In a meeting with a Congressional delegation visiting Jeddah, I admitted to some of them that we owe the world some overdue explanations. I said that first, we do have problems with our educational system. Yes, some books, teachers, imams, and writers instill uncertainty and fan fears of those who are different from us. Our isolationists, just like yours, would like to keep us indoors, away from you and everyone else including our next-door neighbors.
| Except that Arabia has more isolationists and xenophobes per capita than we do. Lots more, in fact... |
This is a problem that has been with us for generations and has been growing worse for the last twenty years. Thank God, we are finally tackling it. One of the most important recommendations of our National Dialogue Forum is to rethink and redesign our curriculum on a more tolerant, worldly, scientific and practical basis. We need graduates who know how to do things rather than how to philosophize and advance theories about man’s relationship with God. Yes, we need to keep the hereafter in mind but we also urgently need to help ourselves in the here and now.
| It's a lot easier to be a religious fanatic, though. You only have to read one book. And fatwahs aren't subject to peer review. If you use the scientific method, you're not allowed to kill people who disprove your theories. With fatwahs, you're not even subjected to disproof. The worst you'll get is a counter-fatwah, and you can always denounced the other guy as an heretic... |
Second, we must open ourselves up to the world. Our visa process should be more hospitable to investors, tourists, students and visitors of all faiths, races and nationalities. How else can we convince the world of our goodness and progress if the only proof we present is paid TV commercials?
| If you do that, then you're also subjecting yourself to external opinions on how well your system works. Many of us popping by as tourists wouldn't be real happy to have our wives slapped around by the religious cops, or referred to as "whores." |
Third, we have to learn how to communicate. Unless we, the silent majority, find our voices and present our case to the world, certain self-appointed representatives, the extremists on our left and right, will have the stage all to themselves. Their captive audience in America and elsewhere will see us either as anti-western or more western than the west itself.
| More the former than the latter, I'm afraid... |
Fourth, our media must act more responsibly and be more sensitive to those who are different from the majority. It is obvious that our traditional rhetoric has failed us and it is high time we realized its failure. We need a better understanding of others, and to make better use of available communication to present our case. To get us right, we shouldn’t expect the world to go the extra mile to see through our shouts and cries.
| Americans (at least those of us who pay attention) find the total lack of religious freedom to be repugnant, and I don't think that's a problem Soddy Arabia ever intends to address. Anybody you don't agree with internally can be denounced as an heretic or an apostate. It's not just the lack of freedom for Christians and Jews to build churches. It's not just the lack of freedom for Arabian Muslims to convert to religions they might find more congenial. You take it to the extreme of treating Shiites and Sufis and all non-Wahhabis as infidels. And God help anyone who decides he or she is agnostic or even atheist! That makes Saudi-occupied Arabia a state founded on fanaticism. That single lack of freedom makes all other freedoms unattainable. |
In a couple of hours I became friends with Alan Makovsky and David Abramowitz of the US House of Representatives, and as we hugged goodbye, we realized that all we need is for our peoples to talk to each other. The rest, I assure you, will be New History.
| I doubt it greatly. We can talk all we want, but one of the sides in the conversation is looking for something the other is incapable of providing. I saw an article the other day about a joint Paleostinian-Israeli team that was running off to Antarctica to scale a mountain in the expectation of that leading to "greater understanding." But to understand all isn't necessarily to forgive all. Sometimes understanding your adversary makes you more determined to defeat him. We had similar exchanges with the Soviets during the Cold War. And I'm sure there were similar exchanges with the Germans and Italians in the 1930s. Wrong remains wrong, regardless of whether you like an individual member of the other side on a personal level. |
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