Miniskirted, high-heeled Saudi girls swaying their hips back and forth to blasting khaleeji music, young men jumping on and off the dance floor, vodka glasses in one hand and cigarettes in the other… Welcome to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Miniskirted, high-heeled Saudi girls swaying their hips back and forth to blasting khaleeji music, young men jumping on and off the dance floor, vodka glasses in one hand and cigarettes in the other… Welcome to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I was sitting in a living room in Taif, Mecca province, Saudi Arabia, but couldn’t help but feel like I was in a club. At 4am, Khaleeji music blasted and Saudi girls dressed in miniskirts and obnoxious high heels swayed their hips back and forth with glasses of vodka in their left hands and cigarettes in the other. Men jumped on and off the “dance floor”, sometimes dancing with each other, and other times grabbing a girl and playfully spinning her around. Although 'mixing' of the sexes was forbidden, tonight, the normal Saudi rules did not apply.
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(Quick point here: I have nothing against breaking the rules, if the purpose is to exercise such a basic freedom as having fun. On the contrary, I long for the day when Saudis (and Arabs in general) launch massive campaigns of civil disobedience as a way to push individual freedoms. Yet in that Taif party, something nastier was in the air.)
Mohammed tapped me on the shoulder and laughed as he pointed out a couple making out passionately on the couch: a police officer with a beautiful girl sitting on his lap in his arms. We knew he had a wife and children; and this woman was definitely not the mother of his children.
One would never guess alcohol was illegal in Saudi from the large number of liquor bottles they had in the living room. Somehow they managed to run out, and Mohammed asked me to get more. “The dealer is coming, can you go out and grab the vodka for us, he’ll be in a black suburban, when you go outside to the car just reach out your hand with this money, but don’t look at him." I walked out with a wad of Mohammed's Riyals feeling like I was doing a major drug deal; so much trouble for a little bottle of vodka that could be bought in most of the world by 18 year olds. As the black suburban drove up, I turned my head away and reached out my arm with the equivalent of 100 dollars. The money disappeared and a bottle slid into my hand; then the car sped off.
The living room stunk of cigarettes and dancing, the only thing that was easy to hear over the blaring music was the strong laughter of the people in the room. “Which girl do you like?” I asked Mohammed. Although he had danced and laughed with all of them he gave me a disapproving look and replied “Ohhh, I don’t like these kind of girls, they’re just whores”. The “just” part would have been dismissive enough, were the girls actual prostitutes. But none of them was. They were regular family girls who happened to respond to dancing party invitations. Of course, they were no innocent young things either. Everyone understood that eventually, there would be more than just dancing. “But hey why not, that’s part of the fun and we are young, modern and inhibited, aren’t we?” That is, at least, what the boys said at face value. But to me, a foreigner aloof from the Saudi gender charade, the boys spoke their real mind: “the mere presence of a girl at such a party makes her worthy of being called a whore.” How fair is that.
The girls, who had hardly been wearing clothes the night before, were changing their heels to flats and putting on their niqabs. "We're not hypocrites", one of them said."In order to be a hypocrite, you have to have the ability to make a choice"
Exhausted, I retired to my bedroom. I slept through the booming of the music from down the hall. I woke up only once, when they cut the music for just a few minutes while the morning call to prayer went off outside. Despite the fact that they believed most of what they were doing that night was “Haram”, they they still made the effort to “respect the Adhan” – while drunk at a mixed party.
I woke up early the next morning. To my surprise, the sun was up and the music was still going. I left my room. As I walked down the hallway, I heard giggles and turned and saw two of the girls from the night before in bed with the married police officer.
I made my way out to the living room to say my goodbyes. A few people were still dancing in the middle of the living room with drinks in hand and a few others were passed out on the couches. The girls - who had hardly been wearing clothes the night before - were changing their heels to flats, putting on their abayas and adjusting their niqabs getting ready to leave. One of the girls hugged me goodbye, she still had one sparkly high heel on, and her abaya was open to reveal her outfit which resembled more of a tube top than a dress. She gave me a smile, as if to acknowledge that she knew it was odd to be covering up after last night. “We’re not hypocrites Habibti” she said, “in order to be a hypocrite, you have to have the ability to make a choice.”
Her and her friends were now covered from head to toe in black, their boyfriends and I escorted them out to the driveway where the Indian driver was waiting; parked safely within the gates so nobody could see the women had been at the house. She put her finger in the drivers face and said with a scold, “if you tell baba where you had to come to pick us up, Wallahi I will kill you!” He backed up frightened by the small girl, “No madam! Promise I won’t say anything!” She jumped into the back of the car satisfied, her friends followed and they waved goodbye to us.
“Did you guys have a good night” I asked. They gave me a huge smile. “Well, your girlfriends seem nice”, I said to them. “Right”, one replied sarcastically “they’re not nice girls, just prostitutes.” “Well,” I replied, “more innocent is the one who is a credulous victim to the system than the oppressor who keeps the system alive.” Ahmed rolled his eyes to show he got what I meant, then gave me a friendly pat on the head – as if he found my remark cute yet insignificant. “Well, that’s Saudi”, he said.
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