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Jeddah graffiti: the writing's on the wall (Andrew Hammond, 8/01/07, Reuters)

Dozens of young Saudis in the coastal city of Jeddah have challenged the authorities with street graffiti which has highlighted a growing generation gap in one of the world's most socially conservative countries.

Powerful clerics still enforce a strict code of public morals in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where more than 60 percent of the population is under 21.

But today, Saudi youths are growing up in an era shaped by the Internet, mobile phones and satellite television in a marked break from the sheltered upbringings of their parents. [...]

After months chasing the culprits, authorities earmarked this public park space and some big walls for street artists to paint and draw what they liked -- as long as they stopped daubing graffiti elsewhere in the city.

The images focus on youthful dissatisfaction with the world.

With the regime, rather.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 1, 2007 5:57 PM