I celebrate the sixth anniversary of Saudi Jeans today. The blog that I started just for fun has claimed a life of its own, and has in many ways become central to my own life. It has been a great journey. Like a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, turns and twists, joy and fear. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes nice, sometimes nasty. But always, always interesting.
Some argue that although I say the goal of this blog is to push for change in Saudi Arabia, little has changed in the country and this little has nothing to do with Saudi Jeans or blogging. That could be true, and I’m okay with it. Changing a nation is too great of an endeavour for a humble blog like mine to meet. But for me the question is not if blogging has changed (or can change) Saudi Arabia or not. The question I keep asking myself is: is it wroth trying? And my answer is absolutely yes.
I know that I aim too high. That’s just me. I can’t settle for less, I want everything. I’m greedy like that, but I don’t accept injustice and I believe that we, as people, deserve better. My dreams are big and wild, but I will never suppress them. You can share those dreams, or laugh at them, but you can’t stop me, and you can’t shut me up.
What the future holds for Saudi Jeans? I don’t know, to be honest. After I wrote this blogpost on new year’s eve, some readers had the impression that I was laying the ground to announce later the end of the blog. It certainly wasn’t the case. Saudi Jeans will be around for at least one more year. There is a big chance I might leave the country in the coming few weeks. I will be away from KSA for a while, and I’m still unsure what is that going to mean for Saudi Jeans. I, however, plan to continue blogging from abroad.
Allow me in the end to express my gratitude to my family and friends for I’m nothing without them, and thank you readers for giving me some of your attention over these years.
The kid in the video is my little brother Mohammed. I took this video about two weeks ago in an amusement park here in Hofuf, east of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Jeans 
Hi Ahmed,
Congratulation! my friend..
six years.. giving your best to push for a change. I believe your blog one of the most healthiest blog that all can visit and read.
Truly I learned a lot from Fouad and you ..
thanks for being .. there to change.
All best and Good Luck in your coming years..
I am so grateful to have found you, and learn what’s going on and to read your reflections. As an American who knows KSA only from slanted media pieces, personal memoires that may be edited one way or another, and my Saudi students who work hard to portray their country only in a positive light, I love your honesty! You help with my credibility in the classroom as you inform me and I can share my knowledge… and, of course, it all helps improve communication and good will! Please, at LEAST a year more!!! BP
Happy Blirthday :)
Change, might not come from blogging, but a collective group of people who share an idea or a goal can influence that change.
Having said that, blogging became the medium for a person, a regular person for that matter, to voice his/her opinions… and those opinions can now reach the corners of the world (depending on an internet connection that is) :)
I don’t see you stopping anytime soon, if anything, your blog should become more interesting once u r in NY… I am willing to bet on that.
Congratulations! I am so happy that you have persisted with blogging as I only began reading blogs a little over a year ago.
Your voice is unique, and you provide an excellent insider’s view.
I am sure your future experiences outside the country will shape your vision and it will be interesting for you and us as you share that.
More than anyone else’s, your writings have convinced me of blogging as social activism, an activity that helps disseminate knowledge and shift attitudes that will provide longterm sustainable change. This is a particularly important role for blogs where press freedom is more limited.
I am looking forward to how this blog evolves as you do.
Nice video metaphor! and very cute brother! :)
Happy 6th anniversary Ahmed …
Your blogging experience is nothing short of a model for a lot of people who wanted their voices to be heard, their opinions to trigger discussions and change.
I really hope that being abroad will give you a chance to look deeply and compare between our personality and others with your finely tuned critical eye (Ma Sha’a Allah :)) … and may be from a blogger point of view, you could approach an answer to the everlasting question: Why everybody is moving while a lot of us just enjoy standing still??!!
Saudi Jeans is undoubtedly a major corner of the Saudi blogging scene, and I hope it will remain shining for many coming years.
Speaking of change…
I used to live in Hafouf 15-20 years ago, I was a kid then and I used to go to that same park!! I am really astonished to see that everything seems to be the same!! Nothing seems to have changed since that time!!
Lol!! How I used to love to ride that worm :)
Maybe we should have this park as the measure of change in Saudi… when it changes…other more things may change too :)
I have been reading Saudi Jeans for most of that six years.
It is one of the best Middle East blogs, and it made me realise that not all Saudis are crazy.
Hi Ahmed,
I live in France and check your website everyday cause I have a Saudi friend with whom I hang out all the time so I wanted to learn lots of things about Saudi Arabia so she told to check out your blog and I enjoy it I have learned a lot from you. But the only subject that she don’t know anything about is on women driving, she heard a lot of rumors saying they signed the papers and within to months women will be driving. Since you live in Saudi I would love you to write about it.
Thank you
The current status of women’s driving is here.
Ahmed,
you know what you mean to me. Happy 6th anniversary bro.
It’s amazing ride and you gotta keep going..
Fouad Al-Farhan
hmm… so what are your future plans?
So it has been 6 yrs already. Congrats Ahmed. I’m one of those who religiously follow your blog. We all want change and change for the better that is, and sometimes that change we so terrifyingly want is just within ourselves. And who knows how many hearts and minds you have won over to the idea that an enlightened mentality, tolerance of other views, peaceful dialogue, ragging the ridiculous, and just by being a rational voice amidst the madding crowd are better paths to change.
You have sown the seeds and nobody should expect (much less yourself) that you water and till the soil also. And it would be a really sad day if you will finally wind up SJ and I wish that that day will never come. Go and tear down more walls, my friend, and may you get all the strength that you need.
breygar
hi
ive just read this blog for the first time
i never know there were saudi bloggers(decent one’s at least)
is there any others
I frequently link to blog posts from the Saudi blogosphere in my link blog.
I recently started reading your blog, and just wanted to congratulate you on all your success