Saudi youth bored in model Islamic state controlled by Islamist hardliners - by Andrew Hammond
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi youth are chronically bored in a country that can't provide them with jobs and restricts their personal freedoms, one of Saudi Arabia's most well-known Internet bloggers says.In Saudi Arabia, strict gender segregation means there are no cinemas, women are not allowed to drive, single men are often banned from shopping malls, and trendy coffee shops -- which have become hugely popular in big cities -- are men-only zones."Single guys are not allowed to enter the shopping malls, that's just for families or women.
There are now more than 500 Saudi bloggers and they have become sharply divided between reform-minded youth and traditionalists, Omran says. Internet penetration of around only 14.5 percent limits bloggers' ability to influence events. Omran's blog in Arabic and English (saudijeans.blogspot.com), where he mixes thoughts on political and social issues with observations about everyday life, has stood out in the burgeoning Saudi cyber community for its insights into changing Saudi society.
With some 60 percent of the Saudi population thought to be under 21, Omran's experience is radically different from that of the handful of old men running the country. The senior members of the Saudi royal family are in their 70s and 80s. And Islamist hardliners, or the "forces of darkness" as Omran's blog has dubbed them, have come out fighting against liberal trends in society, arguing there must be limits to change in the land where Islam was born and which contains its holiest shrines.
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