JEDDAH, 19 May 2003 — Disbelief and fear marked the local reaction to the terrorist attack in Riyadh last week. Many are now waking up to the fact that the terrorists are Saudis, and a process of soul-searching is beginning, particularly among younger Saudis.
Bandar, a 20-year-old student of medicine, told Arab News he was dismayed to see terrorism growing in the Kingdom. He said the media had to take some of the responsibility as it spread anti-American sentiments.
“They view US as the evil, they blame it for all our problems,” he said. “When they show images of the victims in Palestine, they always blame the US. As a result, many people hate America and want Americans out of the country,” Bandar said.
Sultan, a 35-year-old managerial affairs representative with an airline company in Jeddah, said the younger generation was under a great deal of pressure and could see violence as a way of exploding it.
“These pressures lead to behavioral and psychological explosions. They are the outcome of our basic education system, our media, and some extremists,” he said. “Between them they generate a primitive environment where people can’t really distinguish between right and wrong,” he said.
Khalid, a 33-year-old bank employee, puts the blame on a lack of guidance for the new generation, a vacuum that local and international extremists find easy to fill. “Their minds are empty, so the extremists find they can fill that emptiness with hate,” he said. “There is a real problem in the way these people think. No one with a rational mind could carry out these acts,” he added.
But Muhammad, a 21-year-old student of engineering, puts the blame elsewhere. He said there was a genuine sense of anger among young people over the US-led war against Iraq and American Middle East policy in general.
However, he also felt that terrorists were both ignorant and misguided. “They don’t even know what real jihad means, and they have misconception about Islam,” he said, adding: “Now is the time for the media and Islamic scholars to step in and educate those youths about Islam.”
