Recently I had the opportunity to take part in a workshop held for young Saudis, both male and female. It was a public debate, the first gathering of its kind in the Kingdom.
This particular workshop was in Madinah and the discussions served as a prelude to a national dialogue on youth issues scheduled for Dec. 7. At the beginning, confusion marred the workshop; sadly, good ideas and genuine issues disappeared giving way to hollow speeches and pat slogans. The list of recommendations produced were so long it seemed that every girl came up with a proposal. Many of them used the occasion as an opportunity to criticize whatever ran counter to their own personal views.
In my opinion, this was all natural and to be expected since it was the first time we have conducted such an experiment. It was not surprising from people who, all their lives, have been nurtured on endless speeches and verbose recommendations telling them to do this and not to do that. I felt sad because, instead of benefiting from a valuable first-time opportunity in the Kingdom, time was wasted on issues with little relevance to reality. We had a chance to express our views freely and to highlight the pressing needs of the young as well as our aspirations for the future. Unfortunately we threw those opportunities away.
Why don’t we use our small families at such gatherings, speaking about daily concerns, talking about the problems faced by our brothers and sisters at school and discussing the realities which are our society? These and many other questions continued to occupy my mind well after the workshop was over. It is not enough for us to confine our views to our homes, schools or even universities.
The time has come for us to publicly declare our intellectual affiliations without fearing punishment or reprisals. In addition, I noticed that journalists were barred from the workshops. Had they been allowed, I would not have spent days trying to explain to every one how the dialogue proceeded, what we talked about, who was present and who was absent. All the journalists got in the end was a copy of the recommendations. That was not enough because the real story lay in how those recommendations were produced.
