Okaz newspaper

I know that I’m a bit late in talking about the big tractor that knocked down the great wall of injustice around the beach in Jeddah. But I believe that this historical moment can be celebrated at any time; this breakthrough concerns the memory and history of Jeddah, it is for the people who fell in love with the city and were once told that “there was a beach in Jeddah.”

When Saudi singer Muhammad Abdu sang about Jeddah he wrote it for the Jeddah he knew, the old Jeddah with the beautiful and pure sea. But he wrote this song at a time when there was no sea in Jeddah, just like the title of a novel by the Syrian writer and novelist Ghada Al-Samman “No sea in Beirut”.

At that time the beach was raped; the waves were confiscated and the breeze of the sea could only be smelled by monopolists. The citizens of Jeddah could not see or smell the sea, it had been monopolized along with the land and if the sky had been reachable then that would have been turned into sellable projects as well.

This injustice of man over nature could not be seen on this scale anywhere else in the world, and it challenged all laws and regulations. A wall similar to the wall of China separated a city from its sea and only a lucky few could run around and enjoy what God had given us while the rest of us hunted for a few little cracks in the wall so we could see the beach we loved and missed.

People gave up after pleading, writing, demanding and complaining, as it seemed to be of no use.

But a few days ago a great tractor came to end the long history of tyranny and injustice. It destroyed the wall of injustice and I hope it does not stop until every other aggressor is also destroyed.