FEW years ago, it would have been considered strange for a group of men and women of different age groups hailing from different backgrounds, all gathered in one place and minding their own business. A young man with his sleeveless shirt, a girl with earphones hanging to her ears, a elegantly graying man and another with a modern haircut, are all walking and jogging up and down the newly developed walking areas in the city of Jeddah.
While people jogging in their sports attires in open areas may be a routine thing in the rest of the world, it is a sign of social change in the Kingdom.
Whether you like it or not, Saudi cities are not known to be very friendly to pedestrians. They were built to make it easier for cars to move around, not humans. Although, the network of Saudi roads is wide and complex, it lacks the basic facilities for pedestrians. Crossings, signals and signs meant to control pedestrian traffic are absent, and even wherever they exist, they do not work properly. And even if we assume that they are working, they mean nothing to most Saudi drivers because, perhaps, we lack this culture.
Years ago, I had been to Europe. I was surprised to see cars stopping for me and allowing me to cross the road. Some of those drivers must have been equally surprised by my response, as I stood in the middle of the road wondering as to why did he stop and instead of cursing me they just kept looking at me waiting for me to cross the street.
I was coming from a culture where crossing a street is more of an adventure, something similar to the famous arcade game, Frogger!
Many would argue that we were forced to build our cities like that due to our weather conditions. This is debatable. We do have a harsh weather that does not usually make it possible to move around comfortably but the lack of basic infrastructure for pedestrians has only aggravated the situation. Even in a breezy cool night, we are hesitant to walk down the grocery store at the end of the street.
In such a scenario, the trend of people thronging the walking areas is a healthy sign. It shows that people are becoming receptive to the idea of going outdoors for health reasons. This health awareness, per se, is a positive trend. We live in a country that is ranked 7th in the world when it comes to diabetes among adults between 20-79 years, according to reliable sources. We live in a country where 35.6 percent of the population is overweight, according to a study published on Al-Arabiya.net. We live in a country with more than one fourth of its adult population suffering from hypertension. That is why when people are using these walks with health issues at the back of their minds; it is definitely a positive trend.
A sea change in the attitudes of people can be noticed, as we fine men and women using same walking areas without reports of cases of harassment. For a conservative society, so sensitive to any man/woman interaction or being present in the same place, this shows that we are a civilized society that had been living under the shadows of unwarranted fears. That does not mean that unscrupulous elements had totally disappeared.
These small signs indicate that the Saudi society is changing and for the better one must say.
