While the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah rightly searches for peace in the Middle East, it is equally important for us in Saudi Arabia to seek peace for our own home.

As a citizen of Saudi Arabia, I dread the possibility that Osama bin Laden might instigate a repeat of a deadly 1979 Saudi government mistake. In that year, a group of religious fanatics occupied the Grand Mosque of Mecca. They denounced the legitimacy of the Saudi government, claiming that it wasn't "Islamic" enough. The government managed to reclaim the mosque, and later the group's leader and most of his followers were executed.

But the end of the story had a twist: Though the government killed the extremists, it then essentially adopted their ideology. After the Mecca incident, Saudi authorities began imposing crushingly strict and pointless rules. Women were banned from appearing on television. Music was not allowed to be played in the Saudi media. Stores and malls closed during the five daily prayers. Members of the religious police were granted more power to intervene in people's personal lives. The Saudi government did all of this to please the Islamists, perhaps fearing further extremist threats. Its behavior was interpreted as a nod to Islamists' power, an indication that they were now dictating the rules of the game.

The result has been all sorts of restrictions that have created notions of fanaticism in the kingdom, and a society with a constant undercurrent of a "witch hunt." Different groups in Saudi society end up competing with fundamentalists over who can appear more conservative in the public eye. Our private life, too, has been full of contradictions and hypocrisy, as we seek to avoid being alienated or excluded as "seculars" or "liberals."

In our obsession with our image, and fearing each other, we all lose. As a society, Saudi Arabians lost 20 years of a generation by avoiding a harsh reality: Our government was wrong, and, by extension, so were we. None of us dared to say it loudly then, and some still cannot say it. But our reaction to the 1979 Mecca tragedy has created a generation of angry, confused young people, many of whom have become fanatics, including those 15 Saudis among the 19 suspects in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Saudi prisoners in Guantanamo. How many are still out there?

It does not take a great deal to describe the motives of terrorism. Oppression and poverty are an easy recipe for fanaticism. People with no option of independently leading their lives will more willingly follow an extremist mentality because they know nothing else and have no moderate alternatives to compare it with. This extremist mentality becomes so entrenched and pervasive that its endurance is not dependent upon the life or death of one persuasive leader. Therefore, whether bin Laden eventually is killed or survives the current war is a temporary concern; in the long term, the real issue is the endurance or destruction of his rabid philosophy.

The Saudi government itself must fight against all kinds of monopoly of thought or debate. Right now, it faces a historical opportunity to develop its educational system, augment freedom of the press, and expand women's rights, among other pressing issues. It can begin to give qualified, young, educated Saudis access to more political participation.

This would involve ending regionalism, a process that gives greater privileges to some families from certain Saudi regions. Our independent writers and intellectuals should be part of a public social dialogue that tolerates different ideas and thoughts.

Our universities need to open doors for political and social activities to their students: At the very minimum, students ought to have the right to form students' organizations. This would teach them the concept of "social activism," and to organize civilized and peaceful activities within their universities. Such ideas can help the next generation participate in a productive and peaceful civil society, instead of dying in Afghanistan or elsewhere for causes that most of them do not even fully comprehend.

What we learned from experience of religious and politica fanaticism that followed the deadly 1979 Mecca experience should be put to use now.

Sulaiman Al-Hattlan, a Saudi journalist and political analyst, is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. This piece appeared in The Washington Post.