In March 2012, a young Saudi man jumped off a bridge in central Riyadh. Video footage of the scene not only confirmed that his suicide was a public act, but also triggered a wide debate in the media and the recent release of alarming statistics by the Ministry of the Interior. Suicide, particularly among young men and women, is indeed on the rise in this conservative and pious kingdom where the only justified reason for deliberately killing oneself is martyrdom in the name of God, though ulamas (scholars of Islamic law) strongly disagree among themselves about jihadi suicide bombers.

In line with its well-rehearsed policy of denial, the regime’s response to this new phenomenon has been to blame the victim, invoking psychological disorders, the weakening of religious belief under the influence of Western culture, drug addiction and alcohol abuse.

This attempt to utterly depoliticize any type of violence against the self, primarily public-suicide cases, is obviously influenced by the Arab Spring euphoria sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor. In the eyes of an entire generation of young Arabs crippled by the lack of economic opportunities and heavy surveillance by the state, the family or wider neighborhood, suicide has increasingly come to be seen as a weapon of empowerment. It is not caused by anomie related to the erosion of traditional values, but rather excess of regulation and control.

Saudi Arabia is neither a traditional society nor an advanced, industrial one. However, since the 1930s, it has been connected to the global capitalist market through oil production and sales. Thus, it has gradually experienced an unprecedented penetration by a neo-liberal economy with its increased commercialization, advertising and expansion in old and new media from international and local satellite TV to the Internet, culminating in social media. This created an infinite economy of desires that cannot be satisfied even in the richest oil economy of the world because it did not materialize as a natural evolution with the triumph of the ethos and norms (individualism, freedom) preceding these new economies and technologies as seen in the West. The Saudi youth bulge has been unable to satisfy most of its needs, let alone its conspicuous consumption.