Abdullah Al-Jamili

Al-Madina

I do not claim that we are a society of angels for we have shortcomings like any other society, but what I have noticed is that there is a semi-organized campaign to distort the image of our society. There are attempts to portray Saudi society as a cruel and a violent one, especially regarding our behavior toward children and women.



This smear campaign is perpetuated through the media by highlighting the behavior of certain individual Saudis. Even though these cases are isolated incidents, it is made to look like a widespread phenomenon that is practiced by Saudi society as a whole or by a majority of the countrymen. Often, unreliable studies and statistics are cited to give credence to these reports.



For example, a newspaper published a report recently claiming that 25 percent of children in the Kingdom have been subjected to “harassment”. Please do not be shocked. I will repeat these figures given in the story in another way: One quarter of Saudi children have been subjected to “harassment”.



Is this believable? What will a person who reads these statistics say about our nation and society? Believe me, whoever reads such statistics and stories that are circulated in the language of generalization will come to a conclusion that the men in our society are cruel and carrying the tools of torture while the children and women are merely slaves. They may even come to the conclusion that Sigmund Freud was of Saudi origin.



I will not talk about a conspiracy theory that is being adopted to harm our conservative society, but it appears that the non-methodological tools used for the studies and research have a role to play in this. I say there is enough distortion of our society’s image. Aren’t there any laws that hold a person accountable for spreading falsehood?