Shall We Send Them?

Monday, 19 February 2007
By Sabria S Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette

Conservative politicians in the United States are apparently worrying that too many Saudi students are being admitted to colleges on student visas.

They seem to think that all or some of them may be potential terrorists because 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Recent statistics show that nearly 10,000 Saudis are in the United States on student visas and more are expected.
Fear does funny things to people. Conservatives would say that it’s only logical that if Saudis were involved in 9/11 then it stands to reason that more are on their way.

Unfortunately, Saudis are being painted with a broad brush. And to condemn Saudi students as potential terrorists does nothing to foster understanding between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

For many of us Saudis, we have older brothers, fathers and uncles who have benefited from a Western education. Not only are they better for it, Saudi society benefits too. And if Saudi Arabia benefits from its citizens receiving a US education, then so does the United States. My editor-in-chief and several of my colleagues in the media were educated in the United States. My two brothers were educated at US universities as well. My younger brother, in fact, was in San Diego on Sept. 11, 2001. He is eager to return.

What’s troubling for me, though, is the hostile attitude in some conservative circles towards Saudis and Muslims. For all the talk of spreading democracy in the Middle East, there seems to be an attitude that perhaps it’s better to spread democracy at the point of a gun instead of using a technique more useful like education.

Neo-conservatives seem to want everything no matter how little sense it makes. They want to spread democracy but on their terms. They want to limit or even eliminate immigration of Muslims across their borders. The message is: Democracy, sure, but we will export it to your country. Please don’t come here.

That aside, the ramifications for young Saudi students can be serious. We’ve already seen young Saudis detained at airports on a variety of technical issues. The most recent case was of several Saudi men being detained in Philadelphia for bringing in pirated CDs (boy, if only the US government knew that just about every household has shelves full of pirated CDs and DVDs!).

In the West certainly, 18- to 21-year-old men can go just about anywhere in the world for an education and fit in relatively well. But young Saudi men generally live sheltered lives, rarely venturing outside their family circles and close friends. They are not often emotionally capable of handling culture shock in the West with its freedoms, its laws, and maybe the distrust and suspicions of Westerners who know little about Arabs and Muslims.

Just look at what happened to those Egyptian boys who decided to seek adventure and a little fun by roaming the streets in the US instead of going to the university they were supposed to attend. They were labeled terrorists and had the media in an uproar until all were found and sent home. Lack of communication and cultural misunderstandings can often blow things out of proportion. How would a young Saudi man with no life experiences outside the supervision of his family handle a stranger demanding answers to questions the boy doesn’t understand in the first place?

When King Abdullah, when he was the crown prince two years ago, made an agreement with President Bush to create better opportunities for Saudi students to study in the US, it was greeted with relief and joy by Saudis.

Yet we need to be mindful that certain elements in the United States are working against this program and foster hate and misinformation about the intention of Saudis. We must be mindful that our students need to be protected from these people. And we need to remind the US that they bear responsibility for their safety. If the US wants good relations with Saudi Arabia, and if it wants to spread goodwill and the ideals of democracy, as they did with my brothers who love what the US has to offer, then they have to do a better job of countering the stereotyping that all Muslims are terrorists or there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.

Saudis loathe Al-Qaeda and what it stands for. We hate what the hijackers did to 3,000 innocent people, and also what they did to all Muslims who now must face the consequences.

Let’s make sure our students are protected when they are abroad.