RIYADH/JEDDAH, 12 September 2006 — The events of Sept. 11, 2001 were, as so many have said, a wake-up call for the United States. Five years after that tragic day, America and the Middle East still look at each other with suspicion and fear.
As US missions in Saudi Arabia observed 15 minutes of silence yesterday in commemoration of the victims of 9/11, Saudis in the so-called “Arab Street” were reflecting in their own ways. Most Saudis interviewed by Arab News expressed sorrow for the loss of American lives, but all tempered their sympathies with criticism of both US foreign policy in the Middle East in general, and the reaction to the attacks, specifically.
Suleiman Al-Ghulaiga, a Riyadh university student, said his heart goes out to the families which lost their loved ones on that day, but that the US reaction has only affirmed the notion that US foreign policy in the Middle East has contributed to anti-American sentiments in the region.
“How many more people need to die so America would finish taking its revenge?” he asked. “The events of September the 11th brought destruction to the Arab and Islamic world — in Afghanistan and in Iraq. America should have learned the lesson from the tragedy and changed its policy. Instead, it attacked Iraq and Afghanistan and made the world an unsafe place.”
Saudi lawyer and human rights activist Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem said the US lost the public sympathy it gained in the Saudi street after the terrorist attack in New York when the US attacked Afghanistan, and especially when it moved the war to Iraq.
“The Americans did not play it smart,” he said. “Many Saudis now accuse the US government of being terrorists as it attacked two sovereign countries.”
Mohammad Al-Sharif, a 20-year-old law student, said he was with his friends in Jeddah when he heard about the attacks on New York City and Washington. “I didn’t know how to react,” he said. “The shock paralyzed us.” But he said the US reaction was equally frightening. “(US President George) Bush was on TV threatening the world,” he said, pointing out that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has led to the deaths of more innocent noncombatants than all of the terrorist attacks in recent memory combined.
“The US government has done worse things in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of freedom,” he said. Al-Sharif questioned Bush’s use of the term “freedom”, as if American action is the deciding factor on freeing others. “Does he mean that the rest of us are US slaves who are subject to declarations of US emancipation?” he asked.
The events of 9/11 have also brought into sharp focus anti-Western sentiments. A Western businessman who was in Riyadh recently told Arab News that he once greeted a young Saudi boy in Arabic. The boy refused to return the greeting. “It was clear that this child had an attitude problem concerning Westerners,” said the executive. An American college-level educator, who has traveled to the Kingdom over the past 20 years, said the xenophobic climate among Saudis is worse today than when he first came to the Kingdom.
Indeed, one of the effects of 9/11 has been that Saudi Arabia is reflecting on the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.
Poet and human rights activist Ali Al-Domani in Jeddah said Sept. 11 confirmed for many Saudis the fact that something had to be done from within to combat extremist ideology.
Al-Domani said he thought that 9/11 has played an important role in causing the Kingdom to implement new policies that are opening the door for people to criticize religious extremism. “The changes did not come as a result of a planned strategy but as a measure to control the danger coming from within,” he said.
Lawyer Al-Lahem agreed: “On the social level, the Sept. 11 events helped in giving wider space for the liberal ideology to attack the extremist one.”
Jeddah-based writer and literary critic Said Al-Ahmad said that all this talk of new policies is much ado about little. “Little has actually changed,” he said. “The only thing that has happened is that the voice that used to whisper has become louder now.”
He added that though there are tens of institutes in the US that claim to study Saudi culture and mentality, they failed spectacularly in truly understanding what is happening in the Kingdom.
“They study and analyze Saudi society in a very superficial way,” he said. “They assume that all of our problems are because of religion and women not being allowed to drive.”
Al-Ahmad thought that the US policy opted for arm-twisting that led to nothing.
He admitted that on the other hand Saudis also have a misconception about American culture and think its all about sex and immoral behavior. “After five years both sides still did not fully understand or accept each other,” he said.
Samiah Hammad, a 27-year-old photographer, also disagrees that 9/11 has played a defining role in bringing changes to the Kingdom. “It helped in making the first push but it was not the only factor,” she said. “The changes going on have little to do with the attack in America and more just a matter of time and our society’s gradual acceptance to change.”
Hammad, who loves Woody Allen movies and hopes someday to travel to New York City to photographs Harlem and The Bronx, said she felt deep grief for the Americans because of 9/11. “People are the same everywhere,” she said. “I wish I could talk to New Yorkers and explain to them that terrorism has no nationality.”
The fifth anniversary of 9/11 has also revived the debate on the need for Saudi educational reforms. The Saudi education system has been accused by critics of perpetrating ideas that demonized non-Muslims, especially Jews, and may contribute to the radicalization of some Muslims in the Kingdom.
The upcoming Sixth National Dialogue, where members of Saudi society meet and discuss national issues, will focus on educational reforms.
“The main purpose of the meetings is to widen the circle of dialogue of participants in discussing national issues and specially the topic of education that touches every family,” said Faisal ibn Muammar, the dialogue center’s spokesperson.
The Saudi government has said that efforts are being made to reform what is published in these textbooks, but some officials have laid the blame more on teachers than on the government-approved textbooks.
The issue, according to academics, will come in for closer scrutiny at the National Dialogue scheduled in December. A Saudi academic told Arab News that on Sept. 5, 2004, then Crown Prince Abdullah told senior education officials: “Watch your teachers. We want to serve the religion and the homeland, not terrorism.”
— With input from Javid Hassan, Ebtihal Mubarak, Mohammed Rasooldeen and Mahmoud Ahmad
