Step in right direction

Aroyal order was issued by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz which criminalizes those fighting abroad or members of any religious or ideological groups considered as terrorist organizations locally, regionally or internationally. Those who adopt those organizations’ ideas and support them financially or morally and those who commit such crimes will be punished by three to 20 years in jail. The move of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, though 30 years late, is a step in the right direction because it will stop trade in religion and pushing our Gulf youth in wars that they have nothing to do with at all.

The question is why did the king’s step was taken now and its aim? This courageous step was made due to several considerations, including the speedy and scary deterioration of security in the region particularly in neighboring countries such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The political Islam movements headed by AlQaeda, ISIL and Nusra started to use violence and terror in a mad fashion and started to threaten the existence of the region’s countries.

These Islamist movements that used to claim that their message is peaceful and the aim is to spread Islam’s values and promote religion peacefully have today revealed their true face - they are terrorist groups that are using religion to take over power. What worries the Gulf leaders, headed by King Abdullah, is the involvement of Gulf youth in jihadist action in numbers that are not small. The youth, including some women, live in well-todo Gulf societies and enjoy a good standard of living, so why do they go for jihad and kill hundreds of innocent people and themselves?

The question is who are the political powers that encouraged them for jihad? Who is responsible for wasting our Gulf youth? Is it the family that failed to raise their children in the right manner? Or is it the Education Ministry and its sterile and rigid curricula that do not accustom students to think and use their brains? May those responsible for the youth involvement in jihadi action are the religious sheikhs and mosque preachers who instill in our children wrong understandings of Islam. There may be hidden hands that do not want anything good for the Gulf countries as they work for compromising regimes by stirring sectarian strife in the name of religion, in the sect’s name and the name of fighting Western invasion. Saudi Arabia did well by criminalizing jihad abroad because there is no justification for youths fighting, especially that they do not have a certain ideology. They are ignorant about religion and their ideas are distorted with narrow partisan principles as they do not have a clear working program about what they want to achieve out of killing themselves and many other innocent people. These youth distort the image of Islam and their countries, making others think that Gulf countries push their children for jihad around the globe.

The step of King Abdullah requires joint Gulf interaction and cooperation to keep youth from going for jihad in any country, and this requires identifying and monitoring the sources of jihadi ideas in Gulf countries. Follow up of finance resources that created the culture of religious culture in our schools, universities, mosques and educational institutions in our countries is also needed. Fighting terrorism requires the adoption of an alternative culture which is the culture of love, brotherhood, forgiveness and others. The pillar of the alternative culture is loyalty to the country and being proud of all society groups and rejecting sectarianism, tribalism and religious zealotry. —Al-Watan