Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt

"Joyriding in Riyadh is actually about the largest cohort in Saudi society, the youth. It’s about rural-urban migration. It’s about poverty and boredom. It’s about young men skidding cars and doing things to try and achieve a near-death experience—and there have been a lot of deaths, as Menoret documents in his book. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s also about urban development and how foreign companies walk into Saudi Arabia, tempted by huge contracts, and design a city and a way of life without actually understanding the country at all. The book is about the consequences of urban development and its impact on young people who live in the cities and how they feel about their cities and about how they are excluded from the centres of the cities. It looks at the subcultures that emerge in this environment, subcultures of criminality, of bravery, of assertive masculinity. All these kinds of issues that are associated with angry young men are explored in the book and it’s very interesting. Absolutely. Texas in the desert or Texas in Arabia. That’s what the cliché is, because of the way the cities are designed. Immigrants who come from rural areas, mostly less educated with fewer opportunities, gravitate towards certain pockets of the city. They are educationally low achievers and they drift into some kind of rebellion. Joyriding in Riyadh is not about criminality. It’s not about depicting the youth as difficult and criminal, it’s about looking at the culture that emerges in these marginal areas in a city where you have to have a lot of wealth to live well. I think Menoret explains it as a way of reclaiming the urban space. It’s asserting that this is your territory and you can do what you want in it. It is a dangerous game and there have been a lot of deaths. But it has become a cult, with its poetry and its imagery of constructed masculinity, friendship, camaraderie and solidarity between groups. It’s more than just a silly game that people engage in."