FRENCH diplomats say that they and other embassies in the Kingdom have been told by the Foreign Ministry that those behind the murders last week of four Frenchmen at Madain Saleh may try and strike again. The French have warned their nationals not to travel around the country for the moment, but to remain in urban areas.
This is deeply disturbing. It shows how just a handful of people bent on terrorism can hold entire communities to hostage. It is outrageous and cannot be tolerated. We cannot be a closed society. Equally repugnant is the racism that was implicit in the attack. The French were targeted because they were Westerners. As it happens, some were Muslims, not that it makes any difference. The killing of all four was an offense in the eyes of Islam. Murder is murder, regardless of faith. Would the killers have acted differently had they known that two of their victims were Muslims? We believe not. They reject the Islamic imperative to make no distinction between white, black, brown or yellow, between Arab and non-Arab. To them, all Westerners are legitimate targets, simply because they are Westerners. They, and others like them, are driven by hate, not piety. Faith is twisted by ignorance and the arrogant imposition of a racist agenda on it. Such a reinterpretation of Islam is a betrayal. As Sheikh Ali Al-Hudaifi, imam of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, said last Friday, those responsible for the killings tarnish Islam.
The actions of some Western governments can be seen as anti-Muslim in their actions and policies. But that does not make Westerners anti-Muslim. (In fact, many Westerners are also Muslims.) What about all those Americans and Europeans opposed to the war in Iraq and who support Palestinian freedom and reject the Islamophobia of their press? Equally, what about when Western governments get it right, as they did by taking the side of the Bosnians and the Kosovars during the Balkan wars? It is one thing to question Western policies, but to be anti-Westerner for the sake of being anti-Western is nothing short of racism. It has to be stopped. Ignorance has to be replaced — by a true understanding of Islam. Those who practice hatred have to be brought to book.
Saudi Arabia will not allow itself to become a place of fear for foreigners, Muslim or non-Muslim. We welcome them, just as we wish to be welcomed in their countries. Let no one doubt that. We certainly cannot afford to become a closed society, walled off from the rest of the world, living in self-righteous, self-imposed exile. We live in an interdependent world. It is not just a matter of economics; there are political and religious considerations as well. How can Islam flourish and grow in the world if the land that is home to its sacred mosques, the place of Haj and Umrah and at the heart of much its history, were to become a no-go area for a significant part of the human race? It cannot be. Saudi Arabia has much to give and much to receive.
