Intimidation tactics harm religious dialogue

Sabria S. Jawhar

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Some weeks ago there was a guy who took great pains to give me an online lecture about my religion. He alternately fretted and chastised me over my apparent lack of knowledge of the facts. In the end, he just got sick of me and stopped, accusing me of harming the Ummah.Later I found out from members of his community in Birmingham, England, that he liked ladies. The younger the better. So my online pen pal apparently looks at Islam as a buffet, taking some stuff to practice and others to leave at the counter.Now this week we have a young Saudi woman who took to Twitter to express her opinions about the piety of men with beards and ended up being the recipient of a steady stream of online abuse and threats of violence.I will offer no opinion on this topic because I don’t feel that strongly about it and the consequences of a Saudi woman giving any opinion other than on home furnishing and cooking techniques will result in a pox on their houses from the conservatives.Yet this Saudi woman has inadvertently raised the question that pops up occasionally but then disappears the moment anybody attempts to pursue it. And that is whether we can have a healthy debate about religion.Saudi Arabia has a restless youthful population. It has women asserting their independence. It’s witnessing a sea change in the male-female dynamic, the workplace environment and the dramatic changes in educational opportunities.We are no longer living in a insular society, but more and more becoming a member of a global society.Inevitably, questions about traditional values, whether they are social or religious, are bound to crop up from the younger generation. Do we as a society answer their questions and debate some of those issues or do we tell them just to shut up and listen? Or worse, drag them to court.The Republican Party in the United States Senate and House of Representatives have a lot of guys who want a say in their constituents’ private lives and their health issues. They want to dismantle social programs for the disenfranchised and turn the clock back to a white and Christian America. They express outrage over religious accommodation from non-Christians.We have our own version of the Republican party in Saudi Arabia from a select community that rather have individuals tried for an alleged crime rather than engage in intelligent conversation with Saudi youths about the things that touch their lives daily.So to answer the question: No, some Saudis are not capable of having a healthy debate about religion. It’s far easier to ignore the uncomfortable questions and let the status quo remain. It’s best, according to some, to snuff out curiosity with threats of violence and jail than to actually talk about the very thing that matters to us most — religion.The danger is that young people who may have a crisis of faith or who may have a casual attitude about religion could very well be pushed away from their faith rather than embrace it. If one’s curiosity is answered with intimidation then we must all accept responsibility for the outcome.