Everywhere I go I am overwhelmed with smoke-polluted air. Shops are permeated with smoke from smoking shopkeepers and customers alike. Goods are saturated with tobacco odor. Restaurants are clouded with smoke; even while eating one is inhaling tobacco-contaminated air.

For a refreshing change, I was surprised and content to be in a smoke-free environment during the Seventh Jeddah Economic Forum that took place last week. To my dismay, unfortunately, neither my pleasure nor smoke-free air last long.

An hour after the opening session of the forum, the creeping-odor of tobacco smoke started to irritate my airways. I looked around; no cigarette was in sight in the conference hall. My irritability began to rise like a smoke stream from a cigarette. I decided to take a break to perform noon-prayers. As I crossed the hallway to the rest-and-prayer-room I was hit in the face with a huge cloud of smoke billowing from the doorway. I could hardly discern the faces of attendees due to the thick fog. I thought I was choking. Naturally, no one in the room reacted; they continued away with their chatting and puffing their cigarettes into each others’ faces.

I was inclined to blurt out a lecture about cigarette-smoking but I decided to restrain myself - my remarks would have been simply ignored or silenced with surprised, cynical looks. I decided to retreat from that environment, but, of course, there was no other room than that one for prayers. I tried to linger there for a few seconds, but I could not. Luckily after searching for a less harmful setting, I found a corner in the crowded hallway enough for me to stand and pray. After prayers, I made up my mind to put my thoughts on paper. This time, I will not warn against the health risks of respiratory tract disorders, heart disease, or even cancer, but rather defend my right and yours to cleaner air and environment.

If smokers wish to smoke, contract diseases, or kill themselves, it is their prerogative to do so, but not at the expense of my health and yours. Millions of us do not smoke, yet we are constantly subjected to inhale the air smokers have contaminated.

Secondhand smoke can be just as dangerous to non-smokers as smoking is to smokers. I will not go into details of cigarette smoking and cancer, lung diseases, and other health risks as I have done so a year ago (“Precious Lives Going Up in Smoke,” Arab News, Feb. 2, 2005). This time I will advocate for an unpolluted world for everyone.

Smokers often argue that smoking is their own affair and burden to bear. That is not true! The health of non-smokers is equally jeopardized by the habits of smokers. Nicotine traces were detected in the cervix of non-smoking women, resulting in cancer; fetuses of smoking fathers are smaller in size due to insufficiency of oxygen inhaled by the mother and subsequently to her fetus. Secondhand smoke impacts our health negatively in the workplace, shops, malls, restaurants, airports, and other public areas. Not only do smokers harm themselves but also harm you, me, our children, the non-smoker majority, as well as the environment. We, too, have the right to protest to protect our health and earth.

In the name of freedom of action, smokers inflict damage on my health and yours. In the name of freedom of expression, caricaturists and filmmakers insult our cultures, our beliefs, our Prophets, and us. In the name of freedom of speech, writers and journalists denigrate our countries, our oil, and Shariah. Where are these new freedoms going to take us? Where do they stop? Whatever happened to “love thy neighbor,” consideration, understanding, tolerance in order to entertain the prospect of the so-called “globalization”? There is a definite great need for self-examination. “Give me a break!” I, too, am entitled to a clean environment, consideration, and respect to live healthily and peacefully on this earth.