Iran’s nightmares surround Saudi Arabia from every side. However this is just another in a long line of those within Arabia who seem to be determined to create their own nightmares to divide our society and weaken our determination.

A decade ago I wrote an article entitled “Strengthening by making nightmares”. At that time we were waking up about a religious militancy that was affecting our society and that had infiltrated our minds schools and platforms without us noticing. We did not acknowledge this fact until the attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent incidents that took place. At that time under the leadership of the crown the late King Abdullah we began to gradually move towards openness and deny extremism a foothold. His words then were a crescendo for intellectuals when he said “we are part of the world and we cannot be apart” (from it).

At that time there were some who were trying to keep us isolated from the entire world under the pretext of privacy and religious and intellectual differences. Such arguments were sometimes presented through our school curriculums and religious platforms. The opponents of openness tried to intimidate people by saying that this would westernize our societies violate our social and cultural privacies and that the kingdom was targeted as the last state ruled by Sharia law.

Making nightmares is an old tactic used by ideological or fascist movements to frighten the public about what they want them to consider is an imminent danger and then the danger is named in order to mobilize supporters.

In the 1980s mainstream religious leaders in Saudi Arabia led the first campaign against modernity- and created nightmares. The nightmares were associated with accusations of Westernisation Liberalism and Secularism naming targeted individuals perhaps because they were a novelist a poet or even a minister. The religious leaders misquoted them applied political analysis to the incorrect quotes and then they presented those figures as imminent dangers warning people about them.

Osama bin Laden presented to us in a meeting held at the beginnings of the Kuwait liberation war a pessimistic view about the future of the Kingdom — talking about the American conspiracy to change the regime end the Sharia law and Westernise the country. This was a reaction to the many American soldiers then camped in Arabia. Such views only helped the leader of an ideological movement to mobilize his supporters to defend the country from the alleged nightmare he had conjured up.

I frequently use the term “the making of nightmare” to convey the danger of such views which aim to disunite the society and spread suspicion. This ideological movement was creating enmity between the government and its people between colleagues in universities and even in the media- spreading the habit of writing reports against each other searching for the hidden intentions of individuals. I experienced this with the followers of the then “religious awakening” leaders and one of them who is still active in making nightmares insulted me in a poor poem written in poor language.

Today again I criticise the “makers of nightmares”. But this time they are the liberals who were previously being described by the religious groups as a danger to the country deserving deportations and exclusion. These former liberals then started using the same tactics that their opponents had been using against them. We see some of them warning us of the danger of the Muslim Brotherhood in the kingdom describing them as danger greater than IS (Da’esh) calling for their exclusion and dismissal from influential positions.

Some of them incited opinions against the ‘Surooriyyah’ (Salafi movement attributed to Mohammed Suroor) describing them as the most imminent danger and calling for their eradication! Yes ‘eradication’ which is a Nazi word and I don’t know how many camps we will need in the desert for their ‘eradication’. But none of the nightmare makers identify who are the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ or the ‘Surooriyyah’ that they are describing as secret organisations.

The result is a contagious disease of obsession suspicions and accusations. Just as the innovative poet was being accused by the patriotic sheikhs and jealous guardians of religion as a promoter of modernity today liberals are accusing religiously committed persons or those who care about Gaza strip of being conspirators or of being in the Muslim Brotherhood or part of the alleged conspiracy of the American-Qatari-Turkish alliance to overthrow ruling regimes in the region.

It is waste of time bringing together or making sense of all these ideological “nightmares” because none of them provoked the others and they have no proofs to back up their accusations. The solution is to spread the culture of pluralism freedom of speech and respect the right of people to dissent as long as it is within the general order. The Saudi cabinet expressed similar views to this in Ramadan 2008 when the late King Abdullah stated that “the kingdom always seeks to consolidate basic values of Islam such as justice equality Takaful (solidarity) tolerance and the right of people to a decent life and freedom to disagree to the extent permitted by Sharia.”

Previously I directed my criticism at the religious mainstream but I now I find that liberals this time are acting and behaving in the same way.

Inciting discourses and polarisation must end and the elite of the liberals must stop and prevent their followers from doing this. Otherwise we are all going to be the losers because our views will not match and ours thoughts and opinions regarding various aspects of life will remain different. This could be a problem for some of us but pluralism and diversity is power for peace and we need to show more tolerance which is a genuine part of our religion.

Jamal Khashoggi is a Saudi Arabian journalist columnist and author and the General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of Al Arab News Channel.

All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers not of the newspaper.

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