Someone suggested to me that the solution to the problem of young men driving aimlessly in our streets or hanging around shopping malls to look at the girls going in and out is to return to righteousness and to be more God-fearing in our lives. Others suggest that in order to tap all the excess energy of Saudi youngsters we should not establish cinemas, but instead build more public libraries and educational centers and encourage them to go there.
Though I agree with both views, I do not think they would be an immediate solution to the ever-growing problem. It is unlikely that irresponsible youngsters who harass women or families will, with the wave of a magic wand, go to public libraries and become God-fearing in their behavior.
As the Arab proverb says: “You do not harvest grapes from planting thorns.”
What is shocking is that these youngsters have been brought up in perhaps one of the most conservative countries in the world. Five of the 15 or 16 subjects that are taught to them in school are religious: The Qur’an, its interpretation, the Prophet’s sayings, the Islamic system and its teachings. Nowhere else in the entire Muslim or Arab world is a pupil taught so much religion. Yet, at the same time, nowhere else in the Muslim or Arab world do we find such a behavior from young men as we find here in our streets.
What does that tell us?
Young men are taught in school that Islam calls for respect of a man to his spouse and they see each day how their father is disrespectful to their mother. They are taught in school that Islam tells us to be honest, and then see the public arena full of lies. They are taught in school that Islam calls for justice and then they see injustice in the world. They are taught that Islam asks us to be truthful with ourselves and with others, and they see that public life is full of back-stabbing, hypocrisy and masks.
This implies a serious social fault in our education system, our customs and traditions, or our upbringing, or in all of them.
How are we going to encourage them to read, to make better use of their leisure time, to be more creative and innovative, when they have never been taught these things in school?
I am not going to attempt a comparison with other systems in other countries, but I do find it very sad that practical learning is not a part of our education system. Visits to museums or field trips are fairy tales to Saudi students. Nor are book reports and visits to the library, even at intermediate and high school level common.
Teachers are told that they have a curriculum that they must finish by the end of the semester. Students are told to memorize what they are taught and are not encouraged to think or create.
As others have said this before me, as long as our education system is based on memorization, as long as we do not encourage our pupils to think, the only thing our society will be producing year after year is parrots. That is my perspective.
To be candid, I do not foresee any change to our education system in the near future. Neither am I optimistic about Saudi parents suddenly becoming more God-fearing in their upbringing. And even if such changes were to take place, we would only reap the rewards in another generation, maybe 20 years down the road.
What we need is an immediate and effective solution to the irresponsible behavior of our young men whose benefits can be seen in the foreseeable future. In my opinion, an effective solution would be compulsory military training for Saudi young men from the age of 19 to 25 during summer time.
These are the ages of the young men who drive aimlessly through our streets. These are the ages of most of the young men who harass girls in shopping malls or in the streets. These are also the years where discipline pays off handsomely.
During the Gulf crisis of 1991, Saudi Arabia set up training camps for volunteers in areas adjacent to main cities. Thousands of Saudis registered and were trained in combat skills by army personnel. It turned out to be a huge success. Why can’t we do something similar 12 years later on a much larger scale? Compulsory military training is adopted in several Arab countries and is very successful. We should follow suit.
Not only will it teach our young men combat skills, but it would also teach them discipline and obedience — two important characteristics that most young Saudi men lack. Not to mention that it will take up their leisure time in summer and keep them busy — tapping the excess energy that has been bottled up by a completely segregated society.
