For an ancient land, Saudi Arabia is having considerable trouble coming of age. The problem comes not from any lack of customs and cultural content, but from our seeming inability to integrate the conflicting tendencies that characterize us today.
Without integration, we become a society of contrasts that leave us little opportunity to grow. To someone experiencing our culture firsthand for the first time, it may call to mind the old fable of the blind men observing an elephant; each with a hand on a different part of the animal, they had startlingly different descriptions of it. There seemed no way that the diverse parts could be combined within a single animal. But while the elephant walks the earth as a very successful, if odd, creature, Saudi Arabia’s contradictory parts may be holding it back from attaining the mature and fully integrated identity that will carry us forward in this century.
Old and new co-exist here, which could be a marvelous thing, except that tradition and modern innovations each seem to be holding the other back in a land where three quarters of our population are now under the age of 30. This might appear to give us the benefit of both worlds — but such can only be the case if there is understanding and mutual co-operation between them. Instead, there is prevailing disconnection.
Young people are disenfranchised and often unemployed, and the dissatisfaction of their situation doesn’t even seem to spur them into political action, as has happened in other nations on the past couple of years. Maybe this is because they have too many appealing distractions. The rate of social media use among young Saudis is exceptional, with higher usage of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook than most other nations in the Middle East, and, indeed, much of the world.
Much has been said in the news about the role of social media as a politicizing force. But for most Saudis, it doesn’t mean that at all. Rather, as in the west, social media are a glittery distraction — a toy, as it were, to keep these young adults happy in a largely un-awakened state.
Social and digital media joins with other luxuries, such as our celebrated shopping areas, which provide a good deal of scope for the interests and proclivities of the youth, and of anyone who wants to live a life of modern amenities and ideas. The danger comes, however, if we allow these tastes and tendencies to further fragment our society, and this is what inevitably happens when we don’t find a way to integrate the knowledge and interests youth more deeply into our social and political fabric.
Resistance to change, in an ancient country, is understandable. We don’t want to lose those very things that we most deeply value. The problem is that change will creep in regardless of any efforts we might make to contain it. And at that point, it can go in two directions — it can feed an underground or counter culture, or it can be meaningfully and mindfully integrated into mainstream culture. The latter is a more challenging process, but it is far more rewarding. I am convinced that this is the direction in which we must go in order to grow as a society — indeed, to grow up and finally come of age.
