Our country has, unfortunately, had a long history of being the victim of terrorist actions. Perhaps it is due to our position as a Middle Eastern, strongly Muslim country, with strong diplomatic and intellectual ties with the West. As we stand between the worlds, we are victims of some of the fallout that takes place as a result of the great ideological battles.
That is, if we wish to dignify terrorism in this way —an element of a great ideological battle. I, myself, do not feel inclined to do so. Religiously inspired terrorism seems to me to be more a crisis of faith than a true expression of a faith. Neither Islam nor any other religion advocates killing for the sake of religious faith or ideology. That is not to say that it has never happened, of course. There are those who may regard the Crusades of the Middle Ages as the first act in the ideologically-fueled war between the Christian West and the Muslim East, and I would say they are not entirely wrong.
In one of those Crusades, a group of children, at the request of the Pope, marched toward Jerusalem. Of course, most were killed. The Children’s Crusade lives in memory and has become a symbol of the destruction of innocents in the throes of a dogmatic power.
Of course, the difference between the Crusades of the Middle Ages and the terrorism of the present day is in the leadership. In the case of so called “Muslim” terrorism, orders do not come down from leaders of our faith, but from misfits who exploit and twist theological tenets for their own purposes. As such, we have to consider their crimes to be twofold — incitement to murder, but at the same time, the denigration of what is most sacred to millions of people.
Fighting terrorism is a multi-faceted battle. It is not as simple as fighting the terrorists themselves. We must delve into the roots of the issue. What social and ideological factors could lead individuals to be incited to terrorism? Among other things, it must involve a significant crisis of faith. Our religious leaders would be well advised to consider why and how this takes place, and to attempt to bring those who had strayed back to the tenets of the true Islam.
Meanwhile, we in Saudi Arabia are unhappily conscious of the fact that we have borne more than our share of the tragic scourge of terrorism on the world. During 9/11, and a few years later during terrorist attacks in London, we watched, with the world, aghast, but also with a sickening sense of familiarity. Perhaps the only positive aspect of our own history as victims of terrorism is that, when we watched these events unfolding, we could not only sympathize but also truly empathize.
