tabuk do.
Even though wire agencies and Western journalists continue to refer to our country as “oil-rich”, each time they mention it, the truth is that it is no longer appropriate. In fact, the majority of Saudi families are those who make a great effort at the end of every month to pay for the car installments, the rent, the electricity bill, the landline plus mobile phone bills, groceries, school supplies, the maid’s salary, and other expenses. And with the huge deficit in the government’s budget year after year and our population explosion, Saudi society is slowly starting to split in two categories: Rich and poor.
Should we shy away from the fact that lots of Saudi families — which tend to be fairly large — are already broke by the middle of every month, counting the days slowly and waiting desperately for the pay check to come with the new month?
Should we also pretend that there are no Saudi families living in the slums of our cities whose living conditions are so bad that you would think they were in an impoverished country?
In the early 1980s, a government teacher’s salary scale started at SR6,000. At that time a Toyota Sedan could be bought for the SR30,000. The ratio was 1 to 5. Today a government teacher’s salary starts at SR4,000, and the price of a Toyota Sedan is now about SR75,000: The ratio is now 1 to 17. In other words, due to the rise in the prices of cars, electronics, clothes, real estate, and even groceries — all of which have tripled in the past 20 years, government employees’ salaries should have also tripled. But that has not happened.
Our high unemployment rate — which we still have not officially declared — as well as other factors such as frustration and poverty — could be behind an increase in crime. Bank robberies, car theft, rape, and murder are examples, not to mention the rise in domestic violence and ill-treatment of maids in Saudi houses. Such a phenomenon was alien to our society just over a decade ago but has now become commonplace news in our daily papers.
Is any research being done? Have sociologists in our universities been consulted? Have officials called for a nationwide debate? Of course not.
The fact that 70 percent of Saudis are under the age of 21; that we are breeding like rabbits despite our financial slump; that we are still dependent on oil and have not found ways to diversify our economy in the past 50 years — none of it is being properly addressed.
We are like a pressure cooker that has been placed on a steady flame.
Arab News Features 9 April 2003
