Youth driven to the wall

College dropout Abdullah Al Alwani wanted to stand out among his friends but he couldn't afford a splashy car or brand-name clothes. Bored by a lack of things to do, he decided to make his mark by spray-painting X 5, his chosen nickname, hundreds of times across the city.

Mohammad Jamal Abo Umara, the newly appointed official in charge of Jeddah's beautification, spent months on Al Alwani's trail. He alerted the police, told local newspapers he was looking for X 5 and offered a $1,300 reward to anyone who could lead him to the city's most prolific graffiti artist.

In May, a journalist offered to introduce the two men to each other on the condition that vandalism charges be waived, and both agreed.

But the June encounter, widely covered by the local media because of X 5's notoriety, ended up addressing not just the graffiti problem but also what had fuelled it — a host of frustrations faced by Al Alwani's generation.

Since then, Al Alwani and his graffiti buddies have appeared smiling and apologetic in dozens of magazine, newspaper and television interviews, focusing a rare spotlight on Saudi youth.

The way I want to be

Like many of his generation, Al Alwani, a slight 20-year-old with an Afro tinted volcano red, is buffeted between the Western culture piped into his life via satellite television and the internet and the strict religious culture prevalent around him.

"I want graffiti walls like they have in the West. We need soccer fields and basketball courts in every neighbourhood," said Al Alwani, who prefers to wear low-riding jeans. "And I want to dress the way I want without people making fun of me."

Saudi Arabia has one of the world's youngest populations, with more than 50 per cent of its 22 million citizens younger than 21.

Abo Umara, the municipality official and a father of four, was criticised by colleagues for turning Al Alwani into a local celebrity instead of making an example out of him for vandals who have cost the city close to $1 million in graffiti cleanup.

But Abo Umara, 45, said young men like Al Alwani should not be held accountable until officials are sure they've done right by local youth.

"What have we done for young people? Have we asked them what they need or want?" said Abo Umara. "Until I talk to them and find out why they are scribbling all over Jeddah and do my part in offering them the services we're supposed to provide, then I can't punish or criticise them."

True to his word, Abo Umara held a two-day workshop called What Do Youth Want From Jeddah? in July, shortly after his meeting with Al Alwani. More than 200 young men and women attended, on separate days, and their list of demands included cinemas, public libraries, and music and art centres.

The young women asked for private beaches for women and girls, for at least widows and divorced women to be permitted to drive, and for boys who harass them to be fined.

Both groups requested sports facilities, of which there are very few in Saudi Arabia.

Abo Umara was able to implement one demand immediately: walls dedicated to graffiti.

At the palm-tree-lined Faisal Bin Fahd walkway, women in abayas and running shoes walk determinedly, as men in shorts and T-shirts jog past. On a grassy embankment in the middle, more than 40 graffiti canvases have been set up.

On a recent day, young men on their knees mixed paint and drew. On one canvas, a dejected face had been drawn.

Another canvas depicted a group of young men behind cage bars, looking out at a mall-lined street.

"We don't have anything to do in our spare time, and we're not even allowed into malls. That's why I started spray-painting. As a protest," said Mohammad Qarni, 20, sitting on a bench painted with swear words.

Qarni said he stopped only after he narrowly escaped arrest and Al Alwani persuaded him to accept the city's amnesty offer. "All I want is equality with girls," said Qarni, who has cropped hair and wears glasses. "They're allowed to go to malls anytime."

The graffiti artists got to know one another from online chat groups, where they often share photos of graffiti they admire from websites such as graffiti.org.

Sporting an Ed Hardy baseball cap with rhinestones over a black T-shirt and jeans, Abdullah Al Subaie, 20, who's studying to be a pilot, said that writing graffiti gave him and his friends cachet.

"It was a way of showing off," said Qarni, whose nickname is A.H., for Always Homeless. "And of proving ourselves."

Though Al Alwani and his friends write their graffiti in English, they do not speak it, and most have not travelled outside the Arab world.

Al Alwani said he'd love to travel to the United States to see the graffiti walls of New Jersey that he's seen online. In the meantime, he has used his newfound fame to make some money: He was hired last month to paint fluorescent 3-D graffiti on the black walls of the Star Billiards pool hall.

But it doesn't quite match the thrill of spray-painting on the streets, he said.

"You have to mix paint and draw, then tape. I miss the excitement of a quick spray-paint on the walls. Five minutes and you were done and out of there."