The Unthinkable Party: A New Face for the Saudi Kingdom

10. The celebration also highlights the complex, internal generational divide within the Kingdom. For older Saudis who lived through decades of the religious police (Muttawa) rigorously enforcing public morality, the sight of full gender-mixing, loud music, and elaborate, even frightening costumes, feels revolutionary and unsettling. For the youth, however, this public freedom is simply a long-overdue, natural evolution of a modern society finally catching up with the rest of the world.