Do Not Valentine!

In their attempt to put out the infidel flames of Valentine celebrations, the "authorities" have successfully, albeit inadvertently, made people more aware of Valentine’s Day than they ever were. Take for instance the story of a man who just happened to be wearing his red shirt that day. He was apprehended, lectured, reprimanded and sent home to change his red-shirt-wearing ways. The man head-scratchingly goes home, marks his calendar for next year: VALENTINE’S DAY, MUST ABSTAIN FROM RED, and proceeds to tell everyone in his circle about what happened to him.

8 out of 10 people he told had either forgotten, not known or simply not cared about Valentine’s Day. Those 8 people went home to THEIR calendars and marked them correspondingly, and also proceeded to tell THEIR circle of friends. 8 out of 10 people each of those 8 people told had either forgotten, not known, so on and so forth, you get the picture. It’s a little like Pay It Forward, or the Six Degrees of Separation theory, or, ultimately, like Facebook. They might as well have their own group or application on Facebook. Or wait, they actually might already have one.

February 14 in Jeddah is now like February 14 in any Valentine-celebrating city, except people are trying harder to inform everyone else about the alleged insignificance of this wildly popular and uncelebrated celebrated holiday.

Here’s how it is purposely not celebrated in Jeddah. We have any number of urban legends and freak stories about it. Men in long beards and long cloaks allegedly roam the streets in search of people wearing or carrying – and in the process, promoting - the color red. The following items are absolute profanities: red shirts, red caps, red shoes, and if you’re wearing red pants and your name ain’t Michael Jackson, you really deserve to be in prison. Heart shapes and flowers are deeply discouraged, red or otherwise, and flower shops are known to be surrounded by cops and maybe a couple of idiots who haven’t heard of my story of the man in the red shirt and are therefore still trying to buy flowers for their 12-year-old girlfriends. If we are patient, within a few seconds, the idiots will hopefully be shot to death. Restaurants are earmarked in case more of these idiots survived the flower shop drama and are now in the middle of dates with said girlfriends. For the ladies, it has been said that red nail polish and hot red lipstick attract attention you don’t want on this day. In supermarkets, malls and shops, any product remotely related to hearts, flowers, red, love and Michael Jackson are pulled off the shelves. So far, I’ve only heard jokes about red cars, and apparently, only the shimag [red-and-white checked headdress for men] can pull off the color red on this highly-charged day.

So what exactly happens when someone is caught not not-celebrating Valentine’s Day? More urban legends. Supposedly, there is a camp on the outskirts of Jeddah where these violators are thrown and imprisoned for an unknown length of time. As punishment, they are forced to listen to Tamer Hosni love songs all day and all night. To make it even worse, everytime “love” is mentioned in the song, they bleep it out. Ah, the agony.

Valentine’s Day was never a part of Saudi culture or religion. People should start respecting law, culture, and more importantly, religion. I mean, let’s talk open-minded here.

Aren’t we always the first to volunteer the fact that we are open-minded? What constitutes open-mindedness? Respect for another individual’s opinions and beliefs. The power to, in the words of The Beatles, Let It Be. To be able to listen to someone talk about their culture and not mock, or in any way offend them. When the National Association Of People Who Make Up And Release Cliche Sayings And Proverbs (NAPWMURCSP for short) said: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” they really meant: “When in INSERT NAME OF COUNTRY, do as the INSERT NATIONALITY OF PEOPLE FROM SAID COUNTRY do.” Trust me, I was an honorary member of the organization.

So how about, for now, let’s respect? No more crazy talk about the Day of Love, at least until next year. Mark your calendars, errbody. And stay away from Michael Jackson.