Al-Madinah newspaper

Whoever lived in Saudi Arabia before 1979 truly understands how we were and what we have become today. They understand the radical changes we have undergone in the last 38 years. In light of all the positive decisions that have recently been made, such as allowing women to drive and reopening public cinemas, we consider 2017 to be an enlightened year.

For those who do not know, there were cinemas in the Kingdom before 1979. In fact, families could rent special machines for playing movies. People in that period were able to gather together to enjoy films. As a matter of fact, some movies were played at weddings and other gatherings. We used to call the machines “cinema machines”. I still remember what good times we had then.

I am not 100 percent sure, but I think that there was a cinema operating before 1979 in the Al-Attas Hotel in the Al-Kandarah district of Jeddah. We used to enjoy dinner by the pool before the movies would start. With this in mind, some embassies used to have movies at the weekend and charity associations would have a female-only movie night every Wednesday. I remember that a ticket would cost SR10.

This was the place where female friends and colleagues would get together for enjoyment. We used to come a little early and leave immediately after the movie. We never stayed out too late. We were young women, and some of us even had children. We had responsibilities at home and we also worked. Going to the cinema gave us positive energy and helped us increase our productivity during the rest of the week.

The decision to allow cinemas to reopen is a guarantee that we are finally going through a period of enlightenment. When a BBC journalist asked me why Umm Kulthum’s songs were played on Al-Thaqafiyah, I said: “For me, it is not something new or strange. I am just reliving the beautiful old times we had when we enjoyed and appreciated many different forms of art. The TV itself back then used to play songs of famous singers such as Samira Tawfik, Hiyam Younes and Najah Salam.”

The journalist was surprised and asked whether we seriously ever lived in such a period. I did not tell her that we got a slap on our faces after 1979 when all of the happiness and joyful times disappeared. Before 1979, we had a moderate and peaceful form of Islam that did not have any of the extremism that can at times be seen today.