IN the seventies, our country and the entire Muslim World were shocked by the flagrant seizure of the Grand Mosque of Makkah by a few people who were brainwashed. They thought that by killing innocent people and desecrating the sanctity of the House of Allah and wreaking havoc, they were supporting Islam and Muslims. This group were playing with people's minds, especially with the minds of naive citizens and they had even convinced those citizens to help them with money. The leaders of the group killed innocents offering prayers inside the Grand Mosque near the Kaaba. The government were able to kill all members of the group and free the Grand Mosque. Many years later, another group appeared and this time they focused on blowing up sites and causing fear among the public. Then they started targeting non-Muslims who work inside the Kingdom and blew up their places. The government worked hard to deal with these terrorists and eliminate their threats to the extent the Kingdom had set a good example to the world regarding how the terrorist threats should be dealt with and minimized. The United Nations commended the Kingdom for its efforts. Recently, the Interior Ministry has announced that it arrested a large number of young Saudis who were brainwashed, filled with hatred and contempt towards this country, and were turned into human ticking bombs. The ministry's statement was alarming and shocking at the same time. The majority, if not all citizens, were shocked when the ministry revealed the elaborate plans the terrorist designed and the amount of destruction they planned to cause. However, the ministry foiled all these attempts. We should, as citizens and civil institutions, ask ourselves this question: What have we done to fight terrorists and eradicate terrorist ideas? Have we done anything similar to what the ministry has done and continues to do?
The answer to the question is sad because we have not. We should ask ourselves what our research centers have done in this regard over the past 30 years? I mean the centers at the Interior Ministry, Naif Arab University for Security Sciences, and the Saudi universities. What about us — humanities professors who teach media and communications, sociology, psychology, etc. — what have we done to study this phenomena, its motives, its causes, and how to protect our youth against becoming victims of terrorists who brainwash their brains. We all should be blamed for our failure to focus on such pressing and major issues. Therefore, as long as we are having pressing issues like deviant thoughts, poverty, the control of expatriate workers over jobs and a larger section of economy, we and our institutions should begin studying these issues. The Council of Economic and Development Affairs can require all sectors to concentrate on the above issues and finance studies conducted towards this purpose. It is one of our duties towards our home country.
