On May Day, I Light a Candle for the Silenced and Imprisoned Saudi Workers, by Hana Al-Khamri – 1 May 2025

Growing up in Saudi Arabia, we were taught that the kings gave us everything we needed. That oil was a blessing from God. That obedience was the same as love of country.

But there was one thing they never told us.

That 13,000 workers once went on strike – for dignity, justice and union rights.

In 1956, mass protests rocked Saudi Arabia. Workers at the American oil company Aramco’s facilities in the east of the country went on strike. Their demands were clear: better working conditions, higher wages and the right to unionize. Behind the strike was a burgeoning movement influenced by Arab nationalism, socialism and communism – ideologies sweeping the Middle East at the time.

It was a time of dreams of equality and freedom. Young radicals set up a bookshop – the only one in eastern Saudi Arabia that sold banned literature. The shelves were stocked with communist texts, Russian literature and classics from the Arab left. Teachers from Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, who came to Saudi Arabia to teach at Aramco’s schools, brought with them ideas of labour struggle and social justice. They became political mentors to many Saudi workers.

The biggest strikes broke out in 1953 and 1956. The mobilization was led by Saudi activists who had studied in Egypt and Lebanon – countries where ideas of socialism and workers’ power were central. A workers’ committee was formed and its leader, Abd al-Aziz al-Sunayd, born in Iraq but the son of a Saudi father, was a communist. But the movement quickly met the full force of the regime. The strike was brutally suppressed, the leaders were arrested, imprisoned or forced into exile, and a royal decree banned all forms of protests and strikes in Saudi Arabia. This ban is still in place today, almost 70 years later.

After the strikes and protests of the 1950s, the Gulf regimes gradually began to replace the politically aware Arabic-speaking workers with migrant workers from Southeast Asia. Language and cultural barriers made political organizing difficult. Moreover, during the oil boom of the 1970s, loyalty could be bought – with higher wages, benefits and privileges for those who kept quiet.

I myself went to Saudi schools, but I never heard about this. Not a word. It was as if the events never happened. The regime knew that its greatest enemy was not weapons – but imagination. The dream of a better future. The memory of the brave who dared to believe in change.

That’s why I think of them every May Day. I light a candle for their courage, their conviction and their struggle. They deserve to be remembered – not erased.

Hana Al-Khamri is a journalist based in Sweden. She writes about politics, culture and women’s rights in SWANA. 

The Swedish original of this article was originally published in Dagens Nyheter.

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