It was the 77th birthday of the Kingdom, but it was only the third year running that Saudis were, officially speaking, allowed to celebrate. Anyone who found themselves out on the streets in Jeddah Sunday night saw the shabab (young Saudi men) celebrating as though they were making up for all those years where celebrating the country’s foundation was considered a no-no.
But since Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah opened the way for permitting a secular national holiday in 2005, the streets of the country’s main cities fill up with national flags, pimped-out cars and Saudis painted up in green, the national color, on Sept. 23.
This year, National Day was officially declared a bank holiday, allowing workers the day off. This combined with the holiday falling inside the holy month of Ramadan meant that there were even more reasons to hit the streets at night, honk horns, squeal tires and dance in the name of national pride.
After breaking the day’s fast on Sunday, a steady trickle of cars began to fill the streets. In Jeddah, most of the action took place on ritzy Tahliah St. By 11 p.m. Sunday night, Tahlia looked like a major football match had just ended with a much-wanted victory.
Thousands of young Saudi men in hundreds of vehicles, some completely green with removable party paint, seemed to be trying to out-do each other in celebration. Posters of the King Abdullah and green Saudi flags were everywhere, along with young men, some wearing afro wigs. Most cars were blasting music, mostly traditional drum-heavy Saudi music with the occasional thump-thump of a booming bass system out of a pimped-out ride. More than one Humvee had been decorated with the Saudi symbol (two crossed swords and a date palm).
The Saudi police were out in numbers, along with several large empty buses, but for the most part they seemed only there in case things got out of hand. One cop was seen filling the time by picking up posters of the king that had fallen on the street. While traffic was a mess, the revelers for the most part seemed happy to play within the rules, if not the letter of the traffic law. Police were seem stopping the cars that had been completely painted green, and issuing warnings to people who were slowing traffic. At one point in the evening, police were seen directing traffic away from a section of Tahlia Street, leaving it pleasantly open for foot pedestrians.
Noticeably absent on the street where women. The women who were present seemed to be more than happy to watch from the windows of the malls that line Tahlia rather than being out on the street among a bunch of screaming, testosterone-pumped and painted-up young men. Out on Jeddah’s Corniche, young girls were seems waving the flags as rigorously as their brothers. Inside Le Mall, a few women were seen sporting tasteful green accessories, including at least one green designer bag. There was, however, the occasional car filled with family, including women, waving flags and shouting patriotic slogans from the rolled-down windows.
While the traffic was chaos (woe to anyone out on Sunday night simply trying to get somewhere), Saudi Arabia’s 77th birthday ended in Jeddah with little or no egregious incidences.
