Some of our young people seem to have lost all sense of shame. They are ready to submerge their cultural identity in an alien one. They don’t hesitate to do away with whatever connects them to this country, starting with shunning their national dress. This is exactly what the West wants Muslims to do — to be so obsessed and influenced by Western culture that they lose their identity as a Muslim nation.
I have always been against admitting students — especially university students — wearing Western dress to class. Some young people have gone so far as to do away with the Saudi thobe and replace it with shorts and a T-shirt. In short, they replaced the decent with the indecent.
Just recently, we read in an Arabic newspaper the tale of a university professor who refused to allow one of his students to sit for the exam because the student was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The professor argued that such attire was against university regulations. What happened was that instead of backing the professor in his decision, the department head intervened and allowed the student to sit for the exam on the grounds that other students come to college in Western dress.
The story did not end there. Once the student had finished his exam, the professor was asked not to correct his paper and another teacher was assigned to do so.
Such behavior contrasts with the Kingdom’s official dress code for public schools. Students are required to come to school in thobes and not jeans and T-shirts. This rule applies to students at all levels of education, from elementary to college. Why then are university students excluded from the rule? Are university students above the law?
The problem is not confined to the thobe. These days many students come to class with very strange haircuts while others have substituted a baseball cap for the normal Saudi headdress. These young people should not be encouraged or allowed to continue with such unacceptable conduct.
Unfortunately, instead of discouraging such acts and advising youth against continuing in this direction, we seem to encourage them by being silent about the problem. We even tend to eye suspiciously those who have the courage to disapprove of such behavior.
Arab News From the Local Press 29 June 2003
