DHAHRAN: Local businesses have offered relief and a dose of fun to help ease the tension felt by young Saudi siblings affected by the current turbulent landscape.
Saudi Arabia’s National Early Warning Platform, operated by the Saudi Civil Defense, this week used cell broadcast technology to push out automatic notifications to residents regarding potential threats amid ongoing attacks, which came with a distinctly loud noise — even on silenced devices.
Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and head of the Saudi Boxing Federation, on Wednesday shared a viral 26-second clip of two young Saudi siblings, 10-year-old Abdullah Al-Qahtani and his young sister, seen lounging in a domestic setting.
In a widely published video circulating on X, the young girl expresses shock and initial panic at receiving the mass alert message that reverberated on a smartphone cupped in her hands, only for her brother to confidently swoop in by saying: “We’re in Saudi Arabia, don’t be afraid.”
Alalshikh replied: “Oh, my darling, respect.”
In swift response, the official Qiddiya City X account quote tweeted Alalshikh and offered the Al-Qahtani family free tickets to the popular Six Flags and Aquarabia experiences in Qiddiya City for the rest of the year. It added it was helping them to “sleep soundly and securely and to play all year long.”
The Saudi-based account from Abdul Wahab Al-Qahtani tweeted in response: “‘We’re in Saudi Arabia, don’t be afraid.’ Even if all marketing managers and creative identity makers gathered, they wouldn’t (be able to) come up with a sentence like the pithy one this child said.”
https://x.com/wahabaljaberr?s=21
In response, Saudi luxury perfume brand Rasees posted: “Fear is not in the Saudi dictionary. Rasees gifts you 50 perfumes and 50 oud bottles.”
Sa’an, which refers to itself as “a Saudi culinary experience with a contemporary soul,” also tweeted the video and offered the Al-Qahtani family a free meal.
The Ministry of Education earlier this month suspended all in-person classes in the capital city and introduced remote learning until further notice.