*applauds*
To whom it may concern
By Jamal Khashoggi
WE Saudis have not yet even begun to look realistically and objectively at the attacks of Sept. 11. We have not yet realized the full implications of the event on our society. If we had, we would have authorized study after study to analyze and understand the causes and so to protect ourselves and our future generations from a repeat of the horror.
Osama Bin Laden’s hijacked planes apparently destroyed more than the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. They inflicted a mortal blow to Islam as a religion of tolerance and co-existence. His acts irreparably damaged the interests of entire Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Some of us here in the Kingdom still deny and doubt the identities of those who carried out the attacks. We tend to believe in every wild conspiracy theory, particularly if it comes from foreign sources. We are not willing to look at the 19 Muslims — mostly Saudis — as the real culprits though it has been established that their families lost trace of them and their friends say they went on jihad. Yet some of us are still obsessed with such questions and comments as:
“Are you sure that these youths are the real hijackers? There is every possibility their passports were stolen as part of a deliberate attempt to distort the image of Arabs and Muslims?”
“Those men could have been ordinary innocent airline passengers who were implicated by US authorities.”
“Isn’t it far-fetched to believe that Osama had access to the sophisticated technology needed to carry out airborne precision attacks?” or “Haven’t you heard the French expert who says that the Pentagon was attacked, but not by a plane?”
We should stop such incoherent and pointless twaddle and acknowledge that 15 of the hijackers were misguided Saudis. Hundreds of our young men lost their lives between Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan in the most tragic circumstances. Is it not a huge deception to believe that these youths are martyrs and heroes who attempted to defend Islam? Has not the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that when two Muslims fight each other both of them — the killer and the killed — are in hellfire? Did not our youth in fact go to Afghanistan to kill other Muslims?
We have no choice but to make a detailed study of why, in the few years before Sept. 11, Taleban-ruled Afghanistan, where Muslims were killing Muslims, became a seductive destination for many young men from our secondary schools and universities. Any one with a rudimentary knowledge of Islam knows that the only role a Muslim can play when two Muslims fight each other is to bring them to peace without encouraging either one to kill the other. Did any one among us declare the Taleban “real Muslims” and their adversary Muslim “heretics”? If anyone did so, it was wrong. It was also wrong to allow our youths to go into an Islamic tragedy. It is a serious matter if such people are still present among us. Such people, who have no qualms in declaring people in a distant land “kafirs” — unbelievers — will have no qualms about applying the same word to people at home as well.
In the mid-1980s it was the right move to join the ranks of Muslims fighting against the Soviet who invaded Afghanistan. Both the government and the public here supported campaigns for money and men to fight alongside the Afghans. Most volunteers returned home once the Communists were defeated. Were the young men of those days possessed of better judgment than those of today? Did they lack today’s shallowness and superficiality? What in our society produced the change that allowed and tolerated the preachers of extremism to make their ideas acceptable to the young?
Since Sept. 11 we have been giving advice and pointing out the defects in America’s system but we have never looked within ourselves to identify our own shortcomings. We have no convincing answer to the Americans’ question of why 15 of the hijackers are Saudis and why most of the detainees at Guantanamo are also Saudis.
We must find the right answers — not to satisfy the curiosity of others but as a key to our own and our children’s secure future. There are in addition a number of other important questions we need to answer. Why did hundreds of Saudis travel to Afghanistan after the fall of the Communists to fight other Muslims there? Why did the “unknown propagandists” succeed in persuading young Saudi men to go to Afghanistan? Why did a young Saudi say in his will that both his government and rulers were heretics? It is not comforting to argue that this is the work of a handful of misguided youths. In our bid to downplay the enormity of the attacks and to show the West that extremism is not only found in the Muslim world, we have written exhaustively about the Oklahoma bomber and other American extremists.
The question that cries out to be asked is: While the Americans make a thorough study of their own extremism as a precautionary measure, what have we done to protect our society from our own extremists?
Yes, we do have extremists and fanatics just like the rest of the world. Step No. 1 should be to stop denying this fact. Step No. 2 should be to confront these extremists and tell them that they are a part of a system and that they have to respect the voice of the majority. And who constitute that majority? We, the moderate people of Saudi Arabia.
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(Jamal Khashoggi is Deputy Editor in Chief of Arab News.)
