Okaz

I FIND myself forced to write about the issue of Saudi girls fleeing the country. This is a topic that has been discussed many times.

Outside forces are trying to instigate Saudi girls to escape from their home country taking advantage of their situation and emotional outbursts. At the same time, there are many voices that call against such attempts and criticize those who instigate our girls to escape abroad.

In spite of all the cases of girls escaping, we can firmly say that we are a society like any other where such social problems occur occasionally. Outside forces are taking these isolated instances and sensationalize them in the media in order to rouse foreign governments and civil society organizations to turn against Saudi Arabia.

We are a country that is targeted from many a front. Any internal event that takes place, whether it is social, sport, political or economical, is turned into an issue that can be used to attack us.

I think we can use these attacks as a force in our favor that will give us the immunity to deal with any situation by understanding and absorbing the concepts of attackers and instigators.

So the whole case is about understanding. If we understand the importance of this action, then we do not need to promote the speech through citizens who love their country and reply back to instigators on social media.

This «promotion» took place when the attacks intensified on social media. If we choose to ignore every hate message, then the perpetrators will fail to achieve their goal of making noise and the campaign will die down at its own source.

Others disagree. They believe ignoring hate campaigns and instigating messages against the country will be counterproductive and facing them with facts is the best way to put an end to them. Both ways are correct. I am with the first view, however. Ignoring the hate campaigns against the country is the best way to kill them fast.

We should avoid using certain languages when responding to hate because it will again be held against us.

What I wanted to say from the beginning on the issue is this. In the first place, the girls who escape are at a young age and they do not know what they are going to face in a foreign land. They are clueless of the hardship and torture of living in a foreign country.

What I wish for to happen is to follow up on the lives of the girls who have already escaped from us. This follow-up will help reveal the amount of psychological and personal problems that the girls faced and are still facing. I can bet that these girls regret their action. Yes, some will celebrate their escape, but such celebrations in the media are temporary. Later, each one who celebrated their escape will simply walk away from their life.

Following up on the life of the escaped girls will open the door to review and to reveal the fact that they were being used as a media card — a card that will burn soon after it is used.

Following up on their cases will be the only escape boat for those who are going to drown in the sea of chaos and need urgent help. This follow-up will be a great benefit and a lesson to other girls. Thus we can tell them that their country is the safest place on earth.

Imagine what will happen when one of the girls who had escaped from the country came back and explained how the media used her and how much she suffered after she left home. There are many lessons that come from those who experienced the problem first hand, and not from those that provided an advice or criticized the action from a distance.